Difference between revisions of "East Prussia"

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<h3>The Anabaptists in the Early Years of the Reformation</h3>
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=== Introduction ===
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East Prussia has had shifting boundaries but beginning in 1466 it stretched from Marienwerder in the west to Memel/Klaipeda in the north along the Baltic Sea coast with Königsberg as the capital. Originally inhabited by a Baltic tribe, the Old Prussians, the wider coastal area was conquered and forcibly Christianized by the Teutonic Knights during the thirteenth century. In 1525 the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights became a Lutheran and a duke and the territory a duchy, Ducal Prussia, since the monastic order was dissolved. In 1618 the Hohenzollern family who ruled Brandenburg inherited that duchy and in 1657 removed it from under the sovereignty of the Polish Commonwealth. The name Prussia became attached to the Brandenburg state in 1701 when the Elector Friedrich III was crowned in Königsberg as Friedrich I, King in Prussia. In 1772, the Prussian king Friedrich II seized the part of Poland, Royal Prussia, that lay between Brandenburg and Ducal Prussia as part of the First Partition of Prussia and changed the names of Royal and Ducal Prussia to West and East Prussia respectively. The main Mennonite settlements in this wider area were always in West Prussia but the smaller East Prussian congregations shared an intimate history with that larger group.
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=== Rumors and Sightings of Anabaptists and Mennonites in Ducal Prussia ===
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Many reports were made of Anabaptists and Mennonites in this territory in the sixteenth century, but no lasting congregations were founded. The pressure of persecution in the Holy Roman Empire and good trading connections between this territory and the Netherlands made this territory outside of the empire a likely place of refuge. The new Duke Albrecht granted concessions to Dutch settlers in 1527 that attracted a heterogenous group which included Anabaptists among many others. Two prominent ducal councilors with Anabaptist connections are known. Christian Entfelder, a student of Hans Denck and acquaintance of Balthasar Hubmaier, held that title starting in 1536 and Gerhard Westerburg from Cologne from 1542. It is unlikely they were still completely Anabaptist in their orientation by then. Two Dutch colonies with some Anabaptists were settled north of Preussisch Holland in 1527 and in the Rossgarten district of Königsberg in the 1520s.
  
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East Prussia consists for the most part of the eastern part of the former land of the Teutonic Knights, as it existed for several centuries as the Duchy of Prussia (or Ducal Prussia), whereas West or Royal (Polish) Prussia was separated from the Teutonic Knight state in 1466 and assigned to the Polish crown. The last grand master of the Teutonic Order, [[Albrecht, Duke of Prussia (1490-1568)|Albrecht von Hohenzollern]], secularized the remainder of the Teutonic Order lands in 1525 and made of them a hereditary duchy under the loose sovereignty of [[Poland|Poland]].  The duchy became known as East Prussia in 1773 when it became a province of the Kingdom of [[Prussia|Prussia]], while Royal Prussia became the province of [[West Prussia|West Prussia]].  The two were united in 1829 to form the Province of Prussia, but were again separated into separate provinces in 1878.  After 1918 the kingdom of Prussia was abolished and East Prussia was separated from the rest of Germany, and after World War II, East Prussia was partitioned between Poland and the Soviet Union. Southern East Prussia was placed under Polish administration, while northern East Prussia was divided between the Soviet republics of Russia (the Kaliningrad Oblast) and Lithuania (the constituent counties of the Klaipėda Region).
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In 1543 stricter proponents of Lutheran orthodoxy won the ear of the Duke and they managed to win an edict calling for the Anabaptists’ expulsion that was successfully enforced. This was the end of larger Mennonite settlements in the territory, although individual Mennonites appeared in the records of the city of Königsberg in 1579 and 1669.  
  
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Although Duke Albrecht's decision can be traced to the influence of [[Luther, Martin (1483-1546)|Luther]], in the first years of his reign he was not unfavorable to the separatist religious groups, being influenced by the mighty Baron Frederick of Heydeck. Because of an initial scarcity of Protestant pastors in the duchy, Heydeck traveled to Silesia, came in contact with [[Schwenckfeld, Caspar von (1489-1561)|Caspar Schwenckfeld]] here, and brought clergymen of his stripe to Prussia. The duke himself engaged in religious correspondence with Schwenckfeld in 1527-1528. It was the followers of Schwenckfeld in Prussia who were in the first decade of the Reformation called [[Anabaptism|Anabaptists]] by the Lutheran clergy. Between Schwenckfeld and the Lutheran bishop Paulus Speratus a colloquium took place in the presence of the duke and Heydeck on 29 and 30 December 1531. In 1532, upon inquiry by the duke, Luther demanded the expulsion of all the [[Sacramentists|Sacramentist]] (Reformed) and Anabaptist elements out of the duchy. In the early years of Albrecht's rule, some of the most important men, even some of his councilors, were Anabaptists or akin to them. In 1536 [[Entfelder, Christian (16th century)|Christian Entfelder]], a native of [[Carinthia (Austria)|Carinthia]], who was probably a preacher in the Moravian Anabaptist brotherhood 1526-1527, became a ducal councilor, and in the next ten years was very influential at the court in [[Königsberg (Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia)|Königsberg]]. Of him Speratus wrote to Poliander in 1539: "Entfelder is exceedingly cunning; he writes nothing on the sacraments but as a Sacramentist and as an Anabaptist"; and to a friend in Wittenberg in 1542: "I nominate Entfelder, formerly the antistes in Moravia."
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=== East Prussian Mennonites in the Kingdom of Prussia ===
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The consistently strict religious policy of the Dukes of Prussia after 1543 shifted to a more erratic course after the Hohenzollern family of Brandenburg attached the territory more firmly to their state after 1701. Friedrich I invited Mennonites into his territory in 1711, hoping to bring persecuted Swiss Mennonite settlers, but ending up with Mennonites from Poland for the most part. His son Friedrich William I repeated the invitation in 1713, now targeting Mennonites from the Vistula valley. These mostly ended up in Prussian Lithuania, where they developed a flourishing dairy industry. Their cheese, known as Tilsiter, came to dominate the Königsberg market by 1723. After a revival in 1717, some Lutherans joined the congregation, married Mennonite women, and when in 1723 they were impressed into the army and refused to serve, the king ordered their expulsion from that area, but left a small group near Rautenburg and those in Königsberg alone. Those expelled returned to Poland where a large group founded the congregation of Tragheimerweide. In 1732 when the king was trying to recruit Protestants exiled from Salzburg, he expelled all the Mennonites in the entire territory in order to make room for those better Protestant migrants.
  
