A HOMELAND FOR STRANGERS A N D AN UNEASY LEGACY

PETER J . KLASSEN*

Few areas of Europe are so saturated with pathos and heroism, with darkness and light, with hopes and disappointments, with triumph and failure, as the Vistula-Nogat Delta. In recent years names such as "Walesa" and "Solidarity" have brought this region once again into the vortex of history. It is ironic that a valiant struggle for freedom, admired around the world, has transpired where centuries ago vari ous groups of religious dissidentsincluding Mennonites, who had suffered persecution elsewherewere able to find a home and enjoy a remarkable degree of freedom. When Mennonites first came to this region in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, religious toleration was still a dream in most societies. Here, by the Baltic and along the Vistula, however, for a number of reasons, Mennonites were allowed to establish homes, practice their faith and earn a livelihood, as farmers,1 craftsmen,2 mer chants, 3 shipowners 4 or manufacturers. The Polish poet Stanislaw Trembecki, in his poem "Polanka," captured some of the spirit of the times when he described a village in his homeland as a place where Jews, Mennonites, dissenters and Catholics could live together.5 For economic and political reasons as well as for religious freedom, Mennonites settled in lands along the Vistula, and for a full four cen turies this region remained one of the most important centers of Mennonite life. Here Mennonite adherents were able to foster their religious beliefs, practice their ethic of honesty, work and service, de velop their sense of community and mutual responsibility, and nourish their culture and learning.
*Peter J. Klassen is dean of the school of the social sciences and professor of history at California State University, Fresno, California. 1 State Archives, Gdarfsk, 369, 1/1148, p. 13. The royal confirmation of farmers' rights in Tiegenhof was typical of many issued by Polish monarchs. 2 Ibid., 358,311/1, pp. 1-4. See, for example, an illustration of privileges granted Mennonites in Schottland by the bishop of Wfodawek 3 Ibid., 300, R/F 7, pp. 105-09, describes some business activities of Johann Jantzen, Abraham Momber, Peter Reimer and others. 4 Ibid., 300, R/F 7, pp. 89,90, lists the "Rheeder" Jacob and Dirk Bestvater. 5 Died in 1812; quoted in Kazimierz Mezyifski, Mennonitach w Polsce," Rocznik Gdariski (1960-61), 216. Small wonder that some champions of the traditional order lamented that Poland had become a haven for heretics.

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Much of the credit for allowing these "heretics" to reside here must go to Polish kings who repeatedly issued charters of liberties for the Mennonites. A remarkable decree issued by King Wladyslaw IV in 1642 not only granted sweeping privileges but also presented interesting historical insights into earlier royal policies: At the humble request of the aforementioned inhabitants of our Marienburg islands (Werder), we retain and protect completely, without exception, each and every right, privilege, freedom, and custom granted by the gracious Sigismund Augustus, our grandfather, and confirmed by the gracious Stephen... .6 At other times Mennonites found benefactors in various church authorities. Thus, the bishop of Wiociawek (Leslau) allowed them to settle on his land in Schottland, the abbot of Pelplin granted similar rights to settle in Hopfenbruch, and the cloister of St. Brigid opened land in Schidlitz to Mennonite settlement. Similarly, the episcopal chapter of Wiociawek invited Mennonites to settle in Stolzenberg. These lands, just outside the walls of the city of Danzig, became home to a variety of craftsmen, artisans, small merchants and others. At the same time, larger communities arose on the lowland marshesareas known as Werderin the delta. In numerous villages in the Danzig Werder, the Large Marienburg Werder and the Little Marienburg Werder, Mennonites settled and transformed the marshes into a garden. In the 1630s a French visitor described what he found here: On our journey from Danzig to Marienburg we traveled through the most fertile and beautiful meadows. Scattered throughout the area are . . . the houses of the farmers, neat and comfortable, built of brick; rich gardens, well-tended fields surrounded and enclosed by a network of water runs; countless cattle in the fields.7 These early Mennonite settlers could not have anticipated the kind of ethnic and nationalistic tensions that eventually would tear this region apart. They came mainly to a land that was tied to the Polish crown, and was known as "Preussen Polnischen Antheils," or "Royal Prussia," as distinct from "Ducal Prussia." Often contemporary writerssuch as the Danzig city secretary, Curickeand others spoke simply of "polnisch Preussen," or "Polish Prussia." Repeatedly, from the beginning of their settlement until the partitions of Poland, a period
6 State Archives, Gdansk, 358/132, pp. 15-17. Similar Privilegia were issued by later Polish kings. Cf. statements of King John Casimir and King Michael. Ibid., 358/184, p. N 370. Translations in this article have been prepared by the author. 7 Karola Ogiera dziennik podrzy do Polski 1635-36; quoted in Oskar Kossman, Die Deutschen in Polen seit der Reformation (Marburg: Herder Institut, 1978), 84.

