American Historical Society

Of Germans From Russia

Work Paper No. 7 December. 1971

(WP7, front cover) TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword i

"Words of Greeting and Gratitude" Dr. Karl Stumpp 1

"Germans from Russia in Today's " Emma Schwabenland Haynes 13

Committee Reports Workshop on Religious History Research and Bibliography Committee Report 22

"A Historical Sketch of the. Diocese of Tiraspol" John E. Pfeiffer 23

"Our Mennonite Heritage" Reverend A. W. Friesen 27

"The Volga Germans" Emma Schwabenland Haynes 31 "Germans from Russia in Western Canada" Dr. Adam Giesinger 37

"The Founding of the German Colonies in the , Crimea, , and Caucasia" Colonel Theodore C. Wenzlaff 43

Report of Finance and Planning Committee 53

Genealogy Report 55 "Writing to Relatives and Others" 56 "How to Climb Your Family Tree" Professor Ray Heidt 57 "Guide to Beginning Research" 61 "Can You Help?" 63 Surname Exchange 64

American Historical Society of Germans from Russia 1004A NINTH AVENUE - P.O. BOX 1424 TELEPHONE; 352-9467 GREELEY, COLORADO 80631

(WP7, inside the front cover) FOREWORD

This issue of the Work Paper series is devoted to the publication of the papers presented at the Second Annual Convention of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, held at Lincoln, Neb., June 17-20.

The honored guest at the Convention, Dr. Karl Stumpp of Tuebingen, Germany, was the speaker at the Convention Banquet. His remarks are printed in this issue, and his photograph appears on the cover.

The Genealogy Report includes a reference to the first of a new series of publications being issued by AHSGR called Historical Reviews. These will be short, special articles on a village, a group, an important event, or other subject that may have interest to a limited group. The first, titled: A Historical Review of the Balserer is now available, and others will be issued as manuscripts become available. This issue also contains [on the next page] a reproduction of the Certificate of Appreciation which was presented to Mr. William F. Urbach by the Officers and the Board of Directors of the Society. This certificate represented the deep affection and admiration felt for Mr. Urbach, and gave recognition to his untiring work in making the AHSGR a reality.

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“WORDS OF GREETING AND GRATITUDE" Dr. Karl Stumpp

My dear American Landsleute and Friends:

Please consider each word of my address: dear, Landsleute, friends. In recent years many Russian-German people from America whom I got to know through letters and personal contact in Germany and in my home have become dear to me. It was always a great joy for me to be able to converse with my American visitors and to be helpful to them. Many of these visits are unforgettable. On one occasion two Volga German priests from South America visited me. When I played some songs of the old homeland, they jumped up, big as they were, folded their hands and sang along. It was deeply moving. Another time a young teacher was sitting with me, listening to my explanations and writing down everything to send to her uncle. And then there was a Volga German officer, together with an interpreter from Baden-Baden, who wanted to know from what place in Germany his pioneer ancestors had emigrated. I could go on and on. In all these contacts I feel that we have something in common, namely the background of German-Russian history. With two of your German-American countrymen I am associated not only by a bond of research and work but also by ties of friendship, namely with Professor Height and Mrs. Haynes-Schwabenland. Since his first letter to me many years ago and during the subsequent visits with me in my home, we have become close friends and have constantly supported each other in our research activities. If it is true, as Dr. Height indicated in his address to the delegates of our Landsmannschaft, that Dr. Stumpp probably does not even know that he, or rather his Bildband was largely responsible for the impetus and interest that led to the founding of a German-Russian Historical Society in America, then I must attribute part of the responsibility to him. In the presence of so many witnesses assembled here, I would like to express a heartfelt "Thank you" to him for having provided the English translation of this book. Without this translation, the Bildband would never have found its way to you, my dear Landsleute and friends. A second acquaintance, today I can say a second friend, has become important for my work. That friend is Mrs. Haynes. It is a joy to observe and to discover with what knowledge and especially with what dedication and love she works for her ethnic group, of course, above all for the Volga Germans. I admire her knowledge, her patience, her diligence. But she is also a good "foreign minister", a good representative of the AHSGR in Germany. We work together in harmony, according to the principle "Give and Take". With great knowledge and scholarly precision she reviewed, corrected, and amended section "H" in my recently published bibliography. I thank you! Last but not least, I would like to thank all those who have, up to this very moment, accorded me such a warm-hearted welcome and loving reception. For me this is a high point in my life. I am now able to see and talk with many people with whom I have hitherto been in correspondence. I feel happy and honored, dear Mr. President Miller and all members of the

(WP7, p.1) board of directors, that you have invited me to speak at this Convention. I thank you. May I also mention my great personal happiness in being able to see here and to greet my dear daughter and her husband. If I were to follow the saying, "From the abundance of the heart the lips overflow", I would have to say a great deal more. Before concluding my introductory address I would like to say that I find it a splendid idea that this Convention is meeting here in Lincoln. When I glance at my map, I see that a large number of German-Russians, especially Volga Germans, are living in the northeast, west and southwest of this region. Only some 240 km, southwest of Lincoln lies Sutton, which was founded in 1875 by immigrants from Worms and Rohrbach, not too far from on the Black Sea. In later years Sutton became a transit center for the newly arrived Russian-German immigrants who moved on into Kansas and the Dakotas. For the Volga Germans the city of Lincoln played an important role, for here the well-known "Welt-Post" was published and one of the first scientific books about the Russian-Germans was written by Dr. Hattie Williams in 1916. It was a good choice to make Lincoln the site of this Convention, and in this historical environment I wish all of you every success in your deliberations and discussions. As the speaker of the Landsmannschaft of Germans from Russia I am also pleased to bring you greetings from our board of directors. This board was elected democratically by our Landsleute in Germany and stands up for their rights. Our federal conventions, at which we are often able to greet Landsleute from overseas, are always a deeply moving experience. But we also feel responsible and obligated for the welfare of those still living in the Soviet Union. Without the Landsmannschaft there would be no compensation for losses sustained, no pensions, no social security, no re-union of families. When Chancellor Adenauer was in Moscow, we provided him with factual data that enabled him to intercede for the Germans in the USSR. As a result, the Russian-Germans were granted an amnesty which made their life easier. When our present Chancellor and his Foreign Minister were recently in Moscow to sign a treaty, we provided them with a memorandum on the situation of our ethnic group and they reached an agreement that the reunion of families would be expedited. Since then more Landsleute from the Soviet Union have been able to join their families in Germany. You who are living in free America do not need our support. However, it is our sincere wish that a fruitful cooperation will develop between us, for the good of all Russian-German people, wherever they may live, "We want to be a united people of brothers, Not separated in danger and distress!"

(WP7, p.2) German Culture in Russia before and after the first World War My topic shall deal primarily with the period from 1914 to the present day. However, we cannot understand and evaluate the history, the achievements and the tragic fate of our ethnic group, unless we present a brief flash-back of the historical origins and the economic and cultural development of the Germans in Russia. It cannot be stressed often enough that these immigrants did not come as conquerors, with sword in hand but upon invitation extended to them by the Russian governments. The basis was laid by the manifesto of Empress Catherine II, issued July 22, 1765, and that of Alexander I, issued February 20, 1804.

In these manifestos the immigrants were granted rights and privileges which were attractive: 1. Apportionment of land. 2. Freedom from taxation. 3. Exemption from military service "for eternal time". 4. Self-administration of school, church, and village. Equipped with these manifestos and powers, the recruiters came to the West, to enlist immigrants. For the most part, these agents were French and Swiss, and particularly in the Volga area the new colonies were named after them: Beauregard, Monjou, Franzosen, , Zurich. The German princes, who did not like the recruiting, sought to prohibit the emigration, but to no avail. They were not able to stop the large waves of emigrants that moved across Luebeck and Oranienburg to the Volga (1763-68). From 1804 to 1832, and in lesser numbers until 1863, large groups of emigrants travelled from Ulm down the Danube or across Poland to the Black Sea. In this way, a total of 304 mother colonies came to be established. Against the oft-repeated but false allegation, that the Germans were financially supported by the German government and settled in strategic locations according to plan, it must be stated that the immigrants did not come as conquerors but were settled as colonists, according to the will of the Russian government. For them the inscription above the portal of the church in the Batschka (Jugoslavia) is indeed appropriate: "Not with the sword, Conquer with the plow; Children of peace, Heroes of work". The way into the new life led through death, hardship, and hunger. "The first generation saw death, the second suffered want, only the third had bread." But then came the flourishing of the colonies, as unexpected as a miracle. As a result of the prolific families (I researched 200 families and found that the average family had 8.9 children), but above all because of the hard work, frugality, and the robust way of life in the colonies, it became possible for the fathers to keep on buying land for their sons. Landownership rose so rapidly that by 1914 the colonies (not including the Baltic) were in possession of 9.5 million dessiatines (1 dessiatine = 2.7 acres). This is 1.8 million more than all the plowland in the Federal

(WP7, p.3) of Germany, with its 50 million inhabitants. Until 1914 the population of the Germans in Russia (exclusive of the Baltic and Russian Poland) had risen from some 100,000 to 1,700,000. The original 500 mother-colonies were increased by 3,000 daughter colonies. In addition, there were a large number of chutors, isolated farms.

The German settlements—and this is particularly true of the Black Sea area—had the purpose of serving as "an example" to the Russian peasants who were still serfs at that time. Since there is no time to elaborate on this, I shall adduce a few sayings which were not invented or used by the Germans but by the Russians; 1. Akuratjen kak Niemetz: "As punctual as a German." 2. Tschestjen kak Niemetz: "As honest as a German." 3. Dai niemsetskoje slovo: "Give me your German word" (as good as his bond). I should like to single out a few achievements. Apart from agriculture, the Volga Germans achieved much in the area of milling grain and weaving sarpinka. The Black Sea Germans excelled in the area of cattle breeding ("German Red Cattle"), horse raising, and viniculture.

The unprecedented economic development and expansion of the German colonies was regarded by nationalistic circles with disfavor and distrust. The growing power of Germany and the political tensions in Europe contributed their share. When the German Empire was founded in 1871, all the privileges granted to the German settlers were revoked by official decree, and the colonies were placed under Russian administration. The schools were Russianized, and the sons of the colonists were drafted into the Russian army. A shock wave of consternation swept through the German villages. "The Russian Czar has deceived us!" That was now the time (1873-1912) when the great migration ensued to Siberia and overseas.

Siberia was still undeveloped; it needed people, capable farmers who would cultivate the land. The Russians have a saying: "Russia is vast and the Czar is far". The authorities in Siberia let it become known that Germans would be welcome there, and so 500 German villages came into existence in Siberia.

The second and much larger wave of emigration was directed overseas. The story of this emigration is told in the 1965 issue of the Heimatbuch. My bibliography also contains a comprehensive list of works dealing with this topic. If time permitted, one could give a detailed lecture on the reasons for the emigration and immigration. All I can do now is to confine myself to a few significant facts. The Black Sea Germans pioneered the Dakotas; the Volga Germans introduced the sugarbeet industry in Colorado; the Mennonites pioneered large areas in Canada, south of , and introduced hard wheat in Kansas. The German-Russians also achieved much in Argentina, Brazil, and in the Gran .

But back to my topic "Russia". I establish this primary thesis: "Whenever the relations between Russia and Germany were good, the German in Russia fared well; but when these relations were bad, or when there was a of war, the colonists fared badly". It was August 1, 1914, when we were busy with the threshing in the back yard of my parents' home in Alexanderhilf. Suddenly we stopped and listened. At an unusual hour the village beadle was hurrying through the streets, ringing his bell and shouting, "All men between 20 and 40 must report immediately at the town hall". That meant war. But at the same time a Russian minister of state

(WP7, p.4) declared, "We are not only fighting against the external enemy but also against the enemy in our midst". He was referring to the Germans in Russia. While fathers and sons were fighting at the front, the families at home were subjected to abuse. They were even forbidden to speak German on the street. In the newspaper Vremja, i.e. Time, a certain Rennikov published a serialized article which later appeared as a book under the title "Reinskoye soloto", namely Rheingold. The book swarmed with hate and lies. While we were living in peace and friendship with the common Russian people, the government enacted the laws of liquidation (Feb. 2 and Dec. 13, 1915), which required that all Germans living within 150 km. from the border were to be expropriated and deported to the interior. The law was carried out only among the Volhynian Germans, who were transported to the east under such inhumane conditions that most of them perished in the ordeal. The other Germans were spared this fate for the time being, because of the outbreak of the Revolution in 1917. What followed was chaos and the struggle between the White and the Red armies.

The ruthless pillaging and murderous expeditions of the so-called Machno bands were disastrous. Machno, a former teacher, gathered together adventurers who moved through the villages, killing and looting; above all, German villages. The things that happened can hardly be described. I have spoken with people who lived through it all. A book about it has recently been published by Peters in English and in German.

The Hungry Years of 1921/22 In the course of the civil war the provisions of the farmers were soon exhausted. In the German colonies there used to exist in former times a wonderful social institution—the wheat storage granary. In earlier times there were periodical years of poor harvest when there was a scarcity of food, especially bread, for the people. But no one ever died of starvation. In years of plenty every farmer had to deliver a certain part of his crop of wheat into the communal storage granary. When there was a poor year, these reserves were divided among the needy. In 1921/22 there was a complete crop failure. In normal times it would have been possible to establish some kind of balance in the vast Soviet empire. But now an unprecedented catastrophe occurred, first on the Volga, then in the Black Sea region. Of the 450,000 Volga Germans scarcely three- fourths survived. According to Lebsack, 160,000 Volga Germans, among them 60,000 children, starved to death. People in skeletal form went forth to look for bread. A vast trek of hungry humanity moved from tne Volga to the Black Sea and into the Caucasus. "People stood in the form of skeletons beneath our windows, knocked with their final ounce of strength, and begged for bread", relates a woman. And the Volga German author Lebsack writes in his book, "The Volga fights alone": "I never wanted to go begging, Did not want to stand at strange doors. I wanted to be a man without need. Now that the death shrouds are flapping, And the angel of death goes through the land, To beg is dire necessity. A second famine broke out in 1932 and 1933. This time it was not because of a crop failure, but because the farmers were robbed of their last handful of grain, in order to force them into the collectives.

(WP7, p.5) And yet I feel the obligation to tell this gathering here, that many more of our Landsleute would have died, if people of Christian and humane feeling in America had not repeatedly helped to alleviate the distress under the Food Relief Plan of Herbert Hoover. I have been told that the children and relatives of many Russian-Germans who played a leading role in this relief work in 1922/23 are on the board of this organisation and are present here among us. As the speaker of the Landsmannschaft I may be permitted, even at this late date, to become the spokesman of those suffering people, by saying, “Danke! We thank you. God bless you." I would also like to express my personal gratitude that my own sister, who worked for ten years in the forests of northern Russia, was saved from starving to death by the advent of American aid.

In the years of the civil war (1918-1920) all the land was expropriated. However, because of the catastrophic situation, Lenin was forced to introduce his "New Economic Policy" which returned most of the land to the peasants. When Lenin died in 1926, Stalin came to power. Now began the time of the deprivation of all rights, of expropriation and. collectivization. Not only the land was taken from the farmers but also the livestock, even the chickens. The former owners became servants of the state. They received no money but only natural products, such as wheat, corn, and potatoes which were distributed after the harvest. The work for each day was recorded in work booklets and after the threshing each worker was "paid" according to the number of his work days. Women had a particularly difficult time, for most of the men were swallowed up in the administrative apparatus or were arrested and deported. I made a careful study of this system in 1942 and could discuss it at great length, but I must be content with the few remarks I have made. Albrecht's book, "Der verratene Sozialismus", contains a detailed report.

Besides these economic difficulties, there were countless arrests and the banishment of the big farmers, known as kulaks, especially in the period from 1928 to 1930. Generally at two o'clock at night, when the people were sound asleep, the "Black Marias" appeared in the villages like dreadful spectres, in order to fetch the men who had already been blacklisted, to tear them away from their wives and children, and to banish them into the frozen forests of the north, from where they generally never returned. The bereaved family never heard from father or husband again. I was shocked and ashamed when I came into my native town in 1942 and was asked on every side, "Karl, you know, don’t you, where our men are"? It is understandable that in such situations there was a growing desire to get out of this country. In 1926 a few hundred Germans succeeded in emigrating from Siberia to Mexico. In 1928 another 40 families left Siberia and drove to Moscow in the hope that they might get permission to emigrate. All summer they lay before the gates of Moscow. Suddenly, the miracle happened—they were allowed to leave the country. The news spread like wildfire, and thousands of people instinctively streamed to Mos- cow whose suburbs soon resembled an army camp. The throng became greater day by day; the plight grew. Soon people were without money and food. After much effort some 6,000 people, most of them Mennonites, received emigration permits. But then the police intervened. All the others were apprehended and shipped into the primeval forests of northern Russia. The fortunate 6,000 reached Germany and from there went overseas, to Canada (1,344), Brazil (2,529), (1,572)....The 398 who remained in Germany were settled in Mecklenburg, My friend Dr. Rempel has described

(WP7, p.6) these events in his book, "Escape from Hell".

I should also mention the flight of an entire community (Schumanowka) from the Amur district in 1950. Like a long trek of ghosts, sixty sleighs were moving through the darkness and fog, in 45° cold. The refugees have wrapped sacks around the hooves of the horses, to deaden the sound. From a distance they hear the approach of mounted cavalry. It’s the police. The whole community kneels, and prays, "Dear God, send mist and rain, so that we shall not be discovered". And the miracle happens. Under the protection of fog and rain they cross the frontier into China and from there they travel by boat around India and through the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean, across France and then across the ocean to South America, to begin a new pioneer life in the . Volk auf dem Weg!

In the Soviet Union, however, the reign of terror continued and millions of people lost their life through excessive hard work and undernourishment. In these years the greater part of the Russian-German and the Russian intellectuals—priests, teachers, doctors, officials—were arrested and banished. We will never obtain full knowledge of the torments and cruelties they endured. Two recent books can give us a fairly good idea: a. Alexander Solschenlzyn, "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denissowitsch.", and b. "Das uebertuenchte Grab", by Pastor Poll who is living in Nuernberg and who has given a faithful and moving account of his three years in a labor camp.

The outbreak of the second world war became a catastrophe for the Russian-Germans. Only two groups escaped this fate—the Germans of Volhynia and those of Bessarabia. By reason of an agreement between Germany and the USSR those groups were allowed to be resettled in the West. I was with the German resettlement commando and could relate many, many things. I saw how the people got ready for their departure, how they groomed and fed their horses for the difficult journey, how they fixed up their covered wagons and decorated them with flowers. I witnessed heart-rending scenes of farewell in the cemetery—unforgettable. I saw how other nationalities—Bulgarians, Russians, Moldavians—came to say farewell, with handkerchiefs in their hands and tears in their eyes, as they called out, "Auf Wiedersehen" or "Take us along with you”! Early one morning I saw a householder plant a sapling in his garden. When 1 asked him what he was doing, he replied, "perhaps it will be a tree when I come back home". Unforgettable are the treks with their wagon trains moving across the Bessarabian steppe.

The Russian-Germans east of the Dniester suffered a cruel fate. In August of 1941, the Germans in the Crimea were "re-settled" en masse, because the Sovlets--so they said—wanted "to protect them against the hazards of war". The transports were sent to the northern Caucasus, where the deportees had to help with the harvest. In October they were sent to Siberia and to Kazakhstan in Central Asia.