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In July 1541 the Dutch Humanist [[Gnapheus, Guilhelmus (1493-1568)|William Gnapheus]] became a ducal councilor, though it was known of him that he was "not ill informed and learned in the Scripture," but otherwise "somewhat attached to the Anabaptist or other fanatical sects." He held occasional theological lectures in the recently established University of Königsberg. On 22 February, 1542, [[Westerburg, Gerhard (d. 1558)|Gerhard Westerburg]] of Cologne, known as an Anabaptist in Frankfurt, became a ducal councilor. Polyphem, the court librarian, and Pyrsus, the Dutch physician, held views similar to those of the above and were closely associated with them. To what extent they openly espoused their views is an open question. But their influence on the court was so great that the Lutheran bishop did not venture to oppose them publicly.
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In Königsberg shifts in Hohenzollern policies beginning in 1713 led to renewed immigration to Königsberg, primarily from Danzig. The two main economic activities were distilling and lace making. Especially distilling was new to the city, provided new tax revenue, and saved on imports from Danzig. Mennonites working in other areas, however, provoked the hostility of the guilds. When the expulsion order of 1732 came, local officials drew up a list of seventeen prominent Mennonite families to document their substantial economic value to the crown. The king eventually agreed to allow Mennonites to stay in the city if they paid extra but those in rural areas had to leave. When his son, Friedrich II, came to the throne in 1740, tolerance in the whole territory was restored and a community reestablished in Prussia Lithuania.  
  
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It is easily understood that under such circumstances Mennonite refugees would seek asylum in Prussia, especially in view of the close trade connections between the two countries. To Polish Prussia they could not yet go, since the Polish king had in 1526 had a large number of Danzig citizens executed because they were too ardently Protestant, and also since the incoming ships were carefully examined for heretics.
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The Königsberg congregation purchased a house to use for services in 1752 and built a prayer house on the same location in 1769, maintaining two houses for the congregational poor and elderly since the former date. In 1772 with the First Partition of Poland, Ducal Prussia became East Prussia, and the congregations here participated in the agreements and payments made by the Mennonites along the Vistula River to maintain their military service exemption under Friedrich II. The fact that Mennonites in Poland associated coming under Prussian rule with the 1723 expulsions which in turn were linked to conversions and mixed marriages led all the congregations to agree over time to ban these processes, which were in any case made illegal by the Prussian Mennonite Edict of 1789. Mennonite social isolation from their community was thus increased as the nineteenth century began while their economic integration grew.
  
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In the Prussian duchy, however, the first Dutch settlers came in 1527, locating in its western tip, in the Oberland that had been devastated by the Reuter war (1519-1525). They were assigned to the desolate villages of [[Bardeyn (Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland)|Bardeyn]], Thierbach, Schmauch, Liebenau, Plehmen, and Robitten, with an area of about 9,000 acres. The first settlers were not Anabaptists, but by 15 years later these lands were almost exclusively occupied by Mennonites. The land-complex on which these Mennonites settled became the nucleus of the entire Mennonite settlement in East Germany. Refugees continued to come from the Netherlands to Bardeyn and the neighboring villages, while others of the settlers left; there was a constant fluctuation.
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The small Königsberg congregation was quite progressive and a leader in the shift to educated, professional pastors that began in the 1820s and continued for over one hundred years in provincial Prussia. In the 1830s three young men were sponsored for theological education in German universities; one of them, Carl Harder, was from Königsberg. He was supported by Hermann Warkentin, a businessman and pastor (Lehrer) in the congregation. In 1846 he was installed as a pastor in the congregation at the age of 26. Young townspeople in Elbing, where he married Renate Thiessen that same year, called on him to preach there as well. His popularity in Elbing and the fact that under his leadership the Königsberg congregation accepted members banned in the Vistula Delta led to a schism in the Elbing-Ellerwald congregation. The small group that followed Harder built their own church in 1852 and became a branch of the Königsberg congregation. Harder served as Elder of both congregations until he moved to Neuwied in 1858. Harder founded the first Mennonite newspaper in Germany, Monatsschrift für evangelischen Mennoniten from 1846-48, and advocated for allowing mixed marriages, military service, and better integrating Mennonites into German middle-class life. His unorthodox views on baptism provoked a strong reaction among traditional Mennonites, who conspired with the government to revoke his ordination and authority as Elder, precipitating his move to Neuwied.  
  