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of more than two centuries, Mennonites looked to the Polish king as their protector, and repeatedly the Polish kings reaffirmed their Privilegia, their charters of privileges. Certainly one of the most noted of the early confirmations of Mennonite liberties is the charter issued by King Wtedystew IV in 1642. A brief excerpt is enough to suggest the tone of the document: We are well aware of the manner in which the ancestors of the Mennonite inhabitants of the Marienburg islands (Werder), both large and small, were invited here with the knowledge and by the will of the gracious King Sigismund Augustus, to areas that were barren, swampy and unusable places in those islands. With great effort and at very high cost, they made these lands fertile and productive.8 It is noteworthy that the king emphasized that he was standing in the tradition of his predecessors, although historians have been unable to find the corresponding statement issued by Wtadystew's predecessor, Sigismund Augustus (1548-72). Also worth noting is that sometimes opponents of the Mennonites tried to argue that these statements of privilege had been forged by imaginative Mennonite champions of special rights.9 Over the decades and the centuries, however, Mennonites developed generally positive relationships with their Polish and German neighbors, with Polish and Prussian authorities, with Catholics and Protestants. At the same time, during much of their stay in the lands along the Vistula, Mennonites remained a tolerated minority, often without equal rights before the law. Thus, in the early years various restrictions limited their religious, political and economic rights. Numerous documents demonstrate the limited rights: prohibition against building churches, or church buildings permitted only in houselike forms;10 longtime exclusion from living in Danzig and from citizenship;11 exclusion from various trades, even ones they had themselves introduced into Danzig. The historian Gottfried Lengnich, writing in the middle of the eighteenth century, noted the irony of this situation: Mennonites had introduced the weaving of lace and
8 State Archives, Gdarfsk, 358/132, p. 160. 9 Library, Polish Academy of Sciences, Gdansk, MS Ortmann, fol. 34a, p. 53. 10 In 1768, when the bishop of Culm granted Mennonites permission to build four churches, he stipulated that they resemble "bewohnete Huser." State Archives, Gdarfsk, 358,402/14, pp. 1,2. 11 Library, Polish Academy of Sciences, Gdansk, MS Ortmann, fol. 34a: ". . . als des Brgerrechts unfhig, nicht befugt sind, brgerliche Handthierung und Gewerke daselbst zu trieben."