On August 28, 1941, the Soviets published their decree to "resettle" the Volga Germans, on the grounds that there were "diversionists and spies among them, waiting for the German invasion". The unsuspecting Volga Germans became bewildered and terrified. "We walked around like living corpses." The people were hauled away on trucks and tractors to the railway

(WP7, p.7) stations. Here the men were separated from their families, and most of them were never heard from again. After an arduous journey of two or three weeks in cattle cars, tney arrived in Kazakhstan (Karaganda, "this city" says a letter, "was built on our bones.”) and particularly in the Altai region (see Heimatbuch, 1965, p. 7 and 1966, p. 28).

For the Germans of the southern Caucasus the dark days fell on October 22 and 25, 1941. The military police had previously gone from house to house with the announcement that all were going to be resettled, "because they were German". At the railway stations one saw a gathering of various Caucasian nationalities--Georgians, Armenians, Tatars, Kurds, Persians—with whom the Germans ("Schwaben”) had lived in peace and friendship. There were moving scenes of farewell. The evicted Germans were first hauled by train to Baku and then by boat across the Caspian Sea. Next came "Hell's Journey" through the arid, waterless desert. Many people, especially older folk and children, found a grave in the desert sand. On the basis of conversations with individuals belonging to these groups, we were able to compose the reports in the 1966 Heimatbuch (pages 25- 54; 55-53). Maps and photos illustrate the text.

One group that needs particular mention are the Germans who lived in the area between the Dniester and the Dnieper, known by the concise term "Transnistria". Through the rapid invasion of the Wehrmacht these Germans were spared the fate of being resettled. During the war they lived under German administration. I was, therefore, able, on two occasions, to visit my native village near Odessa, which I had not seen for 25 years. Because of the brief time at my disposal, I cannot describe my experiences there. During the withdrawal of the German forces from Russia, these Germans, numbering about 550,000, were first settled in the Warthegau but were later forced to flee into Germany, as the Russians continued their westward advance. After the Red Army invaded the country, 250,000 refugees were captured and transported back to Russia, but only 180,000 actually arrived. However, they were not taken back to their villages, as they had been promised, but were deported to Siberia and the Republic of Koma in northern Russia. Here they were sentenced to hard, unaccustomed labor in the forest and coal mines. Some 100,000 found refuge in Germany, but later 25-30,000 of them migrated overseas. A decade (1945-1955) of tormenting uncertainty followed for the homeless and the up-rooted. The women did not know if or where their men, who had been enlisted in the German armies, were living. A grave psychological burden! As a consequence of the war, the hatred of the Germans was taken out on these poor people, who were maligned as Faschists, Fritzies, and Hitlerites.

A Turn for the Better After these difficult years the announcement made on Dec. 15, 1955, about the "Amnesty of Soviet citizens who had collaborated with the occupation forces during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45" had the effect of a salvation. After presenting their identification papers, the Germans had to surrender the documents of German citizenship which had been granted tnem during their flight. They also had to sign two declarations:

1. That they would not return to their former villages, and 2. That they renounced all compensation claims for the property losses they sustained at the time of re-settlement. (WP7, p.8) Although this amnesty was intended primarily for the German group who used to live in Transnistria, in practice it affected all Germans in Russia. A mutual search now began for lost families and relatives. Again: People on the move! At that time (1956) we received, in Stuttgart, thousands of letters with inquiries about next-of-kin. We were not able to read all the letters. But I carefully examined all the post marks on the envelopes and located the place-names in Russian atlases. I then entered them on a special map which was later published as the map of "The present living areas of the Germans in Russia". The German settlements in the European part of Russia are extinguished. Only around Ufa and near Orenburg, above all in Siberia near Omsk, Pawlodar, Zelinograd (Akmolinsk), and Semipalatinsk are German villages still to be found, but these are heavily intermixed with alien minorities. All the other Germans are living in the dispersion: 1. In the Republic of Komi, in the northern part of European Russia, 2. In the cities of the industrial regions, particularly in the Urals, 3. In Siberia, where German villages had already been established in former times. 4. What is new is that half of the Russian-Germans are now living in Central Asia: in Kazakhstan (700,000), in Kirgisia (40,000), in Tadschikistan (33,000)....where they have developed and cultivated new areas. Number of Russian-Germans and their present situation For a long time we did not know how many Germans were still living in the Soviet Union after all the long years of turmoil. We were astonished when it became known from the census of 1959 that 1,615,000 Germans were still living and that they stood in 13th place among the 92 national minorities of the Soviet Union. According to the census of 1969, there are now 1,880,000. This relatively large ethnic group could not remain without recognition, especially since they had always stood out because of their industry and reliability. An important official in the Soviet government once made the statement, "Put the Germans on a sand-swept desert and they will turn it into orchards and vineyards.” This is precisely what the German-Russians did in the wasteland south of Lake Balchash and in other areas. After the war years and the hostile feelings faded into the background, the Soviet government gave befitting recognition in an official declaration that was issued on August 29, 1964. There we read the words, "Life has shown that the accusations which led to the resettlement of all Germans in 1941 were unfounded. The Soviet citizens of German nationality work conscientiously in the factories, sovkhozes, kolkhozes, and offices. Thousands of Soviet citizens of German nationality have been awarded orders and medals of the USSR and honorary distinction for their achievements.” This declaration published only four months after the amnesty was a momentous, exciting event. Let me tell of my own experience. I am always in Stuttgart on Wednesdays. As though by chance, premonition, or fate I happened to be in Stuttgart on a Tuesday. I get a telephone call from : "Can I speak with Dr. Stumpp?" "This is he speaking." "Dr.

(WP7, p.9) Stumpp, there is going be an important news broadcast this evening on TV and we need some pictures relating to the Russian-Germans. Can you help us?" It was 3 o'clock and the broadcast came on at eight. How could I get the pictures from Stuttgart to Wiesbaden in 5 hours? Suddenly the idea comes to me: "Just go to my friend X on street so-and-so. Convey my greetings to him and tell him to lend you his copy of the Bildband." That evening the news program showed six pictures from my book. You will understand that my heart beat higher. Through this news item on TV, radio and the newspapers, the Russian-Germans got more publicity than ever before.

Fundamental change in the life of the Russian-Germans Only those who experienced the period before the first World War can estimate the changes that have occurred in all areas of life. Formerly the Russian-Germans, both on the Volga and on the Black Sea, lived in closed agrarian communities which were distinct as to religious affiliation. 1. The vernacular was German, generally one of the ancestral dialects. An excellent treasure trove for those interested in dialect research! 2. About 95% of our people formerly lived in the country and only 5% in the city. Today our people live dispersed among alien nationalities where the vernacular, esp. in the cities, is Russian and, sometimes, also Asiatic (Kirgiss, Kazakhian). 3. Whereas mixed marriages were very rare in former times, they have become increasingly frequent today. What shall our Landsleute do, when only one or two hundred of them are living in a town with three to five thousand inhabitants? 4. Formerly, all were independent farmers who owned house, yard, land, and livestock. Today they all work in state-operated collectives and factories, where nothing belongs to them except, at the most, their house. 5. Formerly, there was a church in every larger village, and an active church life. Today, there are no churches and no pastors, although there is some religious life. The services, the prayer meetings are held in the home and in the cemetery. Only one prayer hall exists in Zelinograd, where a single pastor is still in office. 6. In the schools, German was formerly the language of instruction, then alternately Russian and German. Today it is invariably Russian. German is only a special course.

To sum up, one can say that our Landsleute are living tolerably well, and some are perhaps relatively well off, economically. They build houses for themselves; they all have jobs and are fully employed. But both husband and wife have to work in order to make a living and provide for the children. By himself, the head of the household is not able to support his family. To judge the real standard of living one must, of course, take into account the purchasing power of the worker. I have put together a detailed table of wages and prices. Let me mention a few significant examples. An American works 23 minutes for a loaf of bread; a Russian works 27 minutes; the American works 25 minutes for a kg. of pork, the Russian works 295 minutes. The American works 14 minutes for a pair of silk stockings, the Russian works 196 minutes. On the other hand, rail and air travel and housing are considerably cheaper.

(WP7, p.10) But "man does not live by bread alone." Our Landsleute are much concerned about the spiritual and cultural situation. They long and yearn for spiritual things: Bibles, hymnals, church services, books and records of German songs, fairy tale books for children. Books may be sent to them, but not Bibles. To be sure, not all books reach them, but if even 50% get through we have done a truly good deed.. Every letter they receive is a gift, an inspiration. When they have visitors from abroad, it is always a profound and lasting experience. There are, of course, some German, radio programs but they are not heard in all places. Often enough, they are not the kind of programs they would like to hear. There are two German-language newspapers, "New Life" and "Friendship", but they are Government-controlled, monotonous. Only on the last page do we find reports about the Soviet Germans, mostly about their economic achievements and cultural life. Sometimes there are stories in dialect, especially in Hessian or Palatinate.

We obtain more reliable information from the "home-comers" or from those who are permitted to visit their relatives in Germany. But the people are cautious, reserved, and timorous. Not long ago I spoke with a woman returnee. When I asked questions, she looked around timidly and hesitated with her answers. Only after her brother-in-law told her, "You can speak openly with this man; he will not publish anything in the newspapers, nor mention your name," did she speak freely.

Most of all, our people are depressed because they have no German schools, no churches, no pastors. My 80-year-old sister-in-law goes with members of her community a distance of 3 km to the cemetery, in the heat of summer and in the cold of winter, in order to attend religious devotions. Our people also meet at weddings, which are still celebrated according to tradition. In one room the young people sing German and, especially, Russian songs, while in the other room old-timers sing the beautiful old folksongs. We are always astonished that the older generation, despite the difficult years they have experienced, still know so many songs. A Volga German woman, named Wohn, recently sang 200 songs for a certain professor.

German writers, united in an association, are developing remarkable activity. The German newspapers regularly publish some of their poems and stories. Smaller books are also published. I have listed them in my bibliography. It is enjoyable to note that there has been a resurgence of interest in the history of our ethnic group. In "New Life" there appeared recently a series of articles on the history of German settlements in Russia, written by a certain Malinowski. Of course, these articles have a Communist bias, and the kulaks get the worst of it.

I find it desirable, however, that we try to seek contact with these intellectuals. I sent my Bibliography to "New Life" in Moscow and also to the Research Center in Novosimirsk, and received a letter of appreciation from both. Should it not be possible with the help of Malinowski to obtain the early lists of the immigrants to the Volga and the Black Sea? These lists are doubtless lying in the archives in Moscow, Leningrad, and Saratov, as well as in Dniepropetrowsk, where I did have the opportunity of finding some lists in 1942. I hope that we succeed in making these

(WP7, p.11) materials available to the public in the projected book. To be sure, we must not be under any illusions. The Soviets are distrustful and do not like to have us look into their archives. The hope remains that conditions will become normal in the future. Our task and our endeavor must be to remain in contact with our Landsleute in Russia, as far as conditions permit. The healthy spirit that formerly animated our people in the colonies throughout the 200 years of their existence has not died out, even under the totally different conditions prevailing today. My friends and Landsleute, let me conclude with the general appraisal of our people which I heard during my visit to the Home-coming Camp in Friedland, where thousands are now coming through, though unfortunately still too few of our own Laudsleute. There I was told again and again: “The Russian-Germans are our dearest returnees—they are unassuming, satisfied, and grateful." I am, and I believe we all are proud of this appraisal. Thank you very much.

(WP7, p.12) "GERMANS FROM RUSSIA IN TODAY'S GERMANY”

Emma Schwabentand Haynes

Mr. Chairman and members of our Historical Society. It would be difficult for me to put into words the pleasure which I feel in being present at this annual convention of our society. On the airplane from Germany to Lincoln, the melody of the Negro spiritual "Goin' Home" kept ringing in my ears — and I was especially reminded of the lines, "Lots of folks are waiting there. All the friends I knew." I also find it very appropriate that we should be meeting in the state of Nebraska. Back in l887 when my maternal grandparents left the colony of Norka for the United States, their destination was Sutton, Nebraska, where relatives were already living. Unfortunately, my grandfather hadn't realized how expensive the railroad tickets from New York to Sutton would be, and when he reached Chicago, he found it necessary to leave his wife and seven children in a cheap rooming house near the railroad station while he went on alone to Sutton to borrow money for the rest of the tickets. The story of my grandparents was typical of many German families from Russia. Sutton was their first home in the United States. Then they heard that the possibilities of employment were better in Lincoln, and from 1888-1890 - when they moved to Portland, Oregon - they lived in Lincoln in the so-called "Northern Bottom". My grandfather and his two oldest sons worked for the Burlington Railroad and my grandmother did housework for American families. My mother was six years old at the time, and, in addition to taking care of her baby brother, she and her twin sister Katy had the task of walking along the tracks of the Burlington Railroad with gunny sacks into which they would put any lumps of coal that had fallen from passing trains. Firemen soon began noticing these little girls who were always dressed alike, and many of them made it a habit to toss out additional chunks of coal, so that their bags could be filled more rapidly. And then the children - Dora and Katy Miller - would stand waving and waving to show their gratitude. During my university days I began accumulating books connected with Russian-German history, such as "Einsam kaempft das Wolgaland" by Georg Lebsack. and the historical narratives of Rev. Johannes Schleuning, whom some of our older members may recall because of his trip to the United States to collect money for German famine sufferers in Russia. I also acquired "Die deutschen Kolonien im Schwarzmeergebiet" which had been written in 1922 as a doctor's thesis at the University of Tuebingen by a man named Karl Stumpp. Then came World War II and for about twenty-three years my research on Russian-German history was discontinued. But one day in 1964 I stopped at the Institute for Foreign Affairs in Stuttgart, Germany to ask if anyone could tell me what had eventually happened to those Russian- Germans who had been deported from their homes after Hitler's attack on the

(WP7, p.13) Soviet Union. A very friendly librarian immediately replied, "The person to see is Dr. Karl Stumpp." Rather hesitantly I then said, "Back in 1931 I once bought a book by a Dr. Karl Stumpp. Could this be the same man?" The librarian assured me that this was indeed the very same man. Several weeks later, when I called on Dr. Stumpp to ask about the Soviet Germans, he promptly told me, "They live in Vorkuta, Tschambul, Duschambe, Karaganda, Barnaul, Zelinograd. Alma Ata," and I'm certain he would have mentioned a dozen more names except that my puzzled expression showed how completely unfamiliar all of these cities were to me, and, rummaging through his desk, he found a copy of his map on the present whereabouts of the Russian-Germans, which he very kindly allowed me to take home. Through Dr. Stumpp I became acquainted with many other Germans from Russia now living in Germany, and I soon discovered that they could be divided into four groups: first, those people who fled to Germany after World War I; second, those who were brought to Germany in 1940 as a result of a legal agreement between Stalin and Hitler; third, those who came to Germany after Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union — in other words, without legal permission; and fourth, the so-called "Heimkehrer" or "returnees" who have been appearing since 1959. The story of the first group begins with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. By this time the communists had gained control of the Russian government in Moscow and they saw no reason to go on fighting in what was to them an imperialistic war. Consequently, they signed a peace treaty with Germany in which, among many other clauses, they agreed that any Germans living in Russia were free to sell their property and leave the country during the next ten years. Eventually the news of this treaty found its way to the German colonies. But our Russian- German people have never been inclined to act precipitously, and they first wanted to know where they would live and work if they did come to Germany. To obtain answers to this question, "Kundschafter" or emissaries were sent to Berlin to acquire additional information and then return to Russia with their reports. However, news from Russia continued to be so bad, that some of these emissaries decided to remain in Germany. On the other hand, Father Gottlieb Beratz, who had been sent by Catholic colonists along the "Wiesenseite" of the Volga, courageously returned to his parish in Herzog, only to be shot in April, 1921, by the communists. It was Father Beratz who in 1914 was responsible for the most outstanding book ever written on the history of the Volga Germans. Another group of Germans who left Russia for Germany were those who wanted to study at German universities. By the end of 1918, Dr. Karl Stumpp along with twenty-nine other young men from the Black Sea area were enrolled at the universities of Tuebingen, Stuttgart and Hohenheim. During the following years they were joined by additional students including Georg Leibbrandt, who in 1927 at the University of Leipzig wrote such an outstanding doctor's thesis on the migration of pietistic brethern from Wuerttemberg to the Caucasus. Young men from the Volga were more inclined to study at the University of Berlin, where about thirty of them organized a "Verband der wolgadeutschen Studierender". In the year 1924, eighteen of these students had already graduated from German universities and thirty-eight were currently enrolled.

(WP7, p.14) A third group of Russian-Germans who began appearing in Germany from 1918 onward were members of wealthy families. The names Borell, Reinicke, Schmidt, Gerhard, Bier and Mueller must still be familiar to many Volga Germans of America. These were the large landowners, or the owners of cloth factories and flour mills. Such people often took advantage of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk to transfer some of their assets to German banks as a nest egg for an uncertain future. This was done by older sons or trusted relatives who were sent to Germany with the added task of investigating possibilities of emigration. Several years ago I became acquainted with the surviving members of such a large landowning family which had come to Germany from the colony of Warenburg on the Volga. In 1918 the oldest son of the family had been sent to Germany with 200,000 rubles for deposit in a German bank. Then on September 10, 1919 the seventy-two year old father of the family, along with a son, a daughter, and a son-in-law were arrested by the communists, taken to a Saratov prison and shot. One year later, three other members of the family were killed. The remaining relatives then decided to leave for Germany in two separate groups. The man telling me the story was fifteen years old at the time, but he could remember very clearly how in the fall of 1920 his father put diamond rings and other valuables in a glass jar covered with wax which the two of them then buried. Famine conditions and typhus had already broken out, and in order to prove to the western world how terrible the situation was, photographs of starving people were taken and baked inside a loaf of bread which was then put in a sack of provisions. Transportation in Russia was in such a state of chaos, that it took the family three months to travel from Saratov to . Upon their arrival, they found the city so full of refugees that the entire party, consisting of the parents, four children, an aged grandmother and an aunt, were happy to rent a single room in which they all lived, ate and slept. By now it was impossible to obtain any food except through barter. The parents had always used servants to do their shopping for them, and were so completely helpless in this topsy-turvy world that the fifteen-year old boy would be sent to the outdoor markets to trade off jewelry, pieces of silver, or articles of clothing for food. When the family possessions began to run out, he would even play his accordian to get some bread. By this time the communists no longer felt bound by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk because Germany was now a defeated nation, but eventually the necessary arrangements were made and the family was allowed to leave the country. They now thought that their troubles were over because money was waiting in a German bank, but unfortunately a period of wild inflation had begun in Germany and the family fortune was lost. This particular father was never able to readjust to his changed circumstances, and for the rest of his life lived in the past, waiting vainly for the communists to he overthrown so that he could return to his former life in Russia. On the other hand, his younger, more adaptable brother started a poultry farm, and in the course of time became moderately well off. I do not mean to imply that it was only wealthy people who fled to Germany. A refugee camp for Russian-Germans in on the Oder in eastern Germany often contained as many as two thousand people. They came from all sections of Russia including the Caucasus, the Black Sea, Siberia and Volhynia, and they represented all classes of society. Some

