Mennonite Nazis

[Bill Rushby]

An account of Heinrich Hamm, Mennonite collaborator with the Nazis:

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/hist ... -207306865

[Bill Rushby]

I give some Mennonites credit "telling it like it is!" No smug self-congratulations here! There is a tendency in my own religious group to sweep ingroup "dirt" under the rug!

[Ken]

From the story it doesn't sound like he was a Nazi collaborator. It sounds like he was an actual Nazi. There is a difference.

I'm not sure why we would find this sort of thing particularly surprising. Germany had millions of Nazis during the war years. If not actual Nazi party members, then willing participants in the regime. I expect the majority of them came from "good Christian families" of some sort. Catholics, Lutherans, and yes...Mennonites.

[Soloist]

This is sickening... Its highly suggestive at least from my read that MCC covered up war crimes/crimes against humanity... How knowingly... well we doubtfully would ever know.

Edit: on a reread, I missed some of his connections... I'd like to see the letters rather then the author's thoughts, more proof connecting the Nazi letter, and the other letters. I certainly wouldn't decide that MCC was not covering up, but nor from my reread would I be comfortable saying the definitely did.
How do I know his sons served?

Guessing when a historical person may not have been telling the truth requires familiarity with what scholars have already written

This letter seemed to provide a link between the Hamm who had denounced Jews at the height of the Holocaust in Ukraine and the man who subsequently worked for MCC

The 1943 letter convinced me that Heinrich Hamm was not only a practicing Mennonite; he was a denominational leader. It also confirmed that this man—who would go on to work for MCC—was implicated in Nazi crimes.

It is also clear that after the war, Hamm tried to distance himself from this responsibility.

Hamm’s letter is dated July 23, 1948. He signed it just days after authoring his self-exculpatory memorandum for MCC.

director of a Mennonite Central Committee refugee camp in Gronau, near the Dutch border, invited Hamm to be his deputy. Hamm took the job, and he worked for MCC in Gronau for nearly a year until leaving to join relatives in Canada.

The author is jumping to some conclusions and I'd rather see the letters complete translated rather then the author's thoughts. Sources are lacking here...

[Ken]

Just a thought.

But is there a parallel between religious organizations that cover up, sweep under the table, or otherwise ignore evidence of past war crimes, assuming that the individual has repented, been redeemed, or otherwise as move on?

And religious organizations that cover up, sweep under the table, or otherwise ignore evidence of other past behavior or crimes like sexual abuse?

The parallels are actually pretty striking. Not just with the Mennonites. But much more so, for example, with the Catholic church.

[Judas Maccabeus]

This is sickening... Its highly suggestive at least from my read that MCC covered up war crimes/crimes against humanity... How knowingly... well we doubtfully would ever know.

Edit: on a reread, I missed some of his connections... I'd like to see the letters rather then the author's thoughts, more proof connecting the Nazi letter, and the other letters. I certainly wouldn't decide that MCC was not covering up, but nor from my reread would I be comfortable saying the definitely did.
How do I know his sons served?

Guessing when a historical person may not have been telling the truth requires familiarity with what scholars have already written

This letter seemed to provide a link between the Hamm who had denounced Jews at the height of the Holocaust in Ukraine and the man who subsequently worked for MCC

The 1943 letter convinced me that Heinrich Hamm was not only a practicing Mennonite; he was a denominational leader. It also confirmed that this man—who would go on to work for MCC—was implicated in Nazi crimes.

It is also clear that after the war, Hamm tried to distance himself from this responsibility.

Hamm’s letter is dated July 23, 1948. He signed it just days after authoring his self-exculpatory memorandum for MCC.

director of a Mennonite Central Committee refugee camp in Gronau, near the Dutch border, invited Hamm to be his deputy. Hamm took the job, and he worked for MCC in Gronau for nearly a year until leaving to join relatives in Canada.

The author is jumping to some conclusions and I'd rather see the letters complete translated rather then the author's thoughts. Sources are lacking here...

I have read a much longer article on the subject, and the conclusion that I walked away with was that the MCC people were a bit naive, but certainly not intentionally covering war crimes up. After all, how could a Mennonite do such a thing? I have a copy of the Goossen book on the way, and will push it up in my reading stack.

Dean Taylor wrote a short, and very interesting article on the subject, in that article it details how Mennonites in Europe were influenced, or perhaps even co-opted by the German state. It is an interesting read.

J.M.

[ohio jones]

Edit: on a reread, I missed some of his connections... I'd like to see the letters rather then the author's thoughts, more proof connecting the Nazi letter, and the other letters. I certainly wouldn't decide that MCC was not covering up, but nor from my reread would I be comfortable saying the definitely did.

The author is jumping to some conclusions and I'd rather see the letters complete translated rather then the author's thoughts. Sources are lacking here...