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braid into Danzig, but now they were barred from the trade.12 Later they were limited in their right to acquire land. And the Mennonites learned to live with inequality. Indeed, not until the twentieth century were some of the inequalities eliminated. During most of the years of Polish rule, Mennonites largely retained their social, ethical and religious distinctives. The king was a distant monarch, and Royal Prussia enjoyed a large measure of selfdetermination. During the eighteenth century, however, tensions between a tolerated minority and dominant groups in society sometimes became acute. Eventually, acculturation and accommodation prevailed. The Dutch language was still widely used by Mennonite congregations until about the middle of the eighteenth century,13 but by the time of the first Polish partition, when Prussia seized most of the Vistula-Nogat Delta, German had become customary. Linguistic differences were largely eliminated, but theological ones remained. These were soon put to the test. Prussian expansionist policies were closely tied to militarism and nationalism. Mennonites soon found that their traditional pacifism was not compatible with the goals of Prussian monarchs. Although for a time the Prussian government granted special concessions to the Mennonite conscience,14 increasing pressures for conformity threatened to tear Mennonite communities apart. Additional financial obligations and restricted acquisition of land15 led many Mennonites to emigrate. Others began a long struggle to find a way to live their faith in a changed political context. In that quest, which lasted for a full century, some leaders argued that traditional pacifism was historically conditioned. The days of religious persecution were over; the nature of government had changed, and so the raison d'tre of pacifism was gone. Instead, the government of Prussia, now regarded as enlightened and as supportive of ideals with which Mennonites could identify, should be given full support. At the same time, champions of the
12 Gottfried Lengnich, lus publicum Gedanensis, oder der Stadt Danzig Verfassung und Rechte, 1769 (Danzig: Th. Bertling, 1900), 557. 13 See, for example, typical letters: Staatsarchiv, Hamburg, Unterakte Danzig, Danzig to Hamburg, Feb. 2,1725; Feb 21,1735; etc. 14 As is illustrated in the wellknown Gnadenprwileg granted by Frederick II in 1780; text in Max Br, Westpreussen unter Friedrich dem Grossen (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1909), 38586. 15 The shape of future royal policy was clearly delineated by edicts issued in 1789 and 1792. The former prohibited further acquisition of land by Mennonites; the latter stipulated that all restrictions be withdrawn if military responsibilities were accepted. Restrictions applied to all "Grundstcke, es mgen lndliche oder stdtsche seyn. . . ." State Archives, Gdarfsk, 363,1363.

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traditional view rejected what they regarded as a rationalization of a biblical imperative. Pacifism must be validated by biblical standards, not political systems. During much of the nineteenth century, delegation after delegation met with Prussian authorities. In the quest for a new way congregations sometimes divided.16 When the decree of 1867 demonstrated that exemption from military service would end again, many Mennonites resorted to emigration. The traditional view clearly died hard. The spirit of nationalism that swept over much of Europe in the latter part of the nineteenth century profoundly affected the new Germany and, within its borders, also the Mennonites. Not surprisingly, Mennonites, including those along the Vistula, increasingly identified with the spirit of a proud nation that well before the end of the nineteenth century had become dominant in continental Europe. As German culture asserted itself, Polish historical significance often receded into the background. An excerpt from the writings of the historian Hans Maercker is not altogether atypical: "The more the time of Polish rule receded into the background, the more German intelligence and German hard work became evident."17 Such sentiments were not unusual in the heady days of the fin de sicle. And when World War I ended and left a legacy of bitterness and frustration for both Germans and Poles, Mennonites found themselves caught up in the maelstrom. Some lived in the recreated Poland, some in Germany, but most of them now became part of the League of Nations' creation, the Danzig Free State. In the interwar years these Mennonites found themselves in a world deluged by various kinds of propaganda. By now their ties to German history, culture and political interests intensified the estrangement they felt from Poland, whether they lived in places such as Danzig, Elbing or Matawy. The late Professor Kazimierz Mezyriski noted that when he visited Mennonites in the latter village in the 1930s he was taken aback to see the extent to which Mennonites in this part of Poland still identified with the German nation. (A prominently displayed portrait in the living room suggested where loyalties lay.) At the same time, some Mennonites were pleased to observe that the new Polish state granted them extensive religious, economic and social self-determination.
16 Ernst Regehr, Geschichts- und Predigertabelle der Mennonitengemeinde Rosenort (n.p., n.d.), 9. 17 "Eine polnische Starostei und ein preussischer Landrathskreis: Geschichte des Schwetzer Kreises 1466-1873/' Zeitschrift des Westpreussischen Geschichtesvereins (Danzig, 1886), 81.