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[[File:Royal%20and%20Ducal%20Prussia.png|300px|thumb|right|''Source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rzeczpospolita_Royal_Ducal.png Wikipedia Commons]'']]
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=== East Prussian Mennonites in the German Empire ===
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The founding of the German Reich in 1871 was proceeded in 1868 by the requirement that all Mennonites serve in the military either as regular soldiers or as non-combatants. In 1874 a new Mennonite Law removed virtually all the restrictions on Mennonites’ civil rights that had been imposed by the Edict of 1789. These changes did not cause problems in the congregations of East Prussia, one measure of which would be the lack of outmigration at the time over the issue, quite unlike what happened in the congregations of West Prussia. Carl Harder was able to return to Elbing in 1868 und took up leadership of both the Elbing and Königsberg congregations again until his death in 1898.
  
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The theological position of the Dutch in the duchy reflected the first decades of the Reformation in the [[Netherlands|Netherlands]]. Until the early 1530s the immigrants were almost all Sacramentists (forerunners of the Anabaptists and also of the Zwinglians), who differed radically from Luther in their interpretation of the communion. After the middle 1530s following the appearance of [[Hoffman, Melchior (ca. 1495-1544?) |Melchior Hoffman ]] in the Netherlands, the Protestants in the Prussian lowlands were more and more of the Anabaptist persuasion.
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In 1869 the congregation in Prussia Lithuania included 774 people while in 1882 Königsberg only had fifty members. The Königsberg congregation was a founding member of the more liberal conference Alliance of Mennonite Congregations in the German Empire (Vereinigung) and in 1899 transferred control of its capital fund of 125,000 Marks to the Alliance with some proceeds still flowing back to the congregation. In World War I only a handful of East Prussian Mennonites made use of the provision that they could serve as non-combatants. The hyperinflation of the 1920s caused the congregation in Prussian Lithuania to revert to lay preachers.
  
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The violence of the [[Münster Anabaptists|Münster]] episode (1534-1535) and the attack by radical Anabaptists on the city hall in [[Amsterdam (Noord-Holland, Netherlands)|Amsterdam]] (1535) fanned the persecution mania of the Dutch and German authorities to the uttermost. But not only the revolutionary Anabaptists, but also the great mass of quiet Anabaptists who had nothing to do with violence, were persecuted with fire and sword. In this period therefore faraway Prussia, whose ruler was himself an imperial outlaw, in whose land the imperial laws against the Anabaptists were no longer valid, seemed a final place of refuge to the harassed souls.
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=== Nazi Rule, War, and the Dissolution of the Congregations ===
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After World War I the western border of East Prussia was extended to the Nogat River. On the other side was the Free State of Danzig, created by the Treaty of Versailles. Thus many more Mennonite congregations were added to East Prussia; Elbing, Elbing-Ellerwald, Thiensdorf-Markushof, Tragheimerweide, and the Heubuden branch in Marienburg. Not many details of the East Prussian Mennonites’ attitudes toward the Nazi regime are documented but given the early commitment to military service and German nationalism here, most were likely favorable. Bruno Götzke, the last Elder in Prussian Lithuania, was also the mayor of Neukirch and head of the local school board under the Nazis.
  
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In early 1535 a company of some 200 Moravian Anabaptist refugees came to [[Marienwerder (Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland)|Marienwerder]] by way of [[Thorn (Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland)|Thorn]] and [[Graudenz (Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland)|Graudenz]]. A disputation with them revealed their "error," and they were banished. Nevertheless a part of them remained, protected by the mighty Baron of Heydeck.
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This congregation was evacuated to near Königsberg in October 1944, with most of the men being drafted, but when the Soviets surrounded the city in January in January 1945 those women, children, and elderly who survived were sent home, but soon deported to post-war Germany. Königsberg was under siege until April. Some Mennonites had managed to flee, others like the last Elder Josef Gingerich stayed in the city. He finally left for Bavaria in 1947 as one of the last Mennonites still in East Prussia. After a three-year imprisonment by the Soviets, Götzke ended up in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany where he visited scattered Mennonite refugees and held worship services in various locales, helping to establish the church in what became the German Democratic Republic. He fled for West Germany in 1953.  
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== Bibliography (Selected) ==
  
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After 1534 nearly every boat brought persecuted Anabaptists from the Netherlands to the shores of Prussia, especially to the Polish part. In the early summer of 1536 the estate Robitten near Bardeyn was given out to Johann Solius, an Anabaptist and a follower of Melchior Hoffman, but at the end of the year he left the estate and went to Danzig. There was a flow of Anabaptists into Danzig and to the rest of [[West Prussia|West Prussia]], although it cannot be determined which were the revolutionary type and which were peaceful Anabaptists.
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Crous, Ernst. ''Karl und Ernst Harder: ein Nachruf''. Elbing: Reinhold Kühn, 1927.
  