(WP7, p.15) of them were completely penniless, and it was only with the help of American relatives that they were able to buy steamship passage to the New World. However, it still seems to be true that an amazingly large percentage of well-educated people made their way into Germany in these early years. This fact is certainly borne out by such outstanding periodicals as the "Wolgadeutsche Monatsheft" and "Deutsches Leben in Russland" which were published in Germany during the 1920's by refugees from Russia. I have probably spent more time than I should have on this section of my report, but I feel that we Americans of Russian-German descent need to be reminded that in our German colonies there did exist an upper intellectual stratum about which we are often unaware. Such people belonged, of course, to a small minority, but it is worthwhile to know that such a minority existed. And in the case of those individuals who remained in Germany after World War I, their influence still goes on today. The highest honorary position in the "Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland" is held by Dr. Karl Stumpp who belongs to this honored group of World War I refugees. The second group of Russian-Germans living in Germany are those who came as a result of a legal agreement between Hitler and Stalin. I am certain that many of you still remember with what unbelieving amazement the whole world heard that in August 1939 Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler's foreign minister, had flown to Moscow to sign a Non-aggression Pact with Stalin. As a result of this agreement the Soviet Union was able to re-acquire those sections of czarist Russia which had been lost at the end of World War I. Included in these territories was Bessarabia which had been annexed by in 1918. However, Hitler insisted that the 85,000 German inhabitants of Bessarabia be allowed to decide for themselves whether to immigrate to Germany or remain in their homes as citizens of the Soviet Union. With practically no exceptions, all 85,000 decided to leave. The exodus took place between September and November 1940 under the auspices of a mixed commission of German and Russian officials. The value of the property of each family was determined by this commission and was paid to Germany by the Russians in the form of wheat, oil and other products. Women, children and old people were brought out of Bessarabia by buses, and the men of the family followed with wagons which contained their personal possessions, clothing, food, bedding and even some furniture. A description of this exodus can be found in a book entitled "Athene Palace" written by an American woman journalist named Waldeck during the early 1940's. She tells that a pontoon bridge had been built across the Pruth River near the town of Galatz in Romania where a camp was waiting. As the American woman stood on the Romanian side of the river with various German officials, somebody said, "They are coming", and handed her a Zeissglass. She then writes: "I saw a spectacle which reminded me of engravings of the American frontier era: a long line of wagons, covered with white canvas, oxen drawn, sometimes with a colt or a horse running alongside. It was strange to find the covered wagon, America's symbol of individual

(WP7, p.16) pioneering, become Europe's symbol of the totally protective state. "The Bessarabian Germans did not stop on the Russian side of the Pruth, before leaving the land to which they were bound, by every memory and tradition.....Wagons came lumbering steadily over the pontoon bridge... "Teeming life filled the camp. Horse dealers and cattle dealers were busy buying up the animals which would not be taken on the Danube boat. Old people sat peacefully in the sun on benches arranged on a patch of grass as on a village green. Women with the headcloth of the Germans in this part of the world gossiped as they did their washing in troughs along the hangars. In the wide kitchens of the canteens girls were at work on enormous shiny new kettles and other kitchen gadgets brought all the way from Germany. "The refugees ate at long tables under trees in the nice midday sun. It could have been any popular open-air restaurant. There was even somebody playing on an accordian." For many of the Bessarabian Germans those hours out in the sunshine were to be practically their last pleasant memories in a situation that became progressively more dismal. From Galatz they were taken up the Danube in river boats and then put in resettlement camps or requisitioned hotels in Germany and Austria where they often remained for a year. It was here in these camps that German passports were issued to all the families, and that most of the able-bodied men were drafted into the German Army. Anyone who is interested in the history of the Bessarabian Germans, can find an unending wealth of material in the twenty volumes of the "Bessarabischer Heimat Kalender" for the years 1950-1970, which have been so generously donated to the archives of our society by Dr. Karl Stumpp. The books contain dozens of fascinating first-hand accounts of events during and after 1940. For example, in the 1969 Yearbook there is a story entitled "From Odessa. Russia to Odessa, Washington", written by a man named Christian Haemmerling, who begins his story with the evacuation of his native village of Lichtental in October, 1940, and ends with his arrival in the United States with his wife and four children in August 1956. From the stories recounted in the Bessarabian Yearbooks we hear of the cramped conditions in the re-settlement camps and of how the mothers of the families kept longing for the day when they could live again in their own homes, and sit down with their husband and children at their own tables. And the men who had always belonged to an agricultural society, kept thinking of their fertile fields in Bessarabia and wishing that they were out behind a plow under an open sky. Then, when the Bessarabian Germans were finally taken to their future homes, they were

(WP7, p.17) usually brought to Poland to a section called the Warthegau which lies west of Warsaw. And, what especially bothered them, was that they were given the houses and land of Polish farmers who had been dispossessed with just a few hours’ notice. In the Bessarabian Yearbook for 1960 a woman author, Gertrud Knopp-Rub, tells that when a family named Wildermuth entered the house to which they had been assigned, a discolored spot on the wall showed where a picture had been hastily removed. From an empty shelf in an open china cabinet, dishes had evidently been taken, and the unmade beds revealed how suddenly the Polish family had been evicted. The German father said to his wife, "How can we expect God's blessing under these circumstances?" And the wife herself felt so uncomfortable that that night she spread on the kitchen floor her own bedding upon which she and her family slept. For about two years life in the Warthegau remained fairly peaceful. Then the German army began retreating westward, and in the winter of 1944-45, the Bessarabian Germans were forced to begin a mad flight to the west. Polish partisans, taking revenge for every injustice that had been inflicted upon them, now attacked, robbed and murdered these fleeing families, even though the Bessarabian Germans themselves had been used by Hitler as mere pawns in a game of power politics. By this time millions of people were fleeing in advance of the Russian army, and when a refugee knocked at a door to say, "My baby is sick, could you give us a bed for the night?,” the answer was only too often, "We're already overcrowded. Try somewhere else."

However, in spite of all their difficulties, the Bessarabian Germans had two factors in their favor. The first was that they had come to Germany as a result of a legal agreement, which in most cases the Soviet government respected, and secondly, they were a homogenous unit with their own ministers, schoolteachers, businessmen and political leaders. As early as July 1945 a Bessarabian German refugee society was organized under the protection of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. And in 1946 two leaders from the colonies of Sarata and Beresina obtained permission from the government of Wuerttemberg for Bessarabian refugees to settle in this section of Germany, which lay in the American zone of occupation. Special trains from the Soviet and British occupation zones now began bringing people to various towns in the neighborhood of Stuttgart, and even today more Bessarabian Germans live in Wuerttemberg than in any of the other . Life continued to remain extremely difficult during these early post-war years, but one person helped another to get a job, to locate his relatives, or to build a home. It was as though every Bessarabian German belonged to a closely-knit family, and even today this feeling of closeness continues to exist. Once a year there is a "Treffen" or Convention in Stuttgart, and as many as fifteen thousand people gather from all sections of Germany to attend the meeting and renew old acquaintances. The third group of people under discussion are those who came to Germany illegally during World War II. I am certain all of our members know that Germans from the Crimea, the Volga and the Caucasus were deported to Siberia and Soviet Asia in 1941 after Hitler’s attack on

(WP7, p.18) the Soviet Union. Similar plans had also been made for the Volhynian and the Black Sea Germans, but the German army advanced so rapidly that it was able to rescue most of them. In 1943 about 350,000 Black Sea Germans left their colonies with the retreating German army and were re-settled in Poland. Here they remained for about one year before being forced to flee to the west. These people had also been declared German citizens and given German identity papers, but in the eyes of the Russians they were still Russian subjects, and whenever they were overtaken by the Russian array, they were loaded into freight cars and sent to the Arctic regions of northern Russia, to Siberia or to Soviet Asia. Even those refugees who had reached the British, American and French occupation zones were not safe, because all three western powers had agreed to turn over to the Russians anyone bom in the Soviet Union. Consequently, out of the original 350,000 refugees only about 100.000 were able to hide their identity and remain in Germany. It would be impossible for me to tell how often I have been asked by Russian-Germans in Germany, "Why did the United States and her allies allow the Soviet Union to deport these people?" Sometimes the question is asked with hostility, sometimes with perplexity, and sometimes with sorrow. One man expressed it in this way, "All my life I had heard that America was the land of freedom and democracy. But in that case. how could you refuse to grant these people freedom and democracy?"

As an American citizen I feel that some explanation should be given: I mention wartime conditions, or I say that most Americans didn't realize how bad life in Russia was, or I point out that wartime propaganda had turned Stalin into a fatherly, pipe-smoking individual. But such excuses never sound very valid, either to my listener or to me. And it does seem strange, that although every American newspaper from coast to coast expressed shocked horror late in 1970 when a Russian sailor was knocked unconscious and dragged off an American coast guard cutter, no protest was ever raised against the deportation of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Among the Russian-Germans overtaken by the Russians, there was one group whose position was the most precarious of all. They were the former soldiers in the Russian army who had been taken prisoner by the Germans and had thereafter been used as interpreters, in the auxiliary services or even as regular "Wehrmacht" soldiers. These men came from all sections of the Soviet Union including the Volga colonies. If their military identification papers mentioned their place of birth in the USSR, they were immediately sent to prison or shot. However, in some cases the soldiers had been able to obtain false papers giving a fictitous place of birth in Germany, and in other cases only the name of the colony in which they had been born was listed. At a recent reunion of people from the Black Sea colonies of Rohrbach and Worms I was told by two former soldiers that they had been taken prisoner by the Americans. Their military papers showed that the one man was born in Worms and the other in Rohrbach, but since there are cities named Worms and Rohrbach in Germany, neither of them was suspected of having come from Russia.

(WP7, p.19) However, the oppressive fear of being deported to the Soviet Union continued to remain uppermost in the minds of all Soviet Germans living in Germany. A former soldier named Schwabauer from the colony of Balzer on the Volga once told me that for about five years he never walked down the streets of Stuttgart without watching to see if he were being followed. It is interesting to note that the first person who had the courage to protest to the American and allied authorities against the deportation of Soviet citizens was Dr. Benjamin Unruh, a Mennonite teacher and minister who was born in Russia, but had been active in Mennonite refugee problems for many years. As a member of the Mennonite church with its history of pacificsm, no one could possibly accuse him of being a Nazi or a fascist sympathizer. And after a start had once been made, other voices were raised, and by 1950 the worst of the danger was over. During these early post-war years, it was only through the German churches that refugees from eastern Europe were able to receive advice and help. Consequently, the first meeting of what was to eventually become the "Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland" was called in 1950 by a Protestant minister named Rev. Heinrich Roemmich who had been living in Germany since the early 1930's. He was joined by such people as Dr. Karl Stumpp and Rev. Johannes Schleuning. In other words, the initiative for the organization did not come from the newly arrived refugees, who were still far too frightened and leaderless for such an undertaking, but instead from the older group of refugees going back to World War I. One of the first tasks of the new society was to establish contact with the scattered Soviet Germans. To accomplish this end, Dr. Karl Stumpp became editor of the monthly "Volk auf dem Weg" which has been appearing since January 1951. In 1954 he assumed the added responsibility of the annual "Heimatbuch der Russlanddeutschen" with its wonderful maps and important articles. The present editor of these two publications is Mr. Joseph Schnurr, who came to Germany during World War II from the Black Sea area. According to Mr. Schnurr the 1971 "Heimatbuch” will be devoted to the former religious life of the Russian-German people and will contain over three hundred pictures of churches, school buildings and pastors. This is one book which all of our members, even those who cannot read German, should be interested in buying. It will constitute a permanent record of our religious heritage in the period before World War I. The fourth and final group of Russian-Germans in Germany are the so-called "Heimkehrer" or "returnees" — those people who through the intervention of the Red Cross have been given permission from the Soviet government to join relatives in the west. Their number is pitifully small -- approximately 2,500. Most of them are elderly people, but in an almost capricious fashion, young men and women are sometimes also allowed to leave the Soviet Union. It would be very pleasant to say that upon their arrival in Germany all of these "returnees" live happily ever after. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Husbands and wives sometimes find that they have

(WP7, p.20) grown apart during the intervening years. There have also been elderly Soviet German mothers who do not get along with the German-born girls whom their sons have married. In a few such cases the mothers have even returned to the Soviet Union. It is easy to understand that a great deal of affection is needed when people who have been separated for twenty-five or thirty years are brought together again.

I always find it a fascinating experience to talk to these "returnees". Without exception, all of them lived either in a prison camp or some kind of a forced-labor camp during the 1940’s and early 1950’s. But they are able to recount their experiences in a factual tone and even with a sense of humor. I have yet to hear any of them express any hatred or hostility toward their Russian neighbors. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn has pointed out in his novels, the camps contain people of all nationalities: Russian, Ukrainian, Baltic, Asiatic etc. And in these camps, the man who brings you an extra piece of bread, who watches over your belongings, or who covers up for you when you could get into trouble, is your friend. His nationality is not important.

I found this attitude examplified by a "returnee" named Eduard Trautmann who attended a recent "Landsmannschaft" meeting at which I was also present. Mr. Trautmann kept all of us enthralled as he told how he was arrested in 1935 for "anti-socialist behavior". After three months in an Ukrainian prison he was sent to Vladivostok to a transit camp, and then with three thousand other prisoners was taken by boat to the northernmost regions of the Soviet Union. Here he did construction work or mined for gold in temperatures which fell as low as 56 degrees below zero centigrade. As a result of these inhuman living conditions, only 3% of the prisoners survived. Mr. Trautmann was allowed to join his wife in Kazakhstan in 1948, and, nineteen years later, received permission to re-settle in Germany.

At the conslusion of his talk Mr. Trautmann said, "This is the picture of my best friend in the Soviet Union." And the photograph which he passed around was of a Mohamedan Kazakh.

In the prison camps of the north Eduard Trautmann had learned the true meaning of the word tolerance. This is surely an example which we might all follow.

(WP7, p.21) WORKSHOP ON RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF GERMANS FROM RUSSIA Chairman: Dr. Albert W. Wardin Jr., of Belmont College, Nashville, Tennessee. The first session was held on the morning of Friday, June 18, 1971. Pastor W. A. Rempfer, a minister of the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, presented information on German Lutherans in Russia and North Dakota. He was followed by Mr. Harry Schultz of Texas who referred to his early training in a German parochial school in Kansas. Mrs. Mildred Long of Greeley. Colorado, related her experience as a girl in the German Congregational Church. Dr. Wardin then told of the beginnings of the German Congregational Church among German Russians. Mr. Hahn of Lincoln, Nebraska, closed the session with some information on the German Reformed Church in Lincoln. In the second session, which was held in the afternoon, Mr. John E. Pfeiffer of Aberdeen, South Dakota, presented a paper on the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tiraspol. Mrs. Albert W. Wardin. Sr. then related her experiences as a girl attending a German Baptist Church near Anaheim, California. Dr. Wardin closed the session by presenting information on the importance of the Stundist movement in Russia, the beginnings of the Baptists in Russia, the destruction of the German Russian churches, and the religious life of German Russians today in the Soviet Union. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * REPORT OF THE RESEARCH AND BIBLIOGRAPHY COMMITTEE Chairman: Mr. James R. Griess

The first session was attended by six members; the second session by three members. Discussions centered on sources and types of materials to be explored for information on the Germans from Russia, as well as what a bibliography should cover and the form in which items for the bibliography should be presented. Since the members of the organization are so widely scattered, and few will have access to much of the material, the committee concluded that a bibliography should be detailed, suggesting the inclusion of the following: 1. Full name of the author. 2. Full title. 3. Place of publication and publisher. 4. Date of publication. 5. Detailed imprint. Number of pages or volumes, illustrations if any, portraits, maps, plans, etc. This information is not usually included in a published bibliography, except for paging, but is of real value to the researcher. 6. An annotation. A brief statment of the contents, making note of special items of interest, such a lists of immigrants, house or village plans, laws or rules governing immigration and emigration, etc. 7. Where the particular item may be located. It is hoped that members submitting items for inclusion in the planned composite bibliography will follow this form. Submitted by Marie M. Olson Member of the Research and Bibliography Committee.

(WP7, p.22) “A HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE DIOCESE OF TIRASPOL “

John E. Pfeiffer

The first priests to minister to the Catholic German Colonists in Russia came from the Catholic Missionary Prefecture of Polotzk to the Volga colonies. These men were fluent in the , but as time went on and death began to thin their ranks, they were replaced by others who were not.

This situation became even worse after the Czarina Catherine II established the Archdiocese of Mohileff for all Catholics in the . Her appointment of Archbishop Siestrzencewics was recognized by the Holy See in 1783, but the priests sent to the German colonies by the Archbisop knew even less German than the last of the missionaries, and consequently, the spiritual life of the Catholic German colonists of the Volga deteriorated.

In 1801, however, through the efforts of Senator Karl Hablitz, an agreement was reached between Czar Alexander I and Pope Clement XIV to permit priests of the Society of Jesus to care for the spiritual welfare of these colonists. In March of that year, ten Jesuit priests came to the Volga colonies from Polotzk, and the superior of the Society, Father Landes, made Saratov his residence.

In 1804, through the efforts of the Governor-General of South Russia (the French emigré Duke of Richelieu), a Father Loeffler of the Society of Jesus was assigned to minister to the first Catholic Colonial settlement in Kleinliebenthal near Odessa, but it was not until 1811, when nine Jesuits were sent from Polotzk, that the spiritual needs of the Catholic German colonists of the Black Sea were adequately cared for.

Just when the effects of the magnanimous Jesuits on the German colonists began to bear fruit, the Society of Jesus was banished from the Russian Empire by decree of April 21, 1820. The Jesuits were followed by Polish clerics who were not conversant with the German tongue.

This situation continued until 1845 when Czar Nicolas I made a courtesy call on Pope Gregory XVI and negotiations were begun to erect a Latin-rite diocese for the Catholic German colonists in Russia. A Concordant was eventually signed on July 3, 1848. The city of Cherson was designated as the seat of the new diocese, and Pope St. Clement I, who had been martyred in the Crimea during the reign of Roman Emperor Trajan, was named patron of the new diocese.

(WP7, p.23) Covering an area of 462,504 square miles, the new diocese was one of the largest in the world. Its extent can be seen in the locations of the deaneries that were later set up: Saratov, Kamenka, Katharinenstadt, Marienthal, Seelmann, Berdjanak, Jekaterineslav, Sinferopol, Nikolajev, Odessa, Platigorek, and Tiflis. By 1917, there were some 126 parishes and more than 180,000 Catholic German colonists in the diocese.

It was not until 1850, however, that Czar Nicolas I nominated the Prior of the Dominicans of Riga, Ferdinand Helamus Kahn, as the first bishop of the Catholic Docese of Cherson. Being a suffragan see of Mohileff, he was consecrated a month later by Archbishop Dmochowski. But, because of the opposition of the Russian Orodox Church, Bishop Kahn was unable to establish his see in Cherson. He was advised to go instead to Tiraspol (a small village on the Dniester River which didn’t even have a ); thus the Diocese of Cherson became the Diocese of Tiraspol, even though Tiraspol never became the episcopal residence.

According to the original plan, the Diocese of Tiraspol was to have two auxiliary-bishops, but it was not until 1856 that Dr. Vincent Lipski was consecrated as an auxiliary to Bishop Kahn. As a result, Bishop Kahn took up residence in Saratov, thus making that city the seat of the Diocese of Tiraspol, and Bishop Lipski lived in Odessa. The next year, the diocesan seminary was opened in Saratov; this institution eventually trained not only some 250 sons of the colonists for the priesthood (several became bishops) but also almost all of the school teachers and village secretaries for the Catholic colonies. The first son of the colonies to be ordained a priest was Johann Schamne of .