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For all persons of German cultural background who found themselves in the New Poland, the changed political realities raised wrenching ethical and religious questions. Where should loyalties lie? Similarly, residents of the Danzig Free State, where most Mennonites lived, were overwhelmingly German, and supportive of Germany rather than Poland, even though the Free State was theoretically neutral. Ethnic, religious and political divisions in these regions created a volatile situation that eventually erupted in tragic fury. Minority groups in Poland, both in the Mennonite community and in the larger German population, tried to find a modus vivendi in the Polish context. The case of Julius Bursche, bishop of the Lutheran Church in Warsaw, illustrates the complex tensions created by conflicting loyalties and divergent cultures. As a loyal citizen of the Poland recreated after World War I, he urged his pastors to identify with the language and culture of their Polish homeland. For him, theological imperatives took precedence over ethnic loyalties. Deuschtum, he warned, is a Chinese wall that prevents Poles from joining the Lutheran Church. When he announced that he would appoint no National Socialists as pastors since they placed political ideology above religious faith, he quickly became a target of those Germans living in Poland who saw the new order in Germany as their hope. It is not surprising that when war came in 1939, Bursche was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to prison. His family never saw him again.18 The conflict between faith on the one hand, and cultural and nationalistic loyalties on the other, cut across all confessional lines. When, for example, Roman Catholic Bishop Adamski prohibited German services in Katowice, even though many parishioners were German-speaking, his colleague just across the border in Silesia, Cardinal Bertram, halted Polish services. Both ecclesiastics chose passionate, intolerant identification with the state. For most Mennonites in Polish and Prussian areas, the problem of political identity was less acute since a large majority lived either in the Danzig Free State or in East Prussia. For those under Polish jurisdiction, howeversuch as the congregations in Sosnwka (Schnsee), Matawy (Montau), Torurf, Deutsch Wymysle, Deutsch Kasuit and Lwow (Lemberg)the tensions created by acculturation and ethnic ties could not be disregarded. When champions of German ties warn18 Bishop Bursche's effort to prevent the subordination of faith to the demands of nationalistic and ethnic loyalties is outlined in Armin Boyens, Kirchenkampf und kumene, 1939-1945 (Munich: Kaiser, 1973).

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ed Mennonites in Lww that they were becoming too Polish, as evidenced by the use of the Polish language in church,19 one of their leaders responded that the gospel should not be bound by language or culture.20 The church members might have ethnic and cultural ties to Germany, but now they were living in Poland. At the same time, other Mennonites in Poland continued to hope that earlier allegiance to Germany would be reestablished. As international tensions reached a breaking point in the 1930s, Mennonites along the Vistula found themselves largely helpless as the horrors of war rolled over their once peaceful, productive villages and engulfed the cities they had come to call home. From the beginning of hostilities, through the terrible years of war, followed by the tragedies of flight and expulsion, the story of Mennonites here was inextricably tied to the German power structure. Naturally, when German power collapsed, many Poles regarded Mennonites as simply a part of the defeated and hated would-be German master. In the view of many who fled or were driven from their former homeland, the new Polish state, at least in regions around what had been Danzig, now called Gdaitsk, was built upon brute force, injustice and confiscation. Not surprisingly, a barrage of claim and counterclaim shaped much of the postwar writing. All too often propaganda triumphed over historical writing. German chronicles often emphasized the cruelty and injustice that characterized the end of the war and its aftermath. Polish writers, on the other hand, sometimes even denied that there had been a Vertreibung, an expulsion, saying instead that there had been only irrational flight. Occasionally leaders such as Vaclav Havel, president of Czechoslovakia, have risen above recrimination and animosity; Havel has officially expressed regrets for the violent expulsion of Germans from their lands. Against this background it is not too difficult to imagine that emotion rather than reason has often guided Polish-German and PolishMennonite discussion. Many historical situations could be selected to illustrate this problem. A few will have to suffice. Few issues so dramatically illustrate the tension between German and Polish points of view as does the dispute over the relationship between the king of Poland and the Vistula-Nogat Delta. Polish histori-