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<h3>Peaceful Anabaptists in the Duchy</h3>
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Gerlach, Horst. "The Final Years of Mennonites in East and West Prussia, 1943-1945," in ''Mennonite Quarterly Review'', 66, 2 and 3, (April and July 1992): 221-246, 391-423.
  
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Soon after [[Menno Simons (1496-1561)|Menno Simons]] came upon the scene, the entire Anabaptist movement (including that part in Prussia) took quieter channels. The Dutch refugees now sought not only a temporary place of refuge in the Oberland, but were obviously settling there permanently. Therefore a second area of about 4,500 acres about six miles north of Prussian Holland was given them in 1539, giving their total settlement about 30 square miles. In 1538-1539 a number of families were negotiating in [[Königsberg (Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia)|Königsberg]] concerning these lands. It is significant that Christian Entfelder conducted the negotiations for the government. The spokesman of the Dutch was Herman Sachs, who was known to have been an Anabaptist before he left the Netherlands. The village of Schönberg with 1,800 acres of land was to be occupied first by them; later Judendorf and Greulsberg were to follow. In religious matters they were to obey their local diocese. They were released from compulsory state labor. All mention of military service was omitted from this treaty in contrast to those made with the Sacramentist Dutch immigrants of 1527-1529. Very likely the Anabaptist settlers wished to have these passages eliminated, especially in order to distinguish them from the Münsterite group.
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Jantzen, Mark. ''Mennonite German Soldiers. Nation, Religion, and Family in the Prussian East, 1772-1880''. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010.
  
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The Dutch settlers were punctual in meeting their financial obligations, but in church relationships they soon aroused the ill will of Bishop Speratus. A letter of complaint written by the local parson in 1542 made it clear that the Dutch did not give weight to either the sacrament of the altar or that of baptism, that they did not go to the Lutheran churches in general, and acted contrary to the Prussian church regulations. Until then they had had a preacher, the letter went on: on Sunday they met with his widow, who read to them from the Bible, though they were forbidden to have a preacher of their own and "to preach secretly." All these facts show that these people were quiet Anabaptists.
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Jantzen, Mark. "The Trouble with Marrying Prussian Lutheran Boys: The End of Exogamous Marriages in the Mennonite Community in the Polish Vistula Delta, 1713-1808" in: Mirjam van Veen et al (eds.), ''Sisters: Myth and Reality of Anabaptist, Mennonite, and Doopsgezind Women ca. 1525-1900''. Amsterdam: Brill, 2014: 285-301.
  
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Suddenly these conditions came to an end; a church inspection was made by the duke with his bishops and councilors in early 1543. It was ascertained that the Dutch immigrants did not adhere to the Prussian church discipline in matters of communion and baptism. They were thereupon ordered to place persons with "pure doctrine" on their farms and leave by Pentecost. Most of them were loyal to their faith. A small minority promised to obey the Prussian church constitution in order to be able to remain. But Bishop Speratus kept a watchful eye on these, for the same heresy again became evident, so that the bishop had to threaten them with expulsion in 1550.
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Mannhardt, Wilhelm. ''Die Wehrfreiheit der altpreussischen Mennoniten''. Eine geschichtliche Erörterung. Marienburg: Komm Helmpels, 1863.
  
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This first Anabaptist settlement in East Prussia was given a mortal blow by the order of expulsion of 1543, though some isolated new settlements were still made. In 1557 Tonnies Florissen owned the village of Schönberg as mayor. He was the only one paying taxes until 1561, although he had his property together with the other Mennonites in the Danzig Werder. Schönberg was temporarily held as a land reserve until the areas in the Tiegenhof district were opened to the Mennonites for settlement in 1562. Now the 30 square miles in the Oberland were no longer needed; they had already been given up in large part with their woods and hills, having been little suited to the Dutch mode of agriculture.
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Penner, Horst. "Christian Entfelder. Ein mährischer Täuferprediger und herzoglicher Rat am Hofe Albrechts von Preußen," in: ''Mennonitische Geschichtsblätter'' 23 (1966): 19-23.  
  
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The Dutch colonists who settled on the city estates of [[Königsberg (Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia)|Königsberg]], especially in Rossgarten after the middle of the 1520s, fared exactly like those in the Oberland. Although they had a strong support in their fellow countrymen at court, the majority of the Dutch had to leave Königsberg for religious reasons. For in Königsberg-Rossgarten there was also a church inspection, which revealed the same deviations from Lutheran doctrine with respect to communion and baptism.
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Penner, Horst. ''Die ost- und westpreußischen Mennoniten in ihrem religiösen und sozialen Leben in ihren kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Leistungen''. Tl. I, 1526 bis 1772; Tl. II, Von 1772 bis zur Gegenwart. Weierhof: Mennonitischer Geschichtsverein, 1978; Kirchheimbolanden: Horst Penner, 1987.  
  
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The Oberland Anabaptists we find again among the settlers who were placed on the flooded lands of the Danzig lowlands in 1547. The Anabaptists of Königsberg may also to a large extent have gone to Danzig or [[Elbing (Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland)|Elbing]]; this would explain the sudden increase in the number of Anabaptists in these cities in the next few years.
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Penner, Horst. "Ostpreußen" in ''Mennonitisches Lexikon'', 4 vols. Frankfurt & Weierhof: Hege; Karlsruhe: Schneider, 1913-1967: v. III, 322-25.  
  