Bishop Kahn died on October 6, 1864, but it took until 1872 before Franz Zottman was named and consecrated to succeed him. Bishop Zottman dedicated the new cathedral in Saratov in 1881. In 1883, he was the first Catholic bishop from Russia to make the adlimina visit to the Roman Pontiff; as a result of this visit, the Holy See granted him an auxiliary (Bishop Lipski had died in 1875) in the person of Anton Zerr, a son of the village of Franzfeld in the Liebenthal colonies near Odessa. Upon Zottman’s resignation in 1889, Zerr became the third bishop of Tiraspol. In 1901, because of ill-health, Bishop Zerr resigned and was succeeded by Bishop Eduard von Ropp, who was soon transferred to Vilna in 1903. The fifth and last Bishop of Tiraspol was a son of the village of Louis in the Volga colonies, Joseph Kessler. He was consecrated in 1904, and although he held the title of Bishop of Tiraspol until 1929, the Bolshevik Revolution caused him to flee from Saratov to Odessa in 1917, and from Odessa to Romania in 1920. He visited the

(WP7, p.24) German-Russian parishes in Kansas and the Dakotas in 1922, and lived out his life at Zinnowitz in North Germany where he died in 1933 as Titular-Archbishop of Bosporus. Because the atheistic-communist regime in Russia considered all religion to be "the opiate of the pople", churches were closed, priests were imprisoned, and the open practice of religion became virtually impossible. The first priest-martyr of the Diocese of Tiraspol was Father Jakob Duckart, administrator of the parish at Katharinenthal near Odessa (1919). Needless to say, many other priests and faithful of the diocese have followed him on the path to martyrdom.

By 1923, all episcopal sees in Russia were vacant. Without bishops there can be no priests; thus the Holy See hoped that the ecclesiatical circumscriptions in Russia might be reorganized by the establishment of Apostolic-Administrations. For the diocese of Tiraspol, Msgr. Augustin Baumtrog was appointed Apostolic-Administrator of the Volga. Msgr. Alexander Frison for the Black Sea, and Msgr. Johannes Both for the Caucasus. Traveling incognito specifically for the purpose, Bishop Michel D'Herbigny, S.J. secretly consecrated several bishops in the French Embassy in Moscow. Although the communists tried to avoid making martyrs for the Faith, all were consequently imprisoned or executed, or both. Bishop Frison, a son of the village of Baden in the Kutschurgan colonies near Odessa, after repeated imprisonments, was executed by a firing squad in the prison at Simferopol in 1937 after a trial that lasted nine days. During World War II, when Hitler's armies occupied the Ukraine, Bishop Markus Glaser, a son of the village of in the Beresan Colonies near Odessa, was able to reopen the Maria-Himmelfahrt Cathedral in Odessa, but with the retreat of the German Army in 1944, he resumed his duties as Vicar-General of the Diocese of Iasi, Romania, where he was arrested and subjected to such ill-treatment during interrogation that he died as a result of it, May, 1950. Today the Diocese of Tiraspol no longer exists, and there are no German colonies in Russia as such. There are, however, some two-million former German colonists living in dispersion mostly in Siberia and Central Asia. Among them is the sole surviving priest of the Diocese of Tiraspol. Father Michael Koehler is now 74 years old, was ordained in Selz (a village of the Kutschurgan colonies near Odessa) 49 years ago, and spent 23 of those in prisons or labor camps. He lives in Frunze, Kirghisian SSR near the Chinese border in Central Asia, where he is able to minister to the Catholics.

(WP7, p.25) REFERENCES

Catholic Encyclopedia (1912 ed.) Vol. XIV, p. 739.

Joseph Aloysius Kessler, "Die Geschicte Der Doezese Tiraspol" Verlag von Rev. Georg Aberle, Dickinson, No. Dak., 1930, passim.

P. Conrad Keller, "Die Deutschen Kolonien in Sued-russland" 1 Bandschen, Verlag von Stadelmeier in Odessa, Russland, 1905, passim.

Karl Stumpp, "The German-Russians: Two Centuries of Pioneering (Translated from the German by Prof. Joseph S. Height), Bonn: Edition Atlantic-Forum , 1967 , p. 28.

Father George (as told to Gretta Palmer) "God's Underground", (Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc. New York) 1949, pp. 163-5. Serge Bolshakoff, "The Christian Church and the Soviet State", Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1942, pp. 71-2. Albert Gaiter, "The Red Book of the Persecuted Church", Westminister, Md., The New man Press, 1957, pp. 40, 45-47, 49, 52, 331. "A Visit with Father Michael Koehler” in Frunze, Kirghisian SSR-1970 (a tape recording). Annuario Pontificio (per 1'anno 1943), Citta del Vaticano: Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, passim.

(WP7, p.26) " OUR MENNONITE HERITAGE "

Reverend A. W. Friesen

This is not an extensive research of the Russian Mennonites in South America. I am relying on others who were there before we came there in 1948, on letters we sent home, and our diaries during our stay of 18 months in South America. We were asked by the Home Mission Board of the General Conference of Mennonites to spend 2 years among the refugees who had settled there in 1948 after World War II. The first Mennonites came to Paraguay, descendants of those who had gone to western Canada. The reasons for their leaving Canada do not appear adequate to most people, nor, for that matter, to most Mennonites. Since the later decades of their stay in these Mennonites had become attached to the German language and culture. This attachment continued through their later journies and the more conservative among them began to think of the German language as an almost essential part of their religion. When during World War I, , where most of them lived, passed a law which banned the teaching of German and religion in the schools, they felt that their religion and religious freedoms were again being attacked. It should be understood, however, that the majority of Mennonites in Canada did not consider the new turn of events a threat to their religion. But this conservative minority of these Russian Mennonites in Canada took the matter more seriously and began to make preparation for leaving.

But where should they go? And how should they go about finding a new country in which to settle?

These were momentous questions for these simple people. We will not go into detail of the movement of these Canadian Mennonites. In some way a committee of this group got in touch with a New York banker, General Samuel McRoberts, who finally was prevailed upon to help them find a new home.

Various countries were considered and finally South America was given serious consideration. On their way to Argentina in 1920 with McRoberts, they chanced to meet Manuel Gondra, president-elect of Paraguay, and Eusebio Ayaha, who was to succeed him as president. These men were intensely interested in their story of seeking a new home and began to move in the direction of getting these Mennonites to come to Paraguay.

One of the problems that had to be faced at the outset was that of securing a promise of religious freedom, which included exemption from military training. Other countries they had investigated were not willing to go that far but Paraguay was. Hence, the finger seemed to point in that direction. Before these events the original group had taken matters into their own hands to move to Mexico. The group though decided to follow McRoberts and go to Paraguay. The above-mentioned proposals were put in the form of a Bill, passed by congress, and signed by President Gondra of Paraguay. Article I of this bill states that "Mennonites and their descendants shall have the right and privilege to practice their religion and to worship with complete and unrestricted liberty, to make simple affirmations without the oath in Courts of Justice, exemption from military service, combatant and noncombatant in time of Peace

(WP7, p.27) and War." Also to maintain and administer their own schools, to teach their religion and their language without restriction, to administer inheritance and the property of widows and orphans according to their own custom and to administer their own fire insurance system. Article XI provides for the right to prohibit the sale of intoxicating beverages. Article III states that the Mennonites for a period of 10 years from the arrival of the first colonists should have free entry into the country of essential goods and be free from Paraguayan taxes. Part of Article IV had the sweeping statements that no future law shall hinder the entrance of Mennonite immigrants into the country for reasons of age, physical or mental incapacity. (This is an unusual provision for this age and explains why later many Mennonites from Russia came to Paraguay when they could not enter Canada or elsewhere.) This generosity of Paraguay deserves the praise of these Mennonites for keeping her doors open when practically all others were closed to them.

Later in 1927 this Privilegium was extended to other pacifist groups besides Mennonites who should settle in the Chaco. In this supplementary law it should be noted that the character of privileges as extended to these other groups applied only to those settling in the Chaco. The reason, no doubt, was to have this area settled.

Upon the return of the investigating committee to Canada and the giving of their report, they were convinced that Paraguay was the right place.

The depression of 1921 made it next to impossible for the to dispose of their lands at a satisfactory price. Matters came to a standstill for some years. When the financial situation began to clear, many lost their original enthusiasm for leaving. About 2,000 were still determined to go. Arrangements for selling their properties in Canada and buying land in Paraguay was no small task. Again the New York bankers came to their aid. A company was formed to purchase land in Paraguay. This organization was called Corporation Paraguay. 463,387.5 acres of land were purchased in the Paraguayan Chaco from the Casado interests. (These Casados were 3 brothers from Argentina and owned extensive tracts of land in Paraguay.) This land was about 100 miles west of Puerto Casado, a port on the Paraguay River. Of the mentioned acres of land, the Canadians originally purchased about 139,000 acres for the price of $5.00 an acre. (This was afterwards considered a high price for the Chaco bush land which later sold for 50 cents an acre.)

The first group settled on the land in 1926. Their journey through Montevideo, Buenos Aries, Asuncion and other river ports caused much excitement. They landed on the river Port Casado on December 31, 1926. This group was the pioneers of this historic occasion. The vast expanse of land west of Casado was dotted with large cattle ranches. About 1,700 arrived here in a year. The adjustments from a tropical to a torrid climate were tremendous. One of the greatest difficulties was to wait in Puerto Casado before they could settle on their land due to the fact that their land had not been surveyed. Added to their impatience, a typhoid epidemic broke out taking a total of 206 lives. Discouraged, over 300 returned to Canada.

(WP7, p.28) Before noting the development of the Mennonites in the Chaco, we go back briefly to the group who later settled alongside the Mennonite Colony. (The group from Canada.)

It was in the 1870's when the Mennonites with other denominations got restless due to the [Russian] laws requiring all young men to military training. During this time, thousands of Mennonites emigrated to the United States and Canada. Many decided to stay in Russia accepting the forest service which tne Russian government offered to them in lieu of military training. Things seemed to go fairly well with the remaining group up to World War I and the Communist revolution of 1917. They had prospered economically, little realizing what the coming years had in store for them. Famine in the early twenties added to their suffering. When the Communists came into undisputed control, the Mennonites, both for religious reasons and also because the majority of them enjoyed a higher economic level than that of the Russian masses, were stamped as members of the Kulak class. How often have we heard of their experiences in these years under Communistic rule. These tales were times of horror, murders, and exile to Siberia which seemed beyond human understanding. In 1920, some 21,000 Mennonites from Russia were fortunate enough to be able to go to the U.S.A. and Canada, most of them to Canada. Others had to wait out the storm hoping things would soon turn to the better.

A second colony known as Fernheim was established in the Chaco in 1930 by Mennonites from Russia. They had fled from Russia to Germany in 1929 hoping to find a new home in North America, but neither Canada nor the U.S. was willing to receive them at that time. Arrangements were made by the Mennonite Central Committee to settle in the Paraguayan Chaco. They were granted all the Privileges as the former Mennonites from Canada. 1,853 persons in 374 families founded their new homes in the Chaco in 1930. They were aided by the earlier Mennonite settlers and settled at the edge of their settlement. Due to the pioneer hardships, 65 of this group died from the typhoid epidemic.

A third wave of immigrants came to Paraguay from Russia after World War II, establishing the Neuland Colony. This is the group we ministered to in our 18 months in Paraguay. Some of these, after a few years in the Chaco, settled on the east side of the Paraguay River due to the severe drought and invasion of ants. This third group founded the Valendam Colony so named after the Dutch ship which brought them to South America.

A fourth wave of Mennonites immigrated to Paraguay from Canada for the same reason as those in 1926, to preserve their spiritual heritage. About 1,700 left Canada to settle on 27,500 acres of primitive forest land in the eastern part of Paraguay in the Villarica neighborhood.

What of the future of the ? For one accustomed to dealing with the past rather than the future, it might be dangerous to say much about this subject. Many people, including quite a few in Paraguay, are asking this question. Will the Mennonites remain in Paraguay? Are they satisfied? Should they be encouraged to remain?

(WP7, p.29) Will the Privilegium continue to be respected in the future? These and other questions are being asked, and with regard to many of them it is impossible to give a categorical answer. Although the question whether or not the Mennonites will remain in Paraguay cannot be answered dogmatically, it can be said with reasonable certainty that going back to Russia is out of the question. Although many have gone to Germany in the last decade and are planning to make it their future home, many more have gone to Canada joining their many countrymen who formerly came from Russia. Conflict with the church has precipitated the downfall of many Latin American dictators. The present president Alfredo Stroessner's regime is the longest lived among Latin America's current dictatorships. He came to power in 1954. Stroessner is short on ideology, an old-style strong man. He runs his primitive landlocked country, the size of California, (population about 2,000,000) like a feudal estate. In return for their unremitting efforts to suppress all opposition, generals share with him the profits from smuggling which is Paraguay's principal revenue producer. Cigarettes and other products from the United States and Europe are imported legally into Paraguay, then funneled across the borders into the black markets of neighboring Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.

While a few grow rich, the common people suffer. For the past two years, in particular, bishops and priests have been openly supporting the student protesters and demanding social, economic, and political reforms. There is an unjust restriction on the free expression of public opinion. Political prisoners are held without trial. Employment is withheld from those belonging to the opposing party.

The issue of land ownership has become one of the most critical points of conflict. One and one-half percent of the country's farmers own 89 percent of the arable land, leaving only 11 percent for the remaining 98 1/2 percent of the farmers. There is a great move on now to call on world opinion to save the situation of the innocent—Catholicism is the established religion in Paraguay. The archbishop of Asuncion is an ex offioio member of the Council of State, a kind of presidential cabinet. The refusal of a member to attend, after taking oath of office, constitutes a challenge such as President Stroessner had not previously faced during his many years as dictator.

The German government supplies books and equipment for schools anywhere in the world where German is taught. This is a great help to the people in Paraguay. The Gymnasiums (high school) are located in the larger villages and provide education from grade seven through ten and grades above that. This includes teacher training and other courses. Of late, Spanish has been added to the curriculum. It is a European-type school system. The equipment is well- adapted to aid in teaching mathematics although in some respects the textbooks are limited. The visual-aid program has been added and is used for entertainment at various occasions. A number of teachers have attended colleges and universities in Germany, Switzerland, Canada and the United States. The school terms are eight months. Teachers have a ten-month contract. There is a small turnover of teachers.

(WP7, p.30) "THE VOLGA GERMANS"

Emma Schwabenland Haynes

Mr. Chairman and members of our Historical Society. The story of the Volga Germans has always held such fascination for me that I am very much afraid I shall be tempted to speak longer than my allotted twenty minutes. For that reason I shall limit my remarks primarily to the early history of our people with particular emphasis on their place of origin in Germany.

The accompanying map shows the Iron Curtain separating East and West Germany, as well as the names of the German states: in the southeast, Baden-Wuerttemberg in the south-west, lying north of Baden-Wuerttemberg, and the Rhineland-Palatinate further west. In communist East Germany reference will also be made to the states of Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony. Needless to say, this is not how Germany looked on maps of the 18th century. In fact, Germany as a nation did not even exist, but instead was divided into hundreds of completely separate duchies, kingdoms, earldoms, independent cities and bishoprics.

During the l7th and l8th centuries the kings of France sent one army after another into the Palatinate in an attempt to gain control of all of Europe west of the Rhine. The resulting misery of the German people was so great that thousands of them emigrated not only to the New World, but also to Poland and Hungary. Then, in 1763, Catherine the Great issued her famous Second Manifesto inviting people of all nationalities to come to Russia. She promised to pay their travelling expenses and to grant them special privileges if they did so. It now became almost a matter of chance whether a dissatisfied, poverty-stricken German citizen sailed across the Atlantic to Philadelphia or allowed himself to be lured to Russia by talk of the "Paradise" which awaited him there.

The Russian ambassador at (in Bavaria) was placed in charge of recruiting immigrants. Under him were two deputies, and, after 1765, various commissioners. All of these men used numerous agents who were paid a fixed fee for each individual they enlisted. So-called "Sammelplaetze" or gathering places for would-be colonists were also set up. People living in south-eastern Germany as well as those from Austria met in Regensburg or Nuremberg. Freiburg in the south-west was the gathering place not only for German, but also for Swiss emigrants. The historian Bonwetsch tells us that 235 French families left for Russia, probably by way of Strassburg. Further north on the Rhine the city of Worms was the meeting place for people from the Palatinate, and in Frankfurt a deputy named Johann Facius was busy enlisting emigrants from Hesse.(1)

Another important "Sammelplatz" was the city of Rosslau which lay on the Elbe River in the principality of Anhalt-Zerbst (today part of Saxony-Anhalt). Catherine was herself a princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, and had asked her brother for permission to use one of his cities as a gathering place. It is estimated that thousands of colonists went to the Volga by way of Rosslau. Many of these people had first met in Regensburg or Nuremberg before moving northward in groups, but others were from central Saxony. After reaching Rosslau, the immigrants continued by ship to the mouth of the Elbe and then by land to Luebeck, which was the main exit point from Germany to Russia. Not far from Rosslau was the principality of Anhalt-Dessau

(WP7, p.31) Germany

(WP7, p.32) from where 425 Volga Germans came. Their names and occupations are listed, in local records. Many of the men were day laborers, but in addition we hear of stone masons, weavers, stocking and belt makers, soldiers, and a tavern-keeper. In other words, the Russian agents were signing up anyone they could get, regardless of his occupation. (2)

On February 17, 1766 the Archbishop of Trier bitterly pointed out: "Russian emissaries are roaming through the countryside, and, in the most godless manner they try to confuse the people and lead them blindly away to their own destruction." He then called upon all officials in his domain to arrest such people and to forbid any of his subjects to leave. The example of the Archbishop of Trier was followed by the archbishops of and , and the elector of the Palatinate, and many other rulers. During the past two years I have been able to obtain Xerox copies of six such decrees. One of them, dated April 28, 1766 is signed in Giessen by the government of Ludwig, the landgrave of Hesse. It warns all citizens that their property will be seized if they leave for Russia. Another, issued by the mayor and council of the free city of Frankfurt, not only forbids citizens to emigrate, but also states that anyone giving overnight shelter to colonists passing through Frankfurt is subject to arrest. Needless to say, Johann Facius, the Russian deputy was expelled from the city.

However, it was one thing to pass such an edict, but something else to enforce it. Considering the hodge-podge character of 18th century Germany, it was very easy for Johann Facius to simply move his headquarters about twenty-five miles east of Frankfurt to the area ruled by the count of Issenburg-Buedingen, over whom Frankfurt had no control. Word soon spread that anyone wanting to leave for Russia need only come to Buedingen in order to sign a contract with one of the Russian agents. Almost immediately thousands of immigrants began converging on the city from all surrounding areas. And if the local authorities didn't grant legal permission, people simply packed up and left in the middle of the night.

Some families arrived with as many as six children. Young couples came with babies in their arms. We also know that 375 marriages of Russia-bound colonists took place in Buedingen's Protestant church between February and July 1766. The heading at the top of such church entries states, "Copuliert Russische Colonisten". Then come the names of the contracting parties, and in about 70% of the cases their place of birth is also given. A typical entry for June 23, 1766 reads: "Johann Conrad Diehl, Russischer Colonist aus Hoechst in der mit Maria Margaretha Zimmer von Nieder Moerlau."