The article in the OP was originally published at Anabaptist Historians, with footnotes. The author has other essays on that site, with links to sources that provide plenty of reading material, if one has the stomach for it.

[Neto]

First, one needs to define "Mennonite". Depending on one's take on that question, this alone may rule out an actual Mennonite this possibility. Hamm is a name common among my people, the so-called Russian Mennonites, so I'll speak to this. So now as far as whether a person born into a "Russian" Mennonite family ever became a Nazi, I have met a man who personally said that he had been in that situation, but he also said that he came to salvation in an Allied Prisoner of War camp in Austria. So if one wants to argue that 'Mennonite' is an ethnicity, there you have one. Although I met him and heard his story when I was only a child, I could give you his name, because I have his signature in the back of my first Bible. (The reason is that I was already interested in missionary work as a child, and he came to our congregation as a missionary to Indians in Uruguay, to which country he had immigrated after being released from the prisoner of war camp.) My wife spent a year as a short term missionary in Peru, and she met a man there, also a Christian missionary, who had also been in the Nazi army. (I also met two of his sons later.)
But as to the question of whether a Christian who is not nonresistant could have been a Nazi, consider the fact that the common soldier (and perhaps many of the lower level officers as well) would not have know what all was being done by the Nazi forces, and especially by the SS. We benefit from hind-sight, and much more complete information.
I've asked this question before, but I'll pose it here again: How would you feel, you who vote, should you discover later that you helped vote the Anti-Christ into power? How would you describe your responsibility for his later actions differently than the responsibility of a young (unsaved) "Mennonite" man living in the Soviet Union who joined the German (Nazi) army when they retreated from the USSR? (This was the actual situation in the cases I mentioned above. These men both repented.)

[Soloist]

The article in the OP was originally published at Anabaptist Historians, with footnotes. The author has other essays on that site, with links to sources that provide plenty of reading material, if one has the stomach for it.

I take it then the author provides ample proof then... I'll have to read some later.

Neto, I agree! The catch though... if they engaged in war crimes and later came to the Lord, is that they should accept the consequences of the sin as did the person you mentioned.
If this person never was a Christian Mennonite, then that would call into question MCC as well. I know MCC today cares more about social well being then converting people at least the few I know...

[Ken]

First, one needs to define "Mennonite". Depending on one's take on that question, this alone may rule out an actual Mennonite this possibility. Hamm is a name common among my people, the so-called Russian Mennonites, so I'll speak to this. So now as far as whether a person born into a "Russian" Mennonite family ever became a Nazi, I have met a man who personally said that he had been in that situation, but he also said that he came to salvation in an Allied Prisoner of War camp in Austria. So if one wants to argue that 'Mennonite' is an ethnicity, there you have one. Although I met him and heard his story when I was only a child, I could give you his name, because I have his signature in the back of my first Bible. (The reason is that I was already interested in missionary work as a child, and he came to our congregation as a missionary to Indians in Uruguay, to which country he had immigrated after being released from the prisoner of war camp.) My wife spent a year as a short term missionary in Peru, and she met a man there, also a Christian missionary, who had also been in the Nazi army. (I also met two of his sons later.)
But as to the question of whether a Christian who is not nonresistant could have been a Nazi, consider the fact that the common soldier (and perhaps many of the lower level officers as well) would not have know what all was being done by the Nazi forces, and especially by the SS. We benefit from hind-sight, and much more complete information.
I've asked this question before, but I'll pose it here again: How would you feel, you who vote, should you discover later that you helped vote the Anti-Christ into power? How would you describe your responsibility for his later actions differently than the responsibility of a young (unsaved) "Mennonite" man living in the Soviet Union who joined the German (Nazi) army when they retreated from the USSR? (This was the actual situation in the cases I mentioned above. These men both repented.)

I think you need to ask the question from a different angle. Looking up the numbers on Wikipedia, an estimated 18.2 million men served in the German Wehrmacht from 1935 to 1945. The bulk were in the German army but many others served in the German Navy, Air Force, and SS.

What percentage of those 18.2 million men do you suppose were raised as Christians? According to the 1939 census (6 years into the Nazi era, and after the annexations of mostly Catholic Austria and Czechoslovakia, the German population was divided as follows: 54% considered themselves Protestant, 40% Catholic, 3.5% self-identified as Gottgläubig ("believing in God"), and 1.5% as "atheist".

One would assume from these numbers, that something on the order of 98% of all German soldiers during WW2 came from some sort of Christian background or heritage. The only other major religious group in the country was Jews and they weren't joining the army, at least overtly. The fact that many ethnic German Mennonites followed their fellow German Christians into the German armed forces is probably the least surprising historical fact ever. Especially considering that military service was compulsory and there were no exceptions for conscientious objection. You were conscripted and if you didn't comply you were treated as a deserter, imprisoned, and sometimes executed later in the war.