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The [[Anabaptism|Anabaptists]] who moved from the duchy to the Danzig Werder and to Polish Prussia in 1543 belonged for the most part to the group later called Mennonites; for there is no mention of any other wing after this time in Prussia. Menno Simons himself visited the Anabaptists here in 1549.
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Randt, Erich. ''Die Mennoniten in Ostpreußen und Litauen bis zum Jahre 1772''. Königsberg: Otto Rümmel, 1912.  
  
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In spite of the various decrees of expulsion, the Mennonites were able to maintain themselves in Königsberg even after 1543. In 1579 they presented to the ruler a statement of their chief doctrines and a petition for permission to settle freely in the duchy. The reply was negative, because they "first of all regarded the sacrament of [[Infant Baptism|infant baptism]] quite offensively and mockingly." By May they were to leave the country. Church and school inspections continued to show that "all kinds of rabble and sects, especially the Anabaptists, had settled in the duchy." This is also shown by the continued issuing of decrees of expulsion. In 1669 they received some recognition; the Mennonites were permitted to come to the country on business, but not to settle permanently in either town or rural areas; when their business was finished they had to return to their home towns. Nevertheless some Mennonites acquired property at this time, although no congregation was formed.
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Wittenberg, Erwin und Manuel Janz. "Geschichte der mennonitischen Siedler in Preußischen Litauen." ''Mennonitische Geschichtsblätter'' 74 (2017): 73-97.
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<h3>The Mennonite Congregations of East Prussia as Daughter Colonies of West Prussia</h3>
 
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[[Pietism|Pietism]] and Rationalism broke wide gaps into the dogmatism of the Lutheran Church in the 17th and 18th centuries. The tolerance extended to the Reformed and Catholics for a century was now also applied to the Mennonites. When [[Friedrich I, King in Prussia (1657-1713)|Frederick I of Prussia]] in 1710 tried with all the means at his disposal to settle Swiss Mennonite refugees—without success, to be sure—in the towns of East Prussia in [[Lithuania|Lithuania]] which had been depopulated by the plague, a new era began for Mennonite history in East Prussia.
 
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The efforts of the West Prussian Mennonites at settlement in East Prussia in the 18th century concentrate on two points. The first Mennonite craftsmen and merchants to settle in [[Königsberg (Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia)|Königsberg]] with the permission of the authorities came in 1716. One of their specialties was the distillation of a certain whiskey "in the Danzig manner." They brought trades to Königsberg which had existed there only in a primitive state or not at all. In 1722 a small but prosperous congregation was organized, with members from Danzig and Elbing, and a few of Dutch birth. In 1735 the young congregation numbered 22 families, and later under [[Friedrich II, King of Prussia (1712-1786)|Frederick the Great]] 35 families. Though they were small in number in 1769, they built a church, and two almshouses with facilities for six families.
 
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The second region in which West Prussian Mennonites settled after 1713 is the delta mouth of the Memel and its left tributary, the Gilge. Here they found a colonization site that suited their way of farming better than the woods and hills of Preussisch-Holland. Most of them came from the [[Graudenz (Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland)|Graudenz]] and [[Culm (Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland)|Culm]] lowlands along the Vistula, and formed a congregation of the [[Frisian Mennonites|Frisian]] branch. Some of the names of the colonists have been handed down from 1722, names at that time found almost exclusively in the Frisian congregations in West Prussia: [[Albrecht (Allbrecht, Albright) family|Albrecht]], [[Bartel (Bartels, Barthel, Bartol, Bartelmes, Bartelmeus, Bartholomäus) family|Barthel]], [[Becker (Bekker, Backer) family |Becker]], Eckert, Frantzen, [[Funk (Funck) family|Funck]], [[Harms (Harm, Harmssen, Harmsen) family|Harms]], Heinrichsen, [[Janzen (Jantzen, Janssen, Jansson, Jansen, Johnson, Jansz, Janz, Jantz, Jans) family|Jansen]], Kettler, Lorentz, [[Penner family name|Penner]], Quapp, [[Quiring family name|Quiring]], Rhode, [[Schröder (Schroeder, Schroeter) family name|Schröder]], Siebert, Sperling, [[Schmidt (Schmid, Smit, Smet, Schmitt, Smith) family|Schmidt]], and Weitgraf.
 
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The colonizing contracts of this group show a tendency similar to that of their compatriots who had been shut out from the Oberland 200 years before. They were guaranteed freedom of religion and of trade, were permitted to elect their own mayor, divide the land among themselves without anyone else, and the division was to be "as binding as if they had been done in court." They accepted a piece of land, and paid a large price for it in order to arrange everything according to their own wishes. They wanted to build up their religious, political, and economic life according to their own ideas, at a time when almost everything was determined by an absolute ruler.
 
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The Memel lowland with its excellent meadows gave the Mennonites almost the same living conditions as did West Prussia. Their knowledge of cattle raising and of butter and cheese manufacture assured them a decided advantage over the native peasants. In 1723 they were supplying the market in Königsberg nearly 400 tons of "Mennonite" cheese, which was known all over East Germany as Tilsit cheese. But in the next year they were expelled from the Memel lowlands; this attempt at colonization was ended. [[Friedrich Wilhelm I, King in Prussia (1688-1740)|Frederick William]] would not tolerate in his country any who would not be soldiers. Only the Mennonite merchants in Königsberg who were indispensable because of their contributions to the taxes, were permitted to stay.
 