These church records prove that Volga colonists came from all sections of Germany and from many foreign countries, but Johann Conrad Diehl's place of birth, as well as that of the overwhelming majority of the couples mentioned, lay in the present state of Hesse. Over and over again one sees such names as Spomer, Wagner, Weigand, Repp, Vogel, Lehr, Koch, Nazarenus, Loos, Weitzel, and Klein -- family names which must be familiar to many members of our society. It is for this reason that I should like to urge all Volga German Americans who come to Germany, to rent a car in Frankfurt and spend at least a few hours in Buedingen. The town has remained practically unchanged since the l8th century, and as you walk through the streets, it is very easy to imagine yourself back in the year 1766 when this was the gathering spot for so many of our ancestors.(3)

(WP7, p.33) After signing contracts with the Russian agents and receiving money for their travelling expenses, emigrants set out in large groups for Luebeck, where ships were waiting to transport them to St. Petersburg. In the village of Schlitz, which lies somewhat north of Buedingen, an 18th century diarist reports that the first transport of Russian colonists, consisting of about five hundred people passed through Schlitz on May 13, 1766. Further entries mention six other groups of equal size. In other words, approximately 3,500 emigrants passed through this village on their way to Luebeck. The writer of the diary then adds that many of these people left their homes with sad hearts, "but because of their poverty, they had no alternative except to start a new life in a far-off country. (4)

Although the Buedingen marriage lists are of great interest to any student of Volga German history, they are of less value for purposes of genealogical research. For example, even though we know that a man named Johann Conrad Diehl left his native village of Hochst for Russia, there is nothing to indicate in what Volga colony he eventually settled. Information of this type can only be found in the Soviet Union. It is rather sad to contemplate that at any time before World War I, our grandparents could have traced their ancestors back to the original settlers by consulting the church books of their colonies or by examining emigration lists in Saratov. Unfortunately, hardly any of them bothered to do so.

At the present time there are only two colonies: Balzer and Jagodnaja Poljana, about which we have much information.

In 1922 Mr. Jacob Volz of York, Nebraska was sent to Russia as a representative of the Central States Volga Relief Society. While he was there he looked up the names and place of origin in Germany of the one hundred original families of Balzer. According to Mr. Volz, the first mayor - Balzer Barthuly, who gave his name to the colony - had been born in Essen. Other settlers came from scattered towns in Baden-Wuerttemberg, the Palatinate, and the Rhineland, and one man was born in Switzerland. However, out of the one hundred families, seventy-four were from the present state of Hesse, with most of them coming from the territory belonging to the count of Issenburg-Buedingen. (5)

Between the years 1910-1912 even more detailed information on the colony of Jagodnaja Poljana was sent to a German newspaper in Schotten, north-east of Frankfurt, by Georg Kromm, a schoolteacher in Jagodnaja. On the occasion of a trip which I made to Schotten in May, 1971, I discovered that the original papers sent to Germany by Georg Kromm are still on file in the city archives. In his report Mr. Kromm listed the names of the eighty men who founded the colony of Jagodnaja in 1767, and then gives their age, religious faith, and occupation. He also listed the name and age of each man's wife, and the names and ages of any children. The final column showed the town in Germany from which the family emigrated. In the case of the inhabitants of Jagoclnaja Poljana all eighty families came from Hesse. (6)

It would, of course, be totally erroneous to attempt to draw any conclusions for the Volga colonies as a whole on the basis of such scanty information. Father Konrad Keller, for example, indicates that the Catholic colonies contained many people from France, Austria and Bavaria. In an article published in the newspaper "Neues Leben" for February 4, 1970 we are told that the inhabitants of Preuss on the east bank of the Volga came from twenty-five different towns in Germany, Austria, Lorraine and .

(WP, p.34) And in Katharinestadt, 16% of the inhabitants had come from non-German countries, of which Holland, France, Switzerland and Austria were the most important. (7)

More trustworthy information on the "background of the Volga Germans can be obtained from the extremely scholarly research which has been done both in Russia and in Germany on the dialects spoken in the Volga colonies. During the 1920’s Professor Georg Dinges from the University of Saratov was able to prove that the early settlers who had come to the Volga from Saxony had founded six "Wiesenseite" colonies in which their original Saxon dialect was still being spoken after l60 years. He also concluded that in general the people of the "Wiesenseite" were of more mixed origin than were those of the "Bergseite", but that in the Volga colonies as a whole, a Hessian dialect predominated. (8)

Just as an experiment I once took a compass which I placed on a map of Germany using Frankfurt as the focal point and extending the compass south to Heidelberg. By then drawing a circle around Frankfurt I was able to encompass a small part of Baden-Wuerttemberg, a substantial part of the Palatinate, that section of the Rhine from Mannheim in the south to Koblenz in the north, a major part of Hesse, and the northwestern part of Bavaria. The chances are that most Volga Germans have at least a few ancestors who came from this section of Germany.

According to historians, approximately 27,000 emigrants left Germany for the Volga between the years 1763 and 1768. After reaching their destination they succeeded in establishing over one hundred "Mother Colonies". However, so many people died as a result of sickness or bad living conditions during the early years, that in 1769 when the first official census was taken, only 23,109 inhabitants were still alive. Of this number approximately 26% were Roman Catholic in religion and the remainder were Protestant. (9)

Life continued to be extremely difficult throughout the 18th century, but in the course of time conditions began to improve, and eventually the Volga River valley became one of the most important granaries of Europe. Along with better living conditions an amazingly large population increase took place. As a result it became necessary to establish "Daughter Colonies" - usually on the flat "Wiesenseite" steppes stretching eastward to the Ural Mountains. In 1850 emigration to the Caucasus began. It was followed by emigration to Siberia where many Volga Germans established themselves in the neighborhood of Omsk and Akmolinsk.

After 1871 the repeal of the special privileges promised by Catherine, the Great, along with recurrent crop failures, induced large numbers of Volga Germans to leave for North and South America. Here in the United States they settled primarily in Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado. In Canada they can be found in the central prairie provinces, and in South America we hear of them in the Argentinian provinces of Buenos Aires and Entre Rios, as well as in the state of Parana in Brazil. On the other hand, those Volga Germans who remained in their original colonies were deported in 1941 to the northernmost regions of the Arctic Circle, throughout all of Siberia, and to the borders of China and Afghanistan in southern Soviet Asia. One can truthfully say that the entire globe is encircled today by the descendents of that original Group of 23,109 individuals whose nanes were listed in the original Volga German census of 1769.

(WP7, p.35) REFERENCES 1. Bonwetsch. Gerhard, Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien an der Wolga. Stuttgart, Germany: J. Engelhorn Nachf. 1919, p. 26. 2. Waeschke, Hermann, "Deutsche Familien in Russland", in: Roland, Vol. I, 1912, pp. 68-104. On pages 81 to 92 of this article Dr. Waeschke lists the names and place of origin of the 425 individuals (including 225 children) who left Anhalt-Dessau for Russia. He estimates that at least 2,365 people used Rosslau as a "Sammelplatz". Waeschke also gives us the names of 215 couples who were married in Rosslau. However, their place of birth does not appear on the church records. 3. Hoffman, Hermann, "Auswanderung nach Russland im Jahre 1766", in: Mitteilungen der Hessischen Familiengeschichtlichen Vereinigung zu Darmstadt, January, 1927, pp. 109-122. The names and place of birth of the couples married in Buedingen appear in this article. 4. Boeckner-Schlitz, "Auswanderung aus dem Schlitzerland und anderen oberhessischen Gebieten nach Russland im Jahre 1766", in: Heimat im Bild, Giessen, Germany, 1928, No. 7, pp. 147-148. 5. Volz, Jacob, Historical Review of the Balzerer. Lincoln, Nebraska, Boomers Advertising Service, 1938. 6. Esselborn, Karl, "Die Auswanderung von Hessen nach Russland”, in: Heimat im Bild, Giessen. Germany, 1926, Nr. 23, pp.91-92. In this article Dr. Esselborn lists the place of origin of the original inhabitants of Jagodnaja Poljana as based upon the report of Georg Kromm. 7. Keller, Konrad, "Die deutschen Katholischen Kolonien auf der Bergseite der Wolga in Russland", in: Deutsche Erde, 9 (1910), pp. 184-192. Neues Leben is published in' Moscow for the German-speaking citizens of the Soviet Union. The reference to the colony of Preuss can be found on page 7 of the Feb. 4, 1970 issue in an article entitled "In den Tiefen der Urgeschichte. Professor Andreas Dulson zu Ehren." The statistics on Katharinenstadt can be found in an article by Dr. W. Treutlein, "Die ersten Einwanderer in Katharinenstadt a.d. Wolga" which was published in Deutsche Post aus dem Osten, Berlin, Aug.-Sept. 1936, pp. 47-48. 8. Dinges, Georg, "Ueber unsere Mundarten", in: Beitraege zur Heimatkunde des deutschen Wolgagebiets. Pokrowsk, USSR, 1923, pp. 60-73. 9. Cramer, Karl, "Das Deutschtum an der Wolga in zuverlaessigen Zahlen", in: Deutsche Post aus dem Osten, Berlin, July 1937, p.8.

(WP7, p.36) “GERMANS FROM RUSSIA IN WESTERN CANADA" Dr. Adam Giesinger

The western Canadian prairies, in the settlement of which our people played such a prominent role, did not become part of Canada till 1869. In that year the government of Canada purchased this part of North America from the fur-trading Hudson's Bay Company for 300,000 pounds sterling. There were then 12,000 people in southern Manitoba, less than half of them white, and a few thousand Indians scattered over the rest of the vast territory stretching westward to the Rockies. Soon after the Canadian government acquired jurisdiction, it made plans to attract settlers into the region. It decided to imitate the very successful method being used south of the border, which was at this time bringing thousands of immigrants from Europe into the midwestern United States. Our Dominion Lands Act of 1872, like President Lincoln's Homestead Act of 1862, offered 160 acres of free lend to all comers. Widespread advertising and Canadian agents, strategically located, spread the news to the land-hungry peasantry of Europe. Unlike the American effort, however, the Canadian had for a time very little success. There were serious transportation difficulties. We had no transcontinental railway to reach our west till 1885. Immigrants had to come west via the United States and were often easily persuaded to remain south of the border where the climate had a better reputation and civilization was closer at hand. In the meantime, soon after 1870, news had got to Canada through British consular officials in southern Russia that there were in that region first-class farmers of German origin, particularly Mennonites, who were unhappy with a proposed new Russian military service law and were giving serious consideration to leaving the Tsar's empire. In July 1872 the Canadian government sent a German-born Canadian citizen, William Hespeler, to Russia to visit the Mennonites and to offer them Canada as a potential new homeland. Hespeler, born in Baden, Germany in 1831, was prominent in business and government circles in Winnipeg till the early years of the new century, rising to the position of Speaker of the Manitoba Assembly in 1900. Not a Mennonite himself, he remained till his death the special friend and adviser of the Mennonites that he had attracted to Manitoba. His 1872 visit to Russia had immediate results, for Canada and even more for the United States. It brought a delegation of twelve to America in 1873, ten Mannonites end two Hutterites. In the spring of 1873 they visited Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. Early in June they finally came north to Winnipeg. Here they were received by the attorney-general of Manitoba, the most influential member of the government, who welcomed them as Germans and, while toasting the Queen, called their attention to the fact that the British royal house was German. The visitors were conducted about the province by their friend, William Hespeler, and by an Ontario Mennonite, Jacob Schantz, who was to become another great friend of those who accepted the Canadian invitation. Manitoba was not showing its best face just than. It had been an unusually cold and wet spring. Much of the potential farm land which their guides were trying to show them was under water. The land appeared to be swampy. The mosquitoes were plentiful and were biting hard. The visitors’ party even experienced an attack by unfriendly natives. All in all it wasn't a good show. The majority of the delegation turned their backs on Canada and advised their people to settle in the United States. More than ten thousand Russian Mennonites, and the whole of the seven hundred Hutterites, took their advice and found new homes in Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota and Minnesota in the years 1874-80. (WP7, p.37) It is interesting to note that many descendants of these Mennonites moved on to western Canada later on, during the period 1890 to 1914, and that the majority of the Hutterites came in 1918. But that's another story. In 1873 only four members of the Mennonite delegation, representatives of special groups among the Russian Mennonites, opted for Manitoba. They travelled to Ottawa to negotiate settlement conditions for their people. The Canadian government agreed to give them exemption from military service, control of their own schools, compact closed areas for settlement, free passage across the ocean, and other privileges and settlement aid. Some parts of the document containing the promises were far from clear and were to lead to difficulties later. But for the time being the Mennonites were satisfied that they had a good deal. From 1874 to 1879 nearly seven thousand of them came to southern Manitoba. Here they settled in two areas, one southeast of Winnipeg, the so-called East Reserve, the other west of the Red river, near the American border, the West Reserve. There is considerable information available regarding the early days of the Mennonites in Manitoba. Good primary sources are the federal government's immigration reports of that period, the files of the Winnipeg Free Press, then a newly-founded daily newspaper, and various document collections among the Mennonites themselves. Their own historians and interested outsiders have written their story in considerable dstail. Anglo-Canadian historians of our Canadian West have also generally given major attention to this compact, easily visible group of people. There is general agreement that the Mennonites made a significant contribution to the promotion of settlement in Manitoba and the rest of the prairie west. They were the first large group of European settlers to come to western Canada and they were the first to demonstrate that our treeless prairies could be farmed successfully. They prospered quickly and their example drew thousands of others, particularly after the railway came through in the 1880's. Among these others were many of our own people, who played a very prominent role in opening up western Canada. That role was far greater than historians of western Canada generally recognize, while the Mennonites were always easily visible to the Anglo-Canadian, because they were the first foreign settlers in the west, because they had settled together in almost closed areas, and to this day continue to be distinguishable through their religious faith, the rest of the Germans from Russia were never such an easily recognizable group. Although they were a large group by the time the first settlement era ended in 1914, they had not come in large contingents, but gradually, in small groups, over a long period. They settled in many different parts of western Canada, along with Germans from the Hungarian Banat, the Bukovina, Galicia, and the Reich. Religious affiliation rather than country of origin was usually the determining factor in bringing the immigrants together in a particular settlement. Although our people were the most numerous among the German-speaking immigrants, totalling many thousands by 1914, they were not usually sufficiently concentrated in any area, nor sufficiently distinctive from Germans originating in other lands, to be recognizable as a separate group. Often too they were simply classed as Russians. To most Anglo-Canadians, who understood none of the foreign "gibberish" any of the immigrants talked, these Germans were not distinguishable from Russians. If you came from Russia, you had to be a Russian!

(WP7, p.38) The first non-Mennonite Germans from Russia, about five hundred persons in all, came to Manitoba through the 1880's and settled near the Mennonites, their former countrymen. The late 1880’s also saw the first of our people in Saskatchewan. The earliest people of Russian German background in Saskatchewan, who arrived in 1885, came by a somewhat roundabout route. As early as 1842, 26 families from the Protestant Beresan colonies of Waterloo and Johannestal at odds with their fellow-colonists on religious questions (a common occurrence in the life of our people), left Russia to go to the Roumanian Dobruja, then under Turkish rule. In the 1860’s these religious dissidents were joined by 7 families of Baptists from Alt-Danzig on the Ingul River, banished from Russia for over-zealous proselytization. These made converts among the Beresaner and established flourishing congregations of Baptists in the Dobruja. In 1885 some of these Dobruja Baptists came to Saskatchewan, where they founded New Tulcea, later re-named Edenwold north of Regina. Although other Germans, mainly from Bukovina and Galicia, Lutheran in faith, later predominated in Edenwold, the district still has a Baptist congregation, descendants of the founders. A group that arrived the following year, however, was to prove much more significant for the future of Saskatchewan. It consisted of four Catholic families from Josephstal, near Odessa, who arrived in May 1886, and were followed by seven additional families in the fall of the same year. These founded a new Josephstal, a rural village in Russian style, near Balgonie, just east of Regina, remnants of which, grouped around the parish church of St. Joseph, still exist. They were followed by others from the Liebental colonies, and from the Beresan colonies, in 1887, 1889, and throughout the 1890’s. The Beresaner founded three other small rural villages, in the area south of Balgonie: Katharinental (14 colony), Rastatt (7 colony), and , soon united to form the Catholic parish of St. Peter. By 1896 more than 200 Catholic families from the Odessa region had settled in the area east and southeast of Regina. Then started a flood of newcomers from the old land, which was to make Russian German Catholics the largest single group among the Catholics of Saskatchewan. The new arrivals pushed the settlement area eastward and southward of Regina to Vibank, Odessa, Kendal and Sedley. As these areas filled up and the immigrants continued to pour in, they were directed to other parts of Saskatchewan: to the Estevan district in 1901-02; to Allan, southeast of Saskatoon, in 1903; to Holdfast, northwest of Regina, in 1904; and to St. Joseph's colony, west of Saskatoon, after 1905. But the "Doerfle" east of Regina, the oldest settlement, remained a frequent temporary stopping place for German Catholic newcomers from Russia. Here they learned about the way of life in Canada, earned a little money to get established, and acquired the rudiments of special agricultural knowledge needed to farm successfully in the new land. An interesting movement, which began in the 1890’s and became very heavy through the first decade of the new century, was the migration of Russian Germans from the United States to western Canada. It was part of a general movement of Americans to the new frontier north of the border. The lure seems to have been the abundance of free homesteads in the Canadian West when the supply in the States was running low. Again Mennonites were in the forefront. Sons of those who had settled in Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota in the 1870's now moved into Saskatchewan and to a limited extent also into Alberta. Here they met Manitoba Mennonites who were founding daughter settlements to absorb the surplus population of the old Reserves.

(WP7, p.39) In the 1890's the movement was to the Rosthern and Hague districts, north of Saskatoon, after 1900 also to Didsbury, north of Calgary, in Alberta, and to the Herbert and Swift Current districts in southwest Saskatchewan. By 1911 Saskatchewan had almost as many Mennonites (14,400) as Manitoba (15,600) and there was a compact group of 1,500 in Alberta. But Mennonites were not the only Russian Germans who participated in this migration. Many Black Sea and Volga Germans who had settled in the Dakotas in the 1880’s and 1890's also moved northward. Such, for instance, were the earliest settlers in St. Joseph's Colony, a relatively compact area of Russian German settlement near the Alberta border almost due west of Saskatoon. For the most part Black Sea Catholics who had spent a few years in North Dakota, came to Saskatchewan in the years 1905 to 1908, being joined, mainly after 1908, by others coming directly from Russia, including some Catholic Volga Garmans and small groups of Protestants. By 1911 there were five to six thousand Russian Germans in the Colony and settlement was overflowing into the neighboring part of Alberta. Beginning about 1908, the movement of Black Sea Catholics, and some Protestants, both from the United States and from Russia, found another new area to colonize in Saskatchewan, the so-called Happyland district, just south of the South Saskatchewan River, near the Alberta border. By 1914 this had become the third largest settlement of Catholic Russian Germans in Saskatchewan. In Alberta the earliest of our people were Volhynian Germans, who came in the early 1890's. It was a period of particular difficulty for them in Russia. The government of Tsar Alexander III, which was pursuing an anti-German foreign policy, decided to restrict German land-buying in the border province of Volhynia. This forced many of the Germans there to migrate and a significant number of them made western Canada their destination. They tended to settle, not on the open prairies like their Black Sea countrymen, but in wooded areas, more like their homeland, Volhynia. From 1891 to 1894 they founded several settlements south of Edmonton, in Alberta. From 1896 to 1900 they moved also into the Beausejour, Brokenhead and Whitemouth districts in Manitoba. The movement into both areas continued in the first decade of the new century. The settlements mentioned are the oldest and the largest founded by our people in western Canada. There are many scattered smaller settlements, too many to make possible their mention on this occasion. All German groups in Russia are well represented. There were new immigrants again after World War I and more after World War II. A question often asked is "How many Germans from Russia, and their descendants, are there in western Canada?" Nobody knows the answer. It should be relatively easy to find, but in fact is not. We have had a national census every ten years since 1871, with some extra ones in western Canada during the era of settlement. The most recent one was on June 1 of this year. In each census questions such as the following have been asked! 1. Where were you born? 2. If born outside of Canada, what year did you come to Canada? 3. Where were your parents born? 4. What is your mother tongue, i.e. the language first spoken and still understood?