19 Walter Kuhn, "Geschichte der Mennoniten in Klein Polen/' Deutsche Bltter in Polen (Sept-Oct. 1928), 414. 20 Peter Bachmann, Mennoniten in Kleinpolen (Lemberg: Mennoniten gemeinde, 1934X369.

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ans regularly refer to this region prior to 1772 as a part of Poland, while German historians emphasize the special position of Danzig as a largely independent city which recognized the Polish monarch as its king but was not an integral part of Poland. Among other historians, Walther Rocke, a champion of German claims in the East, wrote that "in 1569 the region along the Vistula (Weichselland) was forcibly made a part of the Polish kingdom/'21 In this regard, no side, at least with reference to much of its historical writing, can successfully lay claim to objectivity. On the one hand, to claim that the major historical monuments of Danzig are "documents of the Polishness of the city"22 is to allow ideology rather than evidence to be determinative. On the other hand, the centuries-old historical tradition of depicting Germans as Kulturtrger (bearers of culture) to the barbarian Slavs, including the Poles, demonstrated an assumption of cultural superiority that laid the foundations for tension and violent confrontation between two cultures and two peoples. Indeed, ever since the days of Frederick the Great, who contemptuously described Poles as a people given to anarchy and incapable of self-government, this attitude has been all too evident.23 Regrettably, today's visitor to Gdarfsk will find that German inscriptions have in many instances been removed from historical monuments. This denial of history becomes understandable when one reads documents such as those found in the Deutsche Rundschau of January 1940. In this case the German military occupation forces ordered Poles to remove Polish inscriptions in some cemeteries in Bromberg (Bydgoszcz). Unfortunately, this was only a continuation of German efforts to reduce or remove evidence of Polish historical significance. Decades earlier, German authorities in Danzig erased Polish inscriptions in the royal chapel, removed Polish royal portraits in the town hall, transformed the Polish eagle into the Prussian symbol, and in numerous other ways tried to deny Polish history.24 German historiography of Poland is replete with negative evaluations of Polish culture. One need only glance at the writings of Heinrich von Treitschke,25 or his junior associate Theodor Schiemann,26 or
21 Westpreussen, der Schicksalsraum des deutschen Ostens (Danzig: Rosenberg, 1940X27. 22 Bohdan Szermer, Gdarfsk (Warsaw 1971), 118; quoted in Bernhart Jhnig and Peter Letkemann, Danzig in acht Jahrhunderten (Mnster: Copernicus, 1985), 10. 23 This theme is developed at length in William Hagen, Germans, Poles, and Jews; The Nationality Conflict in the Prussian East 1772-1914 (Chicago: 1980). 24 Jan Kilarski, Gdarfsk, trans. B. W. Massey (Warsaw: Maritime and Colonial League of Poland, 1937), 237-52. 25 "Das deutsche Ordensland Preussen," Preussische Jahrbcher, 1962.