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When Frederick the Great came to the throne in 1740 with his principle of toleration, he issued a declaration that guaranteed tolerance to the Mennonites as to all other subjects; the way was now opened to them to make new settlements along the Memel. The Lithuanian congregation then came into being, which had in 1772 a membership of over 200 souls, and in 1890 with its 743 souls within the government district of [[Gumbinnen (Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia)|Gumbinnen]] reached its highest point. In 1891 it acquired the rights of incorporation. In its final period before its dissolution in 1945, it is worth noting that in the 1920s this congregation, called [[Memelniederung (Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia)|Memelniederung]], engaged a theologically trained pastor, but in 1931 returned to the lay ministry. A peculiarity of this congregation was the use of the liturgy of the Lutheran Church. In 1940 the congregation still had a membership of 450 souls. Both this congregation and the smaller Königsberg congregation were completely wiped out by the Russian conquest in 1944-45. Numerous survivors however reached West Germany and were scattered throughout the country.
 
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= Bibliography =
 
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The Mennonite archives at Amsterdam contain a large number of documents concerning the East Prussian Mennonites, especially from the early 18th century.
 
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Beheim-Schwarzbach, Max. <em>Hohenzollernsche Colonisationen: Ein Beitrag zu der Geschichte des preussischen Staates und der Colonisation des östlichen Deutschlands</em>. Leipzig: Duncker &amp; Humblot, 1874.
 
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Brons, Antje. ''Ursprung, Entwickelung und Schicksale der altevangelischen Taufgesinnten oder Mennoniten''. Amsterdam: Johannes Muller, 1912: 195-206.
 
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Cosack, C. J. <em>Paulus Speratus Leben und Lieder: Ein Beitrag zur Reformationsgeschichte, besonders zur preussischen, wie zur Hymnologie.</em> Braunschweig: C.A. Schwetschke, 1861.
 
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Hartknoch, B. M. Ch. <em>Preussische Kirchenhistorie. </em>Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1886.
 
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Hege, Christian and Christian Neff. <em>Mennonitisches Lexikon, </em>4 vols. Frankfurt &amp; Weierhof: Hege; Karlsruhe: Schneider, 1913-1967: v. III, 322-325.
 
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Keyser, Erich. "Die Niederlande und das Weichselland."<em> Deutsches Archiv für Landes- und Volksforschung </em>VI (1942): 592-617.
 
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Mannhardt, H. G. <em>Die Danziger Mennonitengemeinde: ihre Entstehung und ihre Geschichte von 1569-1919</em>.Danzig : Danziger Mennonitengemeinde, 1919. (English translation: <em>The Danzig Mennonite Church: Its Origin and History from 1569-1919</em>. North Newton, KS: Bethel College ; Kitchener, ON: Pandora Press, 2007.)
 
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Mannhardt, Wilhelm. <em>Die Wehrfreiheit der Altpreussischen Mennoniten</em>. Marienburg : im Selbstverlage der Altpreussischen Mennonitengemeinden : in Commission bei B. Hermann Hemmpels Wwe., 1863.
 
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Penner, Horst. <em>Ansiedlung mennonitischer Niederländer im Weichselmündungsgebiet von der Mitte des 16. Jh. bis zum Beginn der Preussischen Zeit. </em>Schriftenreihe des Menn. Gesch.-Ver., No. 3. Weierhof (Pfalz): Mennonitischer Geschichtsverein, 1940.
 
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Penner, Horst. "The Anabaptists and Mennonites of East Prussia,”<em> Mennonite Quarterly Review </em>22 (1948): 212-25.
 
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J. Gingerich, “Die Mennonitengemeinde Königsberg und ihr Ende." <em>Der Mennonit </em>II (1949): 21 f.
 
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Schumacher, Bruno. <em>Niederländische Ansiedlungen im Herzogtum Preussen zur Zeit Herzog Albrechts (1525-1568). </em> Leipzig: Duncker &amp; Humblot, 1903.
 
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Unruh, Benjamin Heinrich. "Kolonisatorische Berührungen zwischen den Mennoniten und den Siedlern anderer Konfessionen im Weichselgebiet und in der Neumark." <em>Deutsches Archiv für Landes- und Volksforschung </em>IV (1940): 254-272.
 
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Revision as of 20:52, 17 January 2026

The Duchy of Prussia (striped) in the second half of the 16th century.
Source: Wikipedia Commons
East Prussia (red), within the Kingdom of Prussia (blue), within the German Empire (tan) as of 1871.
Source: Wikipedia Commons

Introduction

East Prussia has had shifting boundaries but beginning in 1466 it stretched from Marienwerder in the west to Memel/Klaipeda in the north along the Baltic Sea coast with Königsberg as the capital. Originally inhabited by a Baltic tribe, the Old Prussians, the wider coastal area was conquered and forcibly Christianized by the Teutonic Knights during the thirteenth century. In 1525 the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights became a Lutheran and a duke and the territory a duchy, Ducal Prussia, since the monastic order was dissolved. In 1618 the Hohenzollern family who ruled Brandenburg inherited that duchy and in 1657 removed it from under the sovereignty of the Polish Commonwealth. The name Prussia became attached to the Brandenburg state in 1701 when the Elector Friedrich III was crowned in Königsberg as Friedrich I, King in Prussia. In 1772, the Prussian king Friedrich II seized the part of Poland, Royal Prussia, that lay between Brandenburg and Ducal Prussia as part of the First Partition of Prussia and changed the names of Royal and Ducal Prussia to West and East Prussia respectively. The main Mennonite settlements in this wider area were always in West Prussia but the smaller East Prussian congregations shared an intimate history with that larger group.