(WP7, p.40) 5. To what ethnic or cultural group did you or your ancestor (on the male side) belong on coming to this continent? 6. What is your religion? If these questions had always been answered correctly, there would be good statistics regarding the numbers of our people in Canada. Unfortunately they were often not answered correctly. Sometimes the wrong answers resulted from the invincible ignorance of the census taker, who assumed that he knew the answers when he actually did not. An Anglo-Canadian taking the census, and in earlier days it was always an Anglo-Canadian who did such jobs, was often quite sure that these people were Russians and didn't need to ask them. Later on another factor played a large role, the vicious hate campaign against Germans during the first World War caused many of our people to become reticent about their German background and to call themselves Russians or Dutch or something else that was more popular than German. Here’s an example of an obvious switch in ethnic allegiance. From their first arrival in Manitoba in the 1870’s to the beginning of the war in 1914, Manitoba Mennonites called themselves Germans. In the 1911 census, for instance, the West Reserve in southern Manitoba had 10,618 persons of Mennonite faith, 11,292 persons of German ethnic origin and 214 of Dutch origin. By 1921, when there were 12,374 persons of Mennonite faith in this same area, there were only 459 Germans and the number of Dutch had risen to 11,785. There had been no emigration nor immigration of any significance. Persecution during the war had made these people re-think their ethnic origin, There are cases in which it seems fairly obvious that the census taker’s decision played the major role. Here's an example. In the Rural Municipality of Fox Valley in the Happyland district of Saskatchewan, in which the population is predominantly our people, the census of 1931 shows 30 Germans and 1,298 Russians; that of 1941 shows 1,495 Germans and no Russians at all. The second census taker knew what they were, the first one did not, although he probably assumed that he did. Carefully read, our census statistics can yield much useful information. It is relatively easy, for instance, to discover the areas in which our people are numerous. You look for areas in which the census shows Germans and Russians but almost no one of Orthodox faith. To illustrate, two municipalities in the Regina Census District in 1921 showed the following: the Rural Municipality of Lajord had 398 Germans and 302 Russians but only 1 person of Orthodox faith; and the Rural Municipality of Sarnia had 619 Germans end 562 Russians, with only 2 of Orthodox faith. In both cases the Russians and most of the Germans are our people. One has to be cautious, however, in this kind of interpretation of census statistics. The Rural Municipality of Blaine Lake, north of Saskatoon, in 1931 showed 187 Germans and 1,252 Russians, with only 81 of Orthodox faith. This looks like one of ours, but it is not. The Russians here are mainly Doukhobors, people who are ethnic Russians but are not of Orthodox faith. They are settled in two areas of Saskatchewan. Obviously, to interpret the statistics correctly, one has to know something of the settlement patterns in western Canada.

(WP7, p.41) Clearly, there are difficulties in determining, from the available census statistics, the numbers of our people in western Canada. In most settlement areas the Germans from Russia are inextricably intermingled with Germans from other lands. The census counts some of them among the Germans, others among the Russians or the Dutch or occasionally among the Poles (the Volhynians) or the Roumanians (the Bsssarabians). Some have been completely assimilated into the dominant English-speaking majority and deny or do not know their origin. Is the problem then insoluble? By no means. Much can be accomplished by careful research. It is to be hoped that such research will materialize, that our young people will become interested in their pioneering forefathers. At the moment we are forced to rely on estimates, based on a variety of assumptions. It is probable, although it has not been demonstrated with statistics, that the Germans from Russia in western Canada and their descendants now total about 250,000.

(WP7, p.42) "THE FOUNDING OF THE GERMAN COLONIES IN THE UKRAINE,

CRIMEA, BESSARABIA, AND CAUCASIA"

Colonel Theodore C. Wenztaff

In the history of mankind, whenever a land area is opened to settlement under reasonably suitable conditions, there are always daring pioneers ready and willing to move in to start a new life, even under the most adverse conditions. One needs only to consider the history of our own Middle West which was settled in a few short years following the Civil War, even before the Indians had been fully subdued. There are always good reasons to prompt pioneers to seek new fields, be they economical, political, religious or personal, or a combination of those reasons. Hopes for better conditions and new opportunities, hopes for sudden wealth or perhaps just a wanderlust and love of adventure may provide motives for persons to leave their homeland to settle in a new land.

Thus, when Catherine II issued her famous manifesto in 1763 with its alluring inducements for foreigners to settle along the Volga River in Central Russia, we have seen with what eager response thousands of Germans left their homeland for all time to begin a new life in an isolated, underdeveloped region where lawless nomadic bands ravaged and pillaged. (1) The settlement of German colonists in Russia did not end with the colonies along the Volga. Rather, these were just the beginning, because simultaneously with the Volga-German settlements, colonies in the northern part of the Ukraine, east of the Dnieper River, were established. In order to put the German settlements in the Ukraine into proper perspective, it is necessary at this point to give a very brief description and some of the history of the Ukraine in South Russia. The Ukraine borders on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov on the south and extends northward for about 400 miles and measures about 600 miles across from east to west at its widest part. It comprises a land area of some 171,000 square miles, which is more than twice the size of Nebraska.

(1) George J. Eisenach, Pietism and the Russian Germans in the United States (Borne, Ind.: Borne Publishers, 1946), p. 17. From 1764 to 1768, 104 German colonies, with a total population of 23,019, were established along the Volga River.

(WP7, p.43) Tho Dnieper River, running generally north and south, empties into the Black Soa and very nearly divides the Ukraine into two equal parts. The whole of the Ukraine formed part of the Polish-Lithuanian Empire when the portion east of the Dnieper River was ceded to Russia in 1667 after an eight-year Russo-Polish war in which Russia emerged the victor. (1) The earliest German settlements in East Ukraine were the Bolowesch colonies founded in 1765 and 1766. These colonies were established near Tschernigow by Germans coming from Hesse and the Rhinelands. There followed then the Evangelical German colony of Kronsgarten founded in 1780 by immigrants from Wuerttemberg and the Evangelical Swedish colony of Alt~Schwedendorf in 1782. Immigrants from Wuerttemberg and Prussia founded the Evangelical colonies of Josefstal in 1784, Alt-Danzig, west of the Dnieper in 1786, and Fischerdorff, also known as Rybalshi, in 1789. The Catholic colony of Jamburg was founded in 1792. (2) The first of the larger groups to settle in East Ukraine were the Monnonites from Danzig, West Prussia, who, in order to better their condition established 10 colonies in the Chortitza area along the Dnieper River in 1789 and 1790. (3) All of the colonies just mentioned were established during the reign of Catherine II, who died in 1796. Before her death, ever alert to extending her empire, she participated along with Prussia and Austria in the three partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795. Poland during the 1700's had weakened to such an extent that she became an easy prey to her land-hungry neighbors, who divided the entire country among themselves in the three partitions. Catherine, at the second partition in 1793, appropriated to her empire the entire western half of the Ukraine lying between the Dnieper and Dniester rivers, the Dniester running along the western border of the Ukraine. (4)

Upon the death of Catherine in 1796, her son Paul ascended the throne, but little or no colonization took place during his short reign. When Czar Paul died in 1801, his son Alexander was crowned as Czar Alexander I, later to become known as "the Well-Beloved". A new era of colonization was ushered in with his decree of February 20, 1804. This decree was similar to Catherine's manifesto except that it stipulated that colonists must be qualified to serve as models for farming occupations and handicrafts, that colonists must be the heads of families and that they

(1) Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 22 (Chicago, Ill., Benton, Publisher, 1964), p.666. (2) Karl Stumpp, Die Russlanddeutschen (Freilassung, Bavaria: Pannonia-Verlag, 3rd ed., 1966); translation by Joseph S. Height, The German-Russians (New York: Edition Atlantic-Forum, 1967), pp. 13, 18, 19. (3) Ibid., pp. 13, 18, 19. (4) Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 22, p. 666.

(WP7, p.44) must possess property in cash or goods worth not less than 300 . (1) It must be presumed that this represented a considerable sum of money at that time because some families had to sell all their goods and chattels to raise the required amount. (2) Czar Alexander’s decree also differed from Catherine’s manifesto in another important detail in that the land was allotted to individual families for their hereditary use and profit under Alexander's docree, whereas under Catherine's manifesto the land was allotted to a community and periodically reapportioned among the male members of the colony. (3) As Bonaparte of France was ravaging Europe at that time with his conquests, with devastation and famine wide-spread, the response to Czar Alexander's decree was phenomenal, and extensive colonization by Germans occurred throughout the Ukraine beginning in the year the decree was issued--1804. In the Odessa District of the Ukraine, between the Dniester River on the west and the Bug River on the east, 33 mother colonies were founded from 1804 to 1824 by Germans coming from Wuerttemberg, the Rhine Palatinate, Baden and Alsace. Some 59 daughter colonies were also established in the district during the settlement years. (4) It might be well to mention here that mother colonies are defined as primary colonies founded by settlers coming directly from their homelands outside of Russia, whereas daughter colonies were secondary colonies established by colonists already living in Russia. Principal settlement districts in the Odessa District were the Gluckstal, Kutschurgans Grossliebental and Beresan districts. It might be of interest to note that Dr. Karl Stumpp was born in 1896 in the German colony of Alexanderhilf near Odessa in the Grossliebental settlement district. In that part of the Ukraine east of the Bug Rivers the 17 colonies founded during Catharine's time grew to a total of around 110 mother colonies and some 272 daughter colonies.(5) Two of the principal settlement districts were the Mennonite districts of Chortitza on the Dnieper River and the Halbstadt district east of the Molotschna River. The other principal settlement districts there were the Prischib district west of the Molotschna River and the "Planer" or Plan colonies near Mariupol, so-called, because the villages were all laid out according to a distinct plan. (6) The Mennonites immigrated from West Prussia, and the other colonists came from Wuerttemberg, Prussia, Hesse, Baden, the Rhine Palatinate and Alsace – generally, from all parts of Germany. (7)

(1) Stumpp or Height, op. cit., p. 11. (2) Andreas Mergenthaler, "Deutschen Bauern im Schwarzmeergebiet und ihre kolonisatorischen Leistungen”, Heimatbuch der Deutschen aus Russland (Stuttgart, Die Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland, 1956), p.84 et seq. (3) Stumpp or Height, op. cit., p.24. (4) Heimatbuch der Deutschen aus Russland, 1954, pp. 132-34 (5) Sources for figures are the following: Stumpp or Height, op. cit., pp. 14, 25; Heimatbuch 1954, pp. 132-141, 145-l47; Heimatbuch, 1957, pp. 232-246. (6) Mergenthaler, op. cit., pp. 84 et seq. (7) Stumpp or Height, op. cit., p. 13.

(WP7, p.45) Mention can be made in passing of the colonies in the Crimean Peninsula, though not a part of the Ukraine. This relatively small area belonged to Turkey for many centuries but in 1774 Catherine the Great forced Turkey to rocognise it as independent, and soon after, in 1783, she annexed it to the Russian Empire. (1) Seven mother colonies were established there from 1804 to 1813 by colonists coming from Wuerttemberg, Alsace and Switzerland. Later some 153 daughter colonies were established on the peninsula. (2) Thus, in the Ukraine and the Crimea, there were a total of 150 mother colonies founded and some 484 daughter colonies. The reason for the establishment of so many daughter colonies was the great wealth of children in the individual families. In general, a German colonist family had from five to nine children with the result that a large number of landless youths gradually grew up in the German villages, becoming a burden on the community. In order to correct this situation, a community would buy or rent land outside the community, which usually was available from the Russian nobility and other absentee large landowners, settling those without land thereon. As a rule, the rented land could be acquired by purchase in a relatively short time, the tenants then becoming proprietors of landed estates in their own right. (3) Various communities also raised money for the purchase of new land through a form of self-taxation. So-called "Money Chests to Buy New Land" were set up into which each farmer had to pay a certain sum of money and when the need arose, the money would provide the sum necessary to purchase land for those sons without land. In this manner, new daughter colonies emerged from out of the original settlement districts, sometimes embracing extensive areas in far- off places after the local areas had been fully colonized. Thus it was that the entire Black Sea area was colonized and after that the Don River region to the east, the North Caucasus east of the Black Sea and later West Siberia, Middle Asia and the Far East. (4) As rented land was readily acquired by purchase, as was mentioned, many colonists became proprietors of landed estates, some of which took on huge dimensions. To mention just a few of the colonists with large estates, those whose estates measured from 2,000 acres to some over 65,000 acres in size, there were the following: Lustig, Lorer, Braun, Pfeifer, Bosler, Lutz, Gloeckler, Noos, Schulz, Rauch, Hoffmann, Fischer, Prieb, Strom, and Ochsner. Among the Mennonites, there were reputed to be around 390 landowners with a combined landownership of over 800,000 acres. This figures out to bo an avarage of over 2,000 acres each. (5) Without question, the largest landowner and the wealthiest of all colonists in Russia was the German pioneer, Friedrich Falz-Fein. His father came to Russia from Wuerttemberg in 1763 and bore the simple name

(1) Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 6, p. 758. (2) Stumpp or Height, op. cit., p. 13; Heimatbuch 1954, pp. 142-145. (3) Mergenthaler, op. cit., pp. 84 et seq. (4) Ibid., p. 84 et seq. (5) Ibid., p. 84 et seq.

(WP7, p.46) of Fein. He was not carried on the rolls of any village, but settled as a "free colonist" on the Molotschna River near Melitopol in East Ukraine. It was his son Friedrich, who, through purchase of landed estates through the years, built up a landownership of some 500,000 acres, or about 770 square miles. (1) This is about the same size as the Waggoner Ranch in Texas, which, covering more than 500,000 acres in six counties, is believed to be the largest ranch operating as a single ranching unit in Texas, if not in all the United States. (2) Friedrich Fein had only one daughter, who married a respected sheep raiser and wool expert by the name of Johann Gottlieb Pfalz, and out of respect for his son-in-law, the family took the double name Falz-Fein. (3) The story is told that Friedrich Fein once visited the agricultural exposition in Budapest, making part of the trip on a Danube River steamboat. There he came upon a group of Hungarian sheep raisers who were talking shop in learned terms about wool, sheep and shepherds. When Fein entered into the conversation, relating some of his experiences, one of the Hungarian sheep raisers suggested that he should not speak among such a distinguished group of expert and large sheep raisers. To this Fein replied casually that he owned more sheep dogs to watch his flocks than all the Hungarian gentlemen together owned sheep. (4) Friedrich Fein raised horses, cattle, sheep and goats on an extensive scale besides the usual cultivated crops. The Askania-Nowa Estate, over 50,000 acres in size, where he made his headquarters, won world renown for its Royal, Merino and Karakul sheep breeds and for its zoological garden. The zoo obtained birds and animals from all parts of the world and furnished many of these as gifts to the Berlin zoo. Besides Askania-Nowa, the Falz-Fein family owned many industrial plants which processed fruit, vegetables, meat and fish. These plants furnished the entire Russian Army with its requirements of meat products. The Chorly Peninsula on the Black Sea belonged to the Falz-Fein family, and they also owned quays, docks, warehouses, tug boats, passenger and freight steamboats, a fishing fleet and an oyster-processing plant. By 1914, the landownership of the family grew to over 675,000 acres, or over 1,000 square miles, on which several thousand horses and cattle and over 800,000 sheep were maintained. (5) The next Black Sea settlement area to be considered is Bessarabia, lying just west of the Ukraine. Bessarabia is a strip of land bordering on the Black Sea and the Danube River on the south and lying between the Dniester and Pruth Rivers. Russia and Turkey fought many wars over a period of 350 years with Bessarabia the bone of contention in many of them, but after Russia won the war with Turkey lasting from 1806 to 1812, and she had acquired Bessarabia by the Treaty of Bucharest, she promptly annexed the

(1) A. Prinz, “Die Familie v. Falz-Fein”, Heimatbuch, 1957, p. 84. (2) Article, Hastings Daily Tribune, Hastings, Nebraska, May 28, 1971. (3) Prinz, op. cit., p. 85. (4) Ibid., p.85. (5) Mergenthaler, op. cit., p. 84 et seq.

(WP7, p.47)

(WP7, p.48) country to the Russian Empire. (1) By 1813, the country was purged of Turks and Tatars, leaving areas in southern Bessarabia almost totally uninhabited, Czar Alexander then invited colonists to settle in the uninhabited areas of southern Bessarabia, and his invitation was directed not only to Germans in Germany proper, but also to Germans living in Poland. (2) When one considers the history of the Germans living in Poland at that time one can see that the common poeple are but pawns in the great game of chess that kings and queens and the rulers of powerful nations play. Mention was made earlier that Prussia, Austria and Russia partitioned off Poland among themselves in 1772, 1793 and 1795. At each partition, Prussia acquired certain land areas from Poland, adding the lands so acquired to Prussia, Frederick the Great, King of Prussia at the first partition, established the precedent for Prussia by inviting Germans to settle on the newly-acquired Polish lands after each partition. In order to better their conditions German settlers from all parts of Germany as well as Prussia readily accepted the invitation, moving to Poland where, through diligence and efficiency, they became prosperous farmers. (3) Emperor Napoleon of France now came on the scene, defeating Prussia in a war of 1806- 1807. Napoleon, thereupon, restored much of the Polish territory to independence under the name of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, returning Polish emigees from foreign countries, displacing the German settlers in the area. The German settlers, hated and despised by the Poles, were reduced to a state of poverty, with no hope for the future. It was small wonder, then, that the invitation of Czar Alexander I to settle in Bessarabia came as a God-send for them to escape from their present dilemma, and many made immediate preparations for the long overland journey. (4) Thus it was that of the 25 mother colonies founded in Bessarabia between 1814 and 1842, more than half of them numbered Germans from Poland among the founders along with other Germans from Wuertenberg, Prussia and Bavaria. Some 100 daughter colonies were also established in Bessarabia. (5) Another Black Sea area settled by German colonists was Caucasia, the vast mountainous area lying bettween the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and bordering on Turkey and Persia (Iran) on the south. Russian interests in Caucasia began in the l7th century when Caucasian rulers on several occasions asked for Russian help against their enemies, but Czar Peter the Great (1672-1725) was the first to take advantage of the opportunities thus afforded to take possession of Caucasian territory. He occupied Derbent in 1722 and Baku in 1723, both being ports on the Caspian Sea. Catherine the Great later sent troops across the Caucasus Mountains

(1) Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 3, pp. 546, 547. (2) Otto Lehmann, Sr., "Chronik der Gemeinde Alt-Elft, Bassarabien, 1816-1940”, in “Alt-Elft”, Heimat in Wort und Bild, (Verlag Heilbronnier Stimme, (1968), p. 12. (3) Ibid., pp. 11, 12. (4) Ibid., p. 12. (5) Stumpp or Height, op. cit., pp. 13, l6.