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Hans Mortensen, professor in Gttingen, who wrote, "I . . . would never publish or make known anything that would damage Germany . . . even if it was the scholarly truth/'27 It is in the nature of things that Polish scholars responded with similar assertions designed to buttress Polish claims to various disputed historical events and geographical territories. Perhaps some of the most noted successes in this literary battle were gained by Polish scholars at Versailles.28 Not all scholars were prepared to surrender the study of PolishGerman relations to the virulently nationalistic champions of the respective countries. In 1937 and 1938 a belated attempt to bring at least a measure of understanding led to the German-Polish Conferences on School History Books.29 On a number of issues the scholars reached consensus; on many others they did not. Not surprisingly, they could not agree on the nationality of Copernicusan issue that still divides scholars.30 Significantly, there was consensus that relations between Poles and Germans had generally been peaceful and positive during the more than three centuries between the Second Peace of Thorn (1466) and the first partition of Poland (1772). It is interesting that in the 1970s a new series of conferences between Polish and German scholars addressed similar questions. The resulting "Recommendations for schoolbooks in history and geography in the Federal Republic of Germany and in the People's Republic of Poland" attempted to find points of agreement in the teaching of centuries of joint GermanPolish history.31 And there was again a measure of consensus. At the same time, statements made by a broad spectrum of political and academic leaders demonstrated how deeply these issues touched the German people. The then Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, addressing a meeting of historians in 1978, diplomatically understated the opinion

26 Director of the Seminar fr osteuropische Geschichte in Berlin. Hans Mortensen, professor of geography at Gttingen (1935-45; 1948-62), with his wife, Gertrud, published Die Besiedlung des nordstlichen Ostpreussen bis zum Beginn des 17. Jahrhunderts, VII, Vili (Leipzig, 1937-38). 27 Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, Rl53/627; quoted in Michael Burleigh, Germany Turns Eastwards (Cambridge: University Press, 1988), 129. See also S. Gaweda, "The Image of a Pole in 19th Century Germany," Polish Western Affairs, XIX (1978), 175-96. 28 Burleigh, 203-04. 29 Ibid., 131. 30 Ibid., 133. 31 See Udo Arnold, "Schulbuchgesprche zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Volksrepublik Polen," in Bundesrepublik Deutschland-Volksrepublik Polen (Frankfurt/M., 1979).

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of many of his listeners when he noted that the German partners in the discussion had yielded too much to their Polish counterparts.32 The relations between Poles and Germans also profoundly affected the Mennonites. Historians such as the late Kazimierz Mezyriski, of the University of Gdansk, have noted that from the beginning of Mennonite settlement along the Vistula until the partitions, Mennonites owed much to Polish kings, bishops and secular authorities. Did Mennonites forget this debt in subsequent generations? A brief reference to Professor Meiyitski may be instructive. He was a scholar who brought considerable warmth and sympathy to his study of Mennonites in his homeland. Despite the hostility that characterized much of the Polish-German scholarly exchange in the aftermath of World War II, he called for dialogue and understandingthis despite the fact that, as he himself stated, his wife had been tortured to death by the Gestapo.33 After the war Mezyriski continued his studies of the Mennonites and tried to bring better understanding between them and their former fellow citizens. Sometimes his writings brought disagreement, and finally he wrote to one of his correspondents, ". . . since I have offended you, I promise you never to write about the Mennonites again/'34 Fortunately, scholars in Poland and other countries are increasingly coming to recognize that the tapestry of Mennonite history along the Vistula is richly interwoven with a variety of cultural, ethnic and religious strands. It would be unfair to see four centuries of Mennonite and Polish history only from the vantage point of events that transpired between September 1, 1939when the first shots rang out from the SchleswigHolsteinand the horrors of flight and expulsion at the end of the war. There are those who could have yielded to the corrosive power of bitterness but chose instead the renewal of reconciliation. Events of the past few years have brought new hope to the Polish people. We can have a small share in that rebirth as we join our Polish friends in the quest of understanding our united history. Ours, jointly, is indeed a "goodly heritage."

32 Wolfgang Stribrny, "Acht Schwerpunkte der Kritik," in Materialien zu deutschpolnischen Schulbuchempfehlungen (Bonn, 1980), 91. 33 Helmut Reimer, "Ein polnischer Frderer des Mennonitentums," Mennonitische Geschichtsbltter, XXXI (1974), 114. 34 Letter to Liesel Quiring; quoted in Mennonitische Geschichtsbltter, XL (1983), 116.

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