Rumors and Sightings of Anabaptists and Mennonites in Ducal Prussia

Many reports were made of Anabaptists and Mennonites in this territory in the sixteenth century, but no lasting congregations were founded. The pressure of persecution in the Holy Roman Empire and good trading connections between this territory and the Netherlands made this territory outside of the empire a likely place of refuge. The new Duke Albrecht granted concessions to Dutch settlers in 1527 that attracted a heterogenous group which included Anabaptists among many others. Two prominent ducal councilors with Anabaptist connections are known. Christian Entfelder, a student of Hans Denck and acquaintance of Balthasar Hubmaier, held that title starting in 1536 and Gerhard Westerburg from Cologne from 1542. It is unlikely they were still completely Anabaptist in their orientation by then. Two Dutch colonies with some Anabaptists were settled north of Preussisch Holland in 1527 and in the Rossgarten district of Königsberg in the 1520s.

In 1543 stricter proponents of Lutheran orthodoxy won the ear of the Duke and they managed to win an edict calling for the Anabaptists’ expulsion that was successfully enforced. This was the end of larger Mennonite settlements in the territory, although individual Mennonites appeared in the records of the city of Königsberg in 1579 and 1669.

East Prussian Mennonites in the Kingdom of Prussia

The consistently strict religious policy of the Dukes of Prussia after 1543 shifted to a more erratic course after the Hohenzollern family of Brandenburg attached the territory more firmly to their state after 1701. Friedrich I invited Mennonites into his territory in 1711, hoping to bring persecuted Swiss Mennonite settlers, but ending up with Mennonites from Poland for the most part. His son Friedrich William I repeated the invitation in 1713, now targeting Mennonites from the Vistula valley. These mostly ended up in Prussian Lithuania, where they developed a flourishing dairy industry. Their cheese, known as Tilsiter, came to dominate the Königsberg market by 1723. After a revival in 1717, some Lutherans joined the congregation, married Mennonite women, and when in 1723 they were impressed into the army and refused to serve, the king ordered their expulsion from that area, but left a small group near Rautenburg and those in Königsberg alone. Those expelled returned to Poland where a large group founded the congregation of Tragheimerweide. In 1732 when the king was trying to recruit Protestants exiled from Salzburg, he expelled all the Mennonites in the entire territory in order to make room for those better Protestant migrants.

In Königsberg shifts in Hohenzollern policies beginning in 1713 led to renewed immigration to Königsberg, primarily from Danzig. The two main economic activities were distilling and lace making. Especially distilling was new to the city, provided new tax revenue, and saved on imports from Danzig. Mennonites working in other areas, however, provoked the hostility of the guilds. When the expulsion order of 1732 came, local officials drew up a list of seventeen prominent Mennonite families to document their substantial economic value to the crown. The king eventually agreed to allow Mennonites to stay in the city if they paid extra but those in rural areas had to leave. When his son, Friedrich II, came to the throne in 1740, tolerance in the whole territory was restored and a community reestablished in Prussia Lithuania.

The Königsberg congregation purchased a house to use for services in 1752 and built a prayer house on the same location in 1769, maintaining two houses for the congregational poor and elderly since the former date. In 1772 with the First Partition of Poland, Ducal Prussia became East Prussia, and the congregations here participated in the agreements and payments made by the Mennonites along the Vistula River to maintain their military service exemption under Friedrich II. The fact that Mennonites in Poland associated coming under Prussian rule with the 1723 expulsions which in turn were linked to conversions and mixed marriages led all the congregations to agree over time to ban these processes, which were in any case made illegal by the Prussian Mennonite Edict of 1789. Mennonite social isolation from their community was thus increased as the nineteenth century began while their economic integration grew.

The small Königsberg congregation was quite progressive and a leader in the shift to educated, professional pastors that began in the 1820s and continued for over one hundred years in provincial Prussia. In the 1830s three young men were sponsored for theological education in German universities; one of them, Carl Harder, was from Königsberg. He was supported by Hermann Warkentin, a businessman and pastor (Lehrer) in the congregation. In 1846 he was installed as a pastor in the congregation at the age of 26. Young townspeople in Elbing, where he married Renate Thiessen that same year, called on him to preach there as well. His popularity in Elbing and the fact that under his leadership the Königsberg congregation accepted members banned in the Vistula Delta led to a schism in the Elbing-Ellerwald congregation. The small group that followed Harder built their own church in 1852 and became a branch of the Königsberg congregation. Harder served as Elder of both congregations until he moved to Neuwied in 1858. Harder founded the first Mennonite newspaper in Germany, Monatsschrift für evangelischen Mennoniten from 1846-48, and advocated for allowing mixed marriages, military service, and better integrating Mennonites into German middle-class life. His unorthodox views on baptism provoked a strong reaction among traditional Mennonites, who conspired with the government to revoke his ordination and authority as Elder, precipitating his move to Neuwied.