(WP7, p.49)

(WP7, p.50) into Trans-Caucasia (South Caucasia), taking possession of the city of Kutaisi in 1770. By 1785, all the northern region of Caucasia was declared a Russian province, and Georgia in South Caucasia, of which Tiflis is the capital, was absorbed by Russia in 1801. (1)

Though no mother colonies were founded in North Caucasia some 150 or more daughter colonies were established there. (2) The founding of the Trans-Caucasian colonies in the south presents an interesting history. At the beginning of the 19th century, there was a group of Swabians in Wuerttemberg who believed in chiliasm, that is, that Christ is to reign on earth for one thousand years as mentioned in Revelation 20. They further believed that the return of Christ would take place in 1836 and that the place of His return would be Mount Zion in Jerusalem. Their chiliastic beliefs were so strong that they determined to migrate as close to Mount Zion as possible in order to await Christ’s return and the establishment of His earthly theocracy. Since Jerusalem was in Turkey at that time which country was closed to immigration, they decided to migrate to South Caucasia, the closest place to Jerusalem possible for them to settle. (3) Though most of the German colonists in migrating to Russia traveled in long caravans by road, there were some who made the trip to Russia in small houseboats down the Danube River from Ulm, Germany, through Vienna, Budapast and Belgrade, on down to Ismail or Galati near the mouth of the river, and from there by road to Odessa. The Swabian chiliasts decided to make the trip to Russia by way of the Danube. The first group left in 18l6, followed by the big emigration in 1817. Without experience and without adequate preparation for the long trip, they suffered untold hardships on the over-crowded little boats and especially so in quarantine in Ismail where they experienced frightful privation, hunger and fever. According to one report, of 1,500 emigrants, 800 died before arriving at their winter camp near Odessa. (4) Nothing could deter the majority of the Swabian Zionists, however, from continuing their journey to Caucasia, and to their credit, they finally succeeded in founding six mother colonies around Tiflis in 1817 and 1818 in accordance with their intentions, later adding some 22 daughter colonies there. (5) Others, however, remained in tho Odessa area where they founded Hoffnungsta1 in the Odessa District and Toplitz in Bessarabia at about the same time. (6) In conclusion, we have seen that, beginning in 1765, some 181 mother colonies and upwards of over 800 daughter colonies were established in the Russian provinces surromiding the Black Sea. At the same time, innumerable

(1) Encycolopaedia Britannica, Vol. 5, p. 99. (2) Karl Stumpp, Karte der deutschen Siedlungen im Nord- u. Suedkaukasus, 1960. (3) Friedrich Fiechtner, Merkwerdige und vollstaendige Reisebeschreibung (Stuttgart: Landsmannschaft der Bessarabiendeutschen, 1970), p. 5. (4) Ibid., pp. 5, 6. (5) Heimatbuch, 1964, p. 147. (6) Fiechtner, op. cit. p. 6. (WP7, p.51) landed estates, many of which took on large dimensions, were established by enterprising colonists. Numerically, the German colonists in the Black Sea areas grew from around 50,000 in 1825 to around 600,000 in 1914 despite the exodus of many thousands beginning in 1872. (1) Schools and churches accompanied this tremendous growth with German newspapes, magazines and church calendars appearing after the early pioneering years. To borrow a modern slang phrase, the German colonists in Russia "never had it so good". Good things do not always last, and neither did the colonial settlements in Russia. When their special privileges were abrogated and Russification programs were imposed on them despite the irrefutable promises of Catherine the Great and Alexander the Well-Beloved, a steady decline began in 1871, culminating finally in the complete obliteration of the once-flourishing villages and estates. Despite this tragic ending, there are hundreds of thousands of the descendants of those hardy colonists living on as respected and honorable citizens in other lands and of newly- adopted countries. That is another long story, but those of us here in the United States can be especially thankful that our ancestors had the foresight to choose this country after Russia bacame unwelcome to them there.

(1) Mergenthaler, op. cit., p. 84 et seq.

(WP7, p.52) REPORT OF FINANCE AND PLANNING COMMITTEE

Chairman: Jerry Lehr

Mr. President, Honored Guests, Members of the Board, Members of the Society and friends: In May of this year, the Finance and Planning Committee made nine recommendations to the Board. I would like to read them to you.

1. That starting on January 1, 1972, all membership dues shall be a minimun of $10 per year: i.e. family or individual. 2. That the International Board mail to all members three Work Papers and three news letters for the next year, alternating same so as to have a mailing for all members every two months. 3. That we publicize our dues structure and encourage upgrading memberships under each category: Supporting, $25; Contributing, $50; Sustaining, $100. 4. Stress dateline of our fiscal year, January 1 to December 31. 5. The Finance Committee shall consist of one member from each AHSGR affiliate, this member to be elected by the affiliate, and five members appointed by the President of AHSGR. These appointed members will be from the area of the International Headquarters. The President will be an ex-officio member of the committee. It will be necessary to have five committee members present at a meeting in order to have a quorum. This committee shall be reponsible for setting up a functional budget each year and for handling other financial matters.

6. In addition to the annual International Convention meeting, the Board of Directors shall institute another meeting during the year with representatives from all the Chapters of AHSGR. At the same time, when the Board of Directors meet, a Finance Committee meeting shall also be held. This meeting will include the committee members elected by each AHSGR affiliate. The time and place of the meeting will be established by the Board of Directors, and shall be outside the headquarters state—Colorado.

7. That the International Board of Directors establish a Memorial Fund which will encourage our members to make donations of monies in memory of their loved ones. We suggest these proceeds be used by AHSGR to preserve our heritage.

8. That the Finance Committee act as a group to assist in coordinating all projects related to the procurement and expenditures of monies.

9. That the Finance Committee meet on call of the Chairman preceding the International Board of Directors meetings. These recommendations were made to pick up the loose ends of the funding of this Society. To date, we have been able to pay the bills as presented. We are at the stage where we can no longer operate on a

(WP7, p.53) hand-to-mouth basis. Many important things in our Society are not being done because of the lack of funds. To date, the work of the Society has been freely, generously, and unstintingly given by many people. Therefore, we must relieve this burden by hiring a full-time secretary. In the near future, we must have an executive director to assist our President. I know of no nice way to ask for money. We need your generous contributions. A budget will be presented to the Board of Directors for their approval. Planning needs to be started for next year. We have had some excellent ideas projected for the immediate future which will be recommended to the new Board. For possibly a year from now, an executive director should probably be appointed and charged with certain responsibilities for the conduct of the daily operation of the Society. Continual planning is necessary for ways and means of achieving those goals as set forth by the By-laws of the Society. Planning, including building plans for an International repository, should be started soon. A Building Committee should be appointed and charged with the responsibility of building this building in the near future. After we have preserved our Heritage, we need to plan for the future—10 to 15 years from now. Where do we then channel our efforts?

We need plans for fund drives in the future—the very near future! In closing I would like to quote from a mailing which my wife and I received from the Colorado Outwardbound School: "Of all resources, the most crucial is Man's Spirit. Not dulled, nor lulled, supine, secure, replete, does man create, But out of stern challenge...." I would like to submit to the members of this Society that our people have created out of stern challenges. Our forefathers have met many stern challenges. Our people today are meeting stern challenges in every country, under every kind of government, under all kinds of conditions. Our children are faced with stern challenges today. Our grandchildren will be faced with them tomorrow. I, for one, have faith in our people. Faith in our Heritage and our History. We will meet those stern challenges and we will create. We will climb our mountains all over the world because we march to the beat of our own special drums. Exciting days are ahead for this Society. It has been my extreme pleasure and privilege to serve. Thank you.

(WP7, p.54) Genealogy Report

Now that summer vacations, summer visitors and summer activities are over for another year we can set aside some time again each week for working on our family history research. I suggest that you get out your notebook and read over the information you have, making notes of what data you still need, and where you might write for it. Sometimes reviewing what we have already recorded and reading over old notes and letters leads to fresh ideas and renewed enthusiasm for the fascinating hunt to find lost ancestors! In this issue I am delighted to introduce to you two new members of our AHSGR Genealogy committee whose contributions ought to assist both the beginners and the more experienced. They are Mr. Phil Letter of Denver and Anaheim, California and Prof. Ray Heidt of Logan, Utah.

For those of you who couldn’t attend the 1971 AHSGR Convention last June and missed Mr. Kermit Karn's excellent workshop on BEGINNING YOUR GENEALOGY RESEARCH we have Prof. Ray Heidt's article on HOW TO CLIMB YOUR FAMILY TREE. I hope Prof. Heidt’s enthusiastic approach inspires more of you to take up this enjoyable pastime. The forms he mentions can be ordered from The Everton Publishers, 526 North Main Street, Logan, Utah 84321. I can send you their latest catalog of books and forms if you will send me a stamped, self-addressed long envelope. Another very helpful discussion at one of the workshops was given by Mr. Legler on how to get results when we write for information. Since much of our search for information has to be accomplished by letters we need to to know how to write for what we want to know. I asked Mr. Legler to share his experiences with you. Phil also contributed the handy checklist, Guide to Beginning Research. Keep it in your notebook for quick reference of where to look for the different types of records. Many of you were looking over the list of the First Immigrants from Germany To The Volga Colony Of Balzer which was compiled from Jacob Voltz’s HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE BALZERER, July 1938, which Mr. Legler displayed at the convention. Those of you with ancestors born in Balzer ought to find this list helpful. If you would like to have a copy of the English edition of Mr. Voltz’s article you can order a 10-page copy for $1.50 to cover the cost of printing and mailing. The article gives a short history of why the colonists left for the Volga, a list of the original colonists, description and the location of Balzer, the Church and Schools, Ministers, the commercial standing and the emigration to America. Gerda S. Walker

(WP7, p.55) "WRITING TO RELATIVES AND OTHERS"

Inasmuch as letter writing is the backbone of doing genealogical research, I wonder if we present ourselves to others in a manner which results in answers to all our letters. How many times have you written a letter regarding your immediate research problem and not received an answer? Did you stop to analyze if you might have been at fault in the presentation of your immediate problem? Were you concise and to the point? Or, did you go off on a tangent and. "ramble all around"? No one likes to read a book to learn just what point you are trying to put across. Long rambling requests most often receive a very cool reception and oft-times end up in the waste basket unanswered. Do not let this happen to yours! Most of us are busy, and often do not have the time to read lengthy letters; so be short, concise and to the point in your requests of others. The letters you send are your ambassadors. You are evaluated by what is in the letter - how it is presented.. So write in such a way as to present yourself in the best possible light. It must be neat, attractive, and generate enthusiasm while at the same time be friendly, respectful and cooperative. The reply you receive will depend upon how you have presented yourself. Writing to relatives should be no different than writing to public officials. Be courteous and polite. If they know the answer, they are doing you a favor by imparting it to you. When their answer arrives, do not fail to follow through with a "thank you" note. So many of us fail in this small courtesy. In all letters when you are making a request, do not fail to enclose your self- addressed, stamped envelope for the convenience of a reply. I have found that when writing to "aged" persons, it confuses them less to ask your questions on a separate sheet of paper, leaving space between each question for their answers. Besides, it helps to expedite the answer. Another "don’t" is - Do not ask for too much information in one letter; it often overwhelms a person. They will lay it aside to answer when they have more time and there it will lay until it eventually gets tossed away. Above all, NEVER, NEVER say, "I am doing genealogy research on _____ family, please send me all you have." You might be writing to a person who has done research for a number of years and could not possibly send you everything. So, be concise and to the point in asking for just what you want to further your family group sheet or pedigree chart. You might find the following seven "C's" will help you to obtain the best results in your genealogical letters:

1. CLEAN in appearance - do not use scratch paper; use a good-quality white paper; type if possible, but if you cannot, use black or blue-black ink and write in a legible hand. 2. CORRECT in composition. Know your problem and use proper punctuation and letter form. 3. CLEAR in expression. Make your letter understandable. 4. COURTEOUS in manner. Be polite, bearing in mind they are doing you a favor in replying. 5. CONSIDERATE in tone. Make your letters warm with personality. 6. CONCISE. One never likes to read a book to learn your research problem when a few words to the point will speak volumes, 7. COMPLETE in thought. A name, a time and place are very essential for an effective genealogy letter. Analyze your research problem and consider the information you need to complete what is already known about it.

(WP7, p.56) " HOW TO CLIMB YOUR FAMILY TREE " ' by Professor Ray Heidt Utah State University Logan, Utah

At one time genealogy was considered a sport for kings—or at least for those of noble birth. This is no longer the case as the descendants of the butcher, the baker, and candle-stick maker, are all busily climbing their family tree. I began efforts on my tree about ten years ago, have found only farmers and laborers (one roofer) and am more interested than ever. In fact, I am prouder of my peasant progenitors, all simple, religious people (both Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran) than I would be of certain kings and nobles. In Workpaper #4 Landsmann Karns made some excellent suggestions on getting started in climbing your family tree. In this article I would like to pass on some additional information that I have learned the hard way. The place to start is with yourself. The two forms that Mr. Karns mentioned as being published by Everton Publishing Company here in Logan are an absolute necessity—they are standardized, printed, cheap, and, comprehensive. The Family Group Sheet was reproduced and shows vital information for husband, wife and children. The Pedigree Chart was not given but it is a very simple form which organizes your ancestry for four generations. First, make a Family Group Sheet (FGS) for yourself. Secondly, an FGS for your parents as well as your wife's. Third, complete a Pedigree Chart (PC) on your lines as far back as you have information. Then, more FGS for the persons on your PC. At some point in the process you are going to write letters. There are two classes of letters—to relatives, and to formal organizations such as parish priests, county clerks or genealogical organizations. Some pointers on letter writing. To relatives: 1. Make the letter friendly and not too businesslike. 2. Establish your relationship. 3. Say what you are doing, "Collecting the family history", "Climbing the family tree". 4. Try to pass on your own enthusiasm. 5. Ask for only one thing per letter, preferably in your first letter ask for something simple—for instance, ask them to fill and return a FGS. 6. Unless writing to someone you know well, always send a stamped, self- addressed envelope. Make it hard for them to say no.

(WP7, p.57) To formal organizations: 1. Address your request to the highest appropriate officer. There is a certain psychology to having the county clerk give your letter to the assistant county clerk and say "take care of this." 2. Be clear, say what you want and don't ramble. 3. Include as much information as you have on that point. 4. Don't ask for too much at one time. 5. Include payment. One dollar for a photo-copy, five dollars if someone has to do some digging—ten dollars for a lot of digging. If it involves a lot of work ask for a quotation but still send some "serious" money—priests and clerks are busy people and genealogists do it for a living. Hopefully, by this time you have located some or all of your German ancestors who came to America from Russia. You already know what it took me five years to find out—that there are records available on our ancestors. These records are much more complete for the Black Sea and Bessarabian groups than for the others. Below I will talk about the Black Sea immigrants because that is where my family came from and with which I am most familiar. If your emigrating ancestor came from one of the other areas of settlement (viz., Bessarabia, Volga, Volhynia, St. Petersburg, and Siberia) you should contact one of the Society's Genealogical Committee--particu1ar1y Mrs. Gerda Walker who is especially knowledgeable in this area—for assistance. You first need to locate the ancestral village in Russia. In my case, I knew my grandfather (Joseph Heidt) had been born in Landau and his father (Cristian Heidt) in Speyer, and that Cristian's father's name was Mendel. Having the name of person and place—along with an approximate date—you should consult one or both of two records. The first, is the Auswanderung Liste of Dr. Karl Stumpp. You can find this in four parts in Dr. Stumpp's Heimatbucher nos. 61, 62, 63, and 64. I consulted these Heimatbucher in the Stanford University library. If a copy is not available to you, consult with the Genealogical Committee as I understand they have a copy of the list as well as the Heimatbucher. I found Wendel Heidt listed as an immigrant from Leimersheim, Rheinpfalz, Germany, to Speyer, Russia, in 1809. Along with Wendel Heidt were listed several others that I later identified as his father, mother, brother and uncle. The second source to consult is the set of census records in the possession of Dr. Joseph S. Height, 1221 East Adams Dr, Franklin, Indiana 46131. This source will identify persons, locate them in a certain place as of the date of the census, and give an approximate age for each person. It is especially valuable as persons are grouped in family units when appropriate and this will often inform you of other relatives as well as the parents of the ancestor in question and—if you didn't know this before— will start you out in an appropriate direction as well as add a new ancestor to your records. I also have lists of civil-state archives that would require too much space to reproduce here. If you desire a particular state or province write to me and I will give you what I have on it. Mrs. Walker informs me that she has donated a copy of Dr. H. F. Frederick's "How to Find My German Ancestors and Relatives" to the Society's collection in the Greeley Public Library. This was not written with German-Russians in mind, however, as I recall it does list some organizations to write to for help in German ancestral research, that would be of help once you were back in Germany with your research.

(WP7, p.58) Whenever you write, state your problem clearly giving all the information you have and specifically ask for what you want. If your problem is not too large send an initial sum of money— if extensive research might be required ask for a quotation. The information available is largely census records and, of course, Dr. Stumpp's marvelous record of the original emigrants from Germany to Russia. With any luck you will be able to trace your line to one of these original emigrants and thusly back into Germany. I have traced all of my lines through Russia back to Germany, save one (Johann Hirschkorn from Poland), and I have my Heidt line back to 1671in Herxheim. This might not impress some people but when I consider that I started out not even knowing for sure that my ancestors came from Russia--I'm very happy with the results. It can be done!! Now that you are back in Germany—what next? You must now deal with professional genealogists. The suggestions made above apply here, especially the sending of money. The German genealogists I have dealt with are very professional, competent, thorough, honest—and must make a living at it. The first step, however, costs no money. Write to a German Genealogical Society, state your problem and ask for suggestions. (A list of such societies is appended). In my own case I wrote to the Pfalzische Society in Ludwigshafen; they checked my ancestors in their central card file, sent me about ten new names from this file free and gave the names of professional genealogists working in the specific towns indicated. Great service! I assume that they all work in a more or less similar manner--I would appreciate hearing of your experiences in this regard as I have made several recommendations to people and if there are any problems I would like to have it reflected in my list. You are now off and running! To summarize: Start with yourself and work backwards. First, out of the United States (or Canada) into Russia and then out of Russia, back into Germany. Work with the standard forms, they're worth the small cost. Happy tree climbing!!

Ray Heidt APPENDIX

List of German Genealogical Societies

GENERAL: Deutsch Arbeitsgemeinschaft genealogischer Verbande, D 4500 Osnabruck, Schloss-strasse 29. Zentrallstelle Fuer Personen- und Familiengeschichte, D 6000 Frankfurt 50, Dehnhardstr. 32. Der Herold, Verein fuer Heraldik und Genealogie, D 1000 Berlin 33, Archivstr. 12-14. Bund der Familienverbaende, D 6000 Frankfurt 50, Dehnhardstr. 32. BADEN-WURTTEMBERG: Verein fuer Familien- und Wappenkunde, D 7000 Stuttgart, Hasenbergstr. 18. BAYERN: Bayerischer Landesverein fuer Familienkunde. D 8000 Muechen 13, Winzererstr. 68. BERLIN: Verein fur Foerderung der Zentralstelle fuer Personen- und Familien-geschichte, D 1000 Berlin 33, Archivstr. 12-14.