East Prussian Mennonites in the German Empire

The founding of the German Reich in 1871 was proceeded in 1868 by the requirement that all Mennonites serve in the military either as regular soldiers or as non-combatants. In 1874 a new Mennonite Law removed virtually all the restrictions on Mennonites’ civil rights that had been imposed by the Edict of 1789. These changes did not cause problems in the congregations of East Prussia, one measure of which would be the lack of outmigration at the time over the issue, quite unlike what happened in the congregations of West Prussia. Carl Harder was able to return to Elbing in 1868 und took up leadership of both the Elbing and Königsberg congregations again until his death in 1898.

In 1869 the congregation in Prussia Lithuania included 774 people while in 1882 Königsberg only had fifty members. The Königsberg congregation was a founding member of the more liberal conference Alliance of Mennonite Congregations in the German Empire (Vereinigung) and in 1899 transferred control of its capital fund of 125,000 Marks to the Alliance with some proceeds still flowing back to the congregation. In World War I only a handful of East Prussian Mennonites made use of the provision that they could serve as non-combatants. The hyperinflation of the 1920s caused the congregation in Prussian Lithuania to revert to lay preachers.

Nazi Rule, War, and the Dissolution of the Congregations

After World War I the western border of East Prussia was extended to the Nogat River. On the other side was the Free State of Danzig, created by the Treaty of Versailles. Thus many more Mennonite congregations were added to East Prussia; Elbing, Elbing-Ellerwald, Thiensdorf-Markushof, Tragheimerweide, and the Heubuden branch in Marienburg. Not many details of the East Prussian Mennonites’ attitudes toward the Nazi regime are documented but given the early commitment to military service and German nationalism here, most were likely favorable. Bruno Götzke, the last Elder in Prussian Lithuania, was also the mayor of Neukirch and head of the local school board under the Nazis.

This congregation was evacuated to near Königsberg in October 1944, with most of the men being drafted, but when the Soviets surrounded the city in January in January 1945 those women, children, and elderly who survived were sent home, but soon deported to post-war Germany. Königsberg was under siege until April. Some Mennonites had managed to flee, others like the last Elder Josef Gingerich stayed in the city. He finally left for Bavaria in 1947 as one of the last Mennonites still in East Prussia. After a three-year imprisonment by the Soviets, Götzke ended up in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany where he visited scattered Mennonite refugees and held worship services in various locales, helping to establish the church in what became the German Democratic Republic. He fled for West Germany in 1953.

Bibliography (Selected)

Crous, Ernst. Karl und Ernst Harder: ein Nachruf. Elbing: Reinhold Kühn, 1927.

Gerlach, Horst. "The Final Years of Mennonites in East and West Prussia, 1943-1945," in Mennonite Quarterly Review, 66, 2 and 3, (April and July 1992): 221-246, 391-423.

Jantzen, Mark. Mennonite German Soldiers. Nation, Religion, and Family in the Prussian East, 1772-1880. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010.

Jantzen, Mark. "The Trouble with Marrying Prussian Lutheran Boys: The End of Exogamous Marriages in the Mennonite Community in the Polish Vistula Delta, 1713-1808" in: Mirjam van Veen et al (eds.), Sisters: Myth and Reality of Anabaptist, Mennonite, and Doopsgezind Women ca. 1525-1900. Amsterdam: Brill, 2014: 285-301.

Mannhardt, Wilhelm. Die Wehrfreiheit der altpreussischen Mennoniten. Eine geschichtliche Erörterung. Marienburg: Komm Helmpels, 1863.

Penner, Horst. "Christian Entfelder. Ein mährischer Täuferprediger und herzoglicher Rat am Hofe Albrechts von Preußen," in: Mennonitische Geschichtsblätter 23 (1966): 19-23.

Penner, Horst. Die ost- und westpreußischen Mennoniten in ihrem religiösen und sozialen Leben in ihren kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Leistungen. Tl. I, 1526 bis 1772; Tl. II, Von 1772 bis zur Gegenwart. Weierhof: Mennonitischer Geschichtsverein, 1978; Kirchheimbolanden: Horst Penner, 1987.

Penner, Horst. "Ostpreußen" in Mennonitisches Lexikon, 4 vols. Frankfurt & Weierhof: Hege; Karlsruhe: Schneider, 1913-1967: v. III, 322-25.

Randt, Erich. Die Mennoniten in Ostpreußen und Litauen bis zum Jahre 1772. Königsberg: Otto Rümmel, 1912.

Wittenberg, Erwin und Manuel Janz. "Geschichte der mennonitischen Siedler in Preußischen Litauen." Mennonitische Geschichtsblätter 74 (2017): 73-97.


Author(s) Mark Jantzen
Date Published January 2026

Cite This Article

MLA style

Jantzen, Mark. "East Prussia." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. January 2026. Web. 5 Feb 2026. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=East_Prussia&oldid=181471.

APA style

Jantzen, Mark. (January 2026). East Prussia. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 5 February 2026, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=East_Prussia&oldid=181471.



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