(WP7, p.59) : "Die Maus," Gesellschaft fuer Famlienforschung, D 2800 Bremen 1, Praesident Kennedy-Platz 2 (Staatsarchiv). FRANKEN: Gesellschaft fuer Familienkunde in Franken, D 8500 Nuernberg, Archivstr. 17 : Genealogische Gesellschaft, D 2000 Hamburg 36, Postfach 239. HESSEN: Hessische Familiengeschichtliche Vereinigung, D 6100 Darmstadt, Schloss. Gesetlschaft fuer Familienkunde in Kurhessen und Waldeck, D 3500 Kassel, Wilhelmshoeher Allee 306 1/2. Familienkundliche Gesellschaft fuer Nassau und Frankfurt, D 6370 Oberursel, Hopfengarten 19. Vereinigung fuer Familien und Wappenkunde zu , D 6400 Fulda, Beethovenstrasse 27 MITTELDEUTSCHLAND (Sachsen, Thueringen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg): Arbeitsgemelnschaft fuer mitteldeutsche Familienforschung, D 3500 Kasset, Emitienstrasse 1 NIEDERSACHSEN: Niedersaechsiescher Landesverein fuer Familienkunde, D 3000 Hannover, Koebe1ingerstrasse 59 Genealogisch-Heraldische Gesellschaft, D 3400 Goettingen, Theaterptatz 5 OLDENBURG: Oldenburgische Gesellschaft fuer Familienkunde, D 2900 Oldenburg, Stargardter Weg 6 OSTDEUTSLAND (Pommern, Ost- und Westpreussen, Schlesien, Sudetenland, deutsche Sprach- gebiete ausserhalb der alien Reichsgrenzen): Arbeitsgemeinschaft ostdeutscher Familienforscher, D 4330 Muelheim A.D. RuhrSaarn, Eibenkamp 23/25 OSTFRIESLAND: Ostfriesische Landschaft, Arbeitsgruppe Familienkunde u. Heraldik, D 2690 Aurich, Buergermeister-Mueller-Platz 2 OST- UND WESTPREUSSEN: Verein fuer Familenforschung in Ost- und West preussen, D 2000 Hamburg 62, Postfach 126 PFALZ: Arbeitsgemeinshaft fuer pfaelzische Familien- und Wappenkunde, D 6700 Ludwigshafen, Carl-Bosch-Str. 195 RHEINLAND: Westdeutsche Gesselschaft fuer Familienkunde, D 5302 Beue1, Rheinalle 34 SAARLAND: Arbeitsgemeinschaft fuer saarlandische Familienkunde, D 6600 Saarbrueken 2, NeunkircherStr. 98 SCHLESWIG-: Schleswig-Holsteinische Gesellschaft fuer Familienkunde, D 2300 Kiel 1, Gartenstr. 12 WESTFALEN: Westfaelische Gesellschaft fuer Genealogie und Fannlienforschung. D 4400 Muenster,Warendorfer Str. 25 WUERTTEMBERG: See heading for Badan above.

(WP7, p.60) " GUIDE TO BEGINNING RESEARCH "

BASIC CONCEPT Begin with yourself. Work from known facts toward the unknown.

KEY FACTS There are four key points of identification in genealogical research: names, dates, places, and relationships.

MAJOR SOURCES Home: Family records, old letters, family Bibles, journals, scrapbooks, diaries, biographies, photographs, birth-marriage-death records, newspaper clippings, school records.

Relatives: Interviews and correspondence (same as above), newspaper obituaries and other clippings, military records, announcements, family histories, diplomas, certificates.

Local Depositories: Public libraries: Family histories, biographies, town histories and county histories. School or University libraries: Historical Societies: All types of records. Schools: Records of admission, attendance, etc. Churches: Birth, marriage and death records, admissions, dismissals, memberships.

Town Records: Town clerk: Vital statistics, tax lists, meeting minutes, land records (in some), court records, Cemeteries Sextons Morticians Hospitals Newspapers

County Records; County clerk: Land records; wills, birth, marriage and death records; tax lists. County Court: Probates, divorces, naturalizations, guardianships

State Records: Department of Health: Vital statistics Libraries and archives: Military, land, state census, etc. State Land Office: Deeds, grants.

Federal Records: National Archives: Military records (service and pension). Census records Land records Shipping and passenger lists Naturalization records

The Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

(WP7, p.61) "CAN YOU HELP?"

Beginning with the next workpaper, queries are accepted from members for publication at a charge of 5 cents per word. The Genealogy Committee reserves the right to edit and queries will be published as space permits. Answers should be directed to the inquirer, but it is suggested that copies of unusual problems solved should be sent to the Committee also, to be published for the benefit of others. Remember, long and involved queries loose their effectiveness. Be specific! PLEASE, please enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope whenever you want a reply to your correspondence. Don't forget to courteously acknowledge any replies.

The following abbreviations will be used in queries in order to conserve space. This handy table provides the key to these abbreviations which generally appear without a period following the abbreviation. abt - about div - divorced, division Mat - maternal aft - after esp - especially nee - maiden name anc - ancestor(s) F - father p - parents b - born fam - family(ies) Pat - paternal bef - before Ger - German poss - possibly bro(s) - brother(s) GF - grandfather bur - buried GGF - great grandfather re - regarding or relating cert - certificate GM - grandmother rec - record ch - child, children GP - grandparents rel - relative or comp - compiled grch - grand- related sis - sister(s) con - connected or child(ren) Rss - Russia connection gs - grandson s - son(s) corresp - correspondence h - husband sp -spelling dau(s) - daughter(s) info - information w - wife desc - descendant(s) intin - interested in unk - unknown d - died. mar - married xch - exchange dist - district M - mother ? - not sure of

PETERSON Will xch info re PETERSON, WULF, SOMMERS, KLEIM fam of Dinkle, WULF HIASEL Rss; GLEIM fam of Gnadenflur and HIASEL fam of Hoffendahl. All are SOMMERS from Volga region. - Irene Boam; 1921 W. Andrews, Fresno, California KLEIM GLEIM 93705.

BUTHERUS Would like to hear from Lincoln, Nebr. rel of BUTHERUS, Conrad, and VOIDT Magdalena nee VOIDT. - Mrs Geo. W. Collins; 51 Natches St.; Walla Walla, Washington 99362 (Ruth Butherus Collins)

(WP7, p.62) KLEIN HORST Desire info re GGP from Frank, Rss, KLEIN, Henry mar HORST, GETTMAN Katherine, came to U.S. abt 1888; GOTTMANN (Gettman), Henry mar GOTTMANN WAGNER, Magdalina, to U.S. 1891; WAGNER, Conrad, mar BAUER, WAGNER Barbara, to U.S. 1890’s (?). -- Jeanene L. Klein Euchus; 2574 Marion BAUER Avenue, Yuma, Arizona 85364.

FAHRENBRUCH Want info on FAHRENBRUCH fam of Frank and Walter, Rss. -- H. R. Fahrenbruch; 128 Lugar de Oro; Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501.

BREHM Info on p of BREHM, John, b 4 June 1888 in Brunnental, Rss; mar 1908 in KINSFATHER Brunnental KINSFATHER, Elizabeth; came to U.S. 1924, accompanied by his bro Alex. In 1924, 2 other bros William lived, in Denver, Colo, and Henry in Nebraska. KAISER Info on p of KAISER, William, b 28 Aug 1862, Doennhof, Rss, d 23 Nov BECKER 1955 Windsor, Colo; 2nd mar BECKER, Eva Katherine, b 28 Nov 1856, d 4 July 1940 Windsor, Colo. Who was his first wife? Who were his p? How many bros and sis are there? --Mrs. Robert W. Haslam; Route #1, Box 70- A; Jerome Idaho 83338. HOHNSTEIN KILDAU-OW WIRT (WERTH) Will xch info on HOHHSTEIN, KILDAU-KILDOW fam from Norka, Rss; HAHN WIRT (WERTH), HAHN, GIEBELHAUS fam believed to be from Norka. GIEBELHAUS Desire info abt MEISTER (WYMASTER), George b 4 Feb 1852, Saratow, WEIMEISTER Rss, mar BANGERT, Elizabeth, from Dittel, Rss. From where in Ger and WYMASTER when did these fam arrive in Rss? In U.S.? -- Mrs. Alex Kildow, Route #3, BANGERT Omaha, Nebraska 68123.

LEGLER Wish to corresp with anyone who might have info re following fam from LECHLER Doennhof (Dennhof), Rss (Bergseite of Volga): LEGLER (Lechler), BECHTHOLD BECHTHOLD (Bechtholdt), ERBES, and HERGENRADER (Hergenroter ERBES or Hergenrader). Much to xch. -- Phil B. Legler; c/o Windsor Gardens; HERGENRADER 680 South Alton Way, Apt 7-A; HERGENROTER Denver, Colorado 80231.

Will xch info on METZGER, BITZ, SCHAFFNER fam of Odessa, Rss METZGER BITZ area. METZGER fam came to U.S. and settled in Kans abt 1886. -- Mrs. SCHAFFNER Donna Metzger; Route #2, Box 141, Orland, California 95963.

PROPP Will xch info on PROPP fam of Hussenbach, Rss. --Richard Propp; Box 1254; Nipawan, Sask., Canada.

WEBER SPAETH GRASSMICK HEIMBOUCH

Info on WEBER, SPAETH, GRASSMICK, HEIMBOUCH fam from around Balzer, Rss, esp WEBER, John; SPAETH, Katharina, d 1883; GRASSKICK, Wilhelm; HEIMBOUCH, Elizabeth, b 1830. -- Mrs. Gale Weber; 249 Mohawk Avenue; Rexburg, Idaho 83440.

(WP7, p.63)

SURNAME EXCHANGE

The surname exchange is published as an aid to those wishing to contact and exchange information with others researching a similar surname. HOW TO USE THE SURNAME INDEX: SECTION I of the SURNAME INDEX lists the surnames upon which researchers listed in SECTION II are working. SECTION II contains the names and. addresses of the researchers of the surnames listed in SECTION I.

Look up in Section I the family name, or names, on which you are working. Note the lettered numbers following each surname. These are the keys to the names and addreses of those in Section II who are working on these family names.

By way of illustration, let us check the surname of SCHMICK. Under Section I, we find the following entry: SCHMICK - S2, S3. Upon checking Section II, we find - that two of our members are doing research, or are interested in this surname; namely: Mr. Richard D. Scheuerman of Route 1, Endicott, Washington 99125, and Mrs. Raynold A. Schmick, 918 Thurman, Saginaw, Michigan 48602. A major aid of genealogy research can now be started by the exchange of information by these two researchers through correspondence.

Good luck in tracing your ancestoryl

SECTION I ADLER – H3 BITTERMAM – G1 DOELL – W1 ALTENHOF – A1 BITZ - M4 DOERING – H1 AMEN - G2, S1 BORGENS - W2 DONNER - R2 BOSCHEE – H4 DOTZLAF - B4 BANGERT - K2 BREHM - H2 DYCK - B5 BASTRON - W2 BRENING - W5 BAUDER - H4, W6 BRUNGARDT - S8 EHAUST - G4 BAUER - E2 (Echaus, Echoltz) BRUNNER – K3 BECHTHOLD - L2 EHRMANTRAUT - M5 BUCHOLZ - R2 (Bechtholdt) EISENACH – L1 BUTHERUS - C1 BECK – M3, N1 ERBES - L2 BECKER - H2 CHRISTMANN - N1 ESSIG – E1 BEISEL – B1 FAHRENBRUCH – F1 BENDER – E1, M3 DAHSEN (Domson) – D1 FINK - R5 BERATZ - W2 BENGLER - H4- FISCHER – E1 BERNDT - R2 DIEGEL - S4 FRIES - W5 BETZ - B2 DIPPEL - S2

WP7, p64 FRITZLER - K5, S1 KOCH - S6 ROLL - R4 FYE – G1 KQLB - D1 ROSS - W2 KOLH - B4 ROZLER - B4 GASSMAN - H5 KOTH - R2 SALWASSEE - K4 GEARHART - K4 KRAUS (Krause) R4,S2 SCHAFFNER - M4 GERLOOK - G1 KRELL - K4 SCHARER - K4 GEREINGER - S1 KRIEGER - W5 SCHEIKOFSKY - B5 GETTMAN - E2, G2 KUNZ - P1 GIEBELHATJS - K2 SCHEUERMAN - S2 GIES - F2 LANG - H1 SCHILLING - H4 GLEIM - B5, K4 LEBSACK - L1 SCHMEIDMILLER - S2 GOEBEL – G3 LEGLER - L2 SCHMICK - S2, S3 GRAF – W7 (Lechler) SCHMIDT – W7 GRAMENSKE – W7 LEHL - W5 SCHUETZLE - H5 GRASSMICK - W4 LEHMAN - K4 SCHWABENLAND - K4 GREILIG - W3 LEHR – W3 SIPPERT - M5 GRIENWALD – L3 LESSER – L3, S5 SOMMERS - B5, S7 GUTH - G4 LETT (Lilt) - W2 SPAETH - W4 LIPPERT - B4 SPIES - S8 HABERLOCH - P1 LITZENBERGER - S2 STADEL - S9 HAHN - K2 LUFT - S2 STAHLICKER -H4, W6 HANNELD - H1 STEITZ. - K4 HAUER - B4 MAJOR - B1 STRASHEIM - S5 HEIMBOUCH - W4 MARQUARDT - M1 STRAUB - H5 HEINZE - B1 MAYER – M3 HELMUTH - K4 STROH - W2 HEPPERLE - H5 MEHLHAF - E1 STUMPF - S10 HERGENRADER - L2 MEHLHAFF - M2 STURTZ - S11 (Hergenroeter) MEIDINGER – R3 HEYD – M3 MERKEL – M3 THURN (Turn) - W6 HIASEL - B5 MERZ (Mertz) - S9 TRIPPEL – S7 HILLE - H1 METZGER - M4 TROAST - G4 HOHNSTEIN - K2 MILLER - B1 VETSCH (Sp ?) M1 HORST - E2, H3 MOHR (Sp ?) - K4 VILHAUER - M5 HOYER - M5 MOOS – M5 HUBER - M5 VOIDT - C1 HUETHER – H5 NEUMILLER - ?1 NIELMEIER - K4 WACKER (Walker) - W2 ILS (Hill) - F2 NIELSEN - K4 WAGNER - E2, G1 WAHL - E1 JESSER – M3 OPP - M2 WANNER - E1 WEBER - F2, W2, W4 PERMANN - W6 WEEDMAN – S3 KAHLER (Sp ?) - K4 PETERSON – B3 WEGNER - B4 KAISER - H2 PFAFF - S10 WEIMIEISTER - K2 KAMMERZELL - W1 POPP (Pope) – L3 WEISGERBER - P1 KANZLER - S6 PROCHNAU - B4 WEITZ - S2 KARLLA – W3 PROPP - P2 WENZEL - R2 KEILMANN - R5 WIEDMAIER – E1 KELLER - H5, R2 RAILE – R3 WILERMUTH – W7 KESSLER - G3 RATH - R1 WINTER - D1 KILDAU-KILDOU - K2 REISIG - D1 WIRT (Werth) - K2 KIKSFATHER - H2 REISWIG - W1 WOHLMAN – M5 KINZEL - S10 RENZ - R2 WOLFER - R2 KLEIM – B5 REPP – L3 WULF - B3 KLEIN - B5, S2 RIEDLINGER - E1 KLING - S11 RIEKER - K1 ZACHER – W7

(wp7, P.65) SECTION II

A1 K. C. Altenhof, Captain, CFPO 5056 1 GAG, Belleville, Ontario, Canada

B1 Paul B. Beisel, 4836 No. Battin, Wichita, Kansas 67220 B2 Larry Betz, 3446 West 30th. Ave., Denver, Colorado 80211 B3 Irene Boam, 1921 W. Andrews, Fresno, California 93705 B4 Mrs. Ernest W. Brice, 3821 So. Findlay St., Seattle, Washington 98118 B5 Alice F. Bullock, 858 Woodrow Ave., Wichita, Kans. 67203

C1 Mrs. George W. Collins, 51 Natches Street, Walla Walla, Washington 99362

D1 Andreas Damsen or Andrew Domson, 2318 Myfield Road, Saginaw, Michigan 48602 E1 Mrs. Walter Essig, Denhoff, North Dakota 58430 E2 Jeanene L. Klein Euchus, 2574 Marion Avenue, Yuma, Arizona 85364

F1 H. R. Fanrenbruch, 128 Lugar de Oro, Santa Fe, N.Mex. 87501 F2 Mrs. Kenneth C. Fritzler, 306 South Elm, P.O. Box 82, Kimball, Nebraska 69145

G1 Mrs. William F. Gerringer, Green Spring Avenue, Lutherville, Maryland 21093 G2 Daniel Gettman, Pine Tree Trailer Ct., Box 42, Moses Lake, Washington 98837 G3 Eldon L. Goebel, Rebgarten 15, 6 Frankfurt, Germany G4 Katheryn Graber, 11625 9th Ave., Anoka, Minn. 55303

H1 Miss Alma E. Hanneld, 1602 West 14th Street, Sioux City, Iowa 51103 H2 Mrs. Robert W. Haslam, Bt. 1, Box 70-A, Jerome, Idaho 83338 H3 Alexander Horst, 3410 South G St., Tacoma, Wash. 98408 H4 Donna Hudson, Box 233, Indian Hills, Colorado 80454 H5 Mrs. Rueben Huether, 641 Park Ave., Dickinson, North Dakota 58601

K1 Arthur Kiesz, 4011 Aldercrest Rd., Milwaukie, Ore. 97222 K2 Mrs. Alex Kildow, Route 3, Omaha, Nebraska 68123 K3 Emma Kindsfater, 1902 21st Ave. Ct., Greeley, Colo 80631 K4 JoAnn C. Kleim, P.O. Box 2042, Fresno, Calif. 93718

L1 J. Robert Lebsack, 4500-19th St. # £80, Boulder, CO 80302 L2 Phil B. Legler, c/o Windsor Gardens, 680 South Alton Way, Apt. 7-A, Denver, Colorado 80231 L3 Fred A. Lesser, 6670 S.E. Stark, Portland, Ore. 97215

(WP7, p.66) M1 Lewis R. Marquardt, 445 West 8th Ave., Webster, South Dakota 57274 M2 Arlo C. Mehlhaff, Eureka, South Dakota 57437 M3 Ross D. Merkel, Rt. 5, Box 153, Galt, California 95632 M4 Mrs. Donna Metzger, Rt. 2, Box 141, Orland, Calif. 95963 M5 Gary E. Meyer, Box 442, Elgin, North Dakota 58533

N1 Marilyn Neumiller, 4611 Cooper 5, Lincoln, Nebr. 68506

P1 Carl R. Pohl, Lt. Col., USAR-Ret., 1542 Sherbourne Dr., Los Angeles, California 90035 P2 Richard Propp, Box 1254, Nipawan, Sask., Canada

R1 Rev. Theodore B. Rath, 107 Elizabeth St., Cavalier, North Dakota 58220 R2 A. Curtis Benz, 1815 Northwestern Ave., Ames, Iowa 50010 R3 Mrs. Paul Retslaff, 308 N. 14th St., Apt. 13, Killeen, Texas 76541 R4 Herbert V. Roll, 1110 5tb. Ave. South #404, Edmonds, Washington 98020 R5 Mrs. Wilhelmine Rudoj, 3033 Fremont Ave. South, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55408

S1 Larry & Judy Scheuerman, Rt. 2, Sterling, Colo. 80751 S2 Richard D. Scheuerman, Rt. 1, Endicott, Washington 99125 S3 Mrs. Raynold A. Schmick, 918 Thurman, Saginaw, Mich 48602 S4 Rev. Benjamin W. Schuldheisz, 904 State Street, Hood River, Oregon 97031 S5 Reta Seiffert, 2540 Randolph, Lincoln, Nebraska 68510 S6 Mrs. Lucille F. Shaffstall, 616 W. Yakima Street, Pasco, Washington 99301 S7 Anna Sommers, 4504 E. Balch, Fresno, California 93702 S8 John Spies, 15410 White Avenue, Grandview, Missouri 64030 S9 Emit J. Stadel, 1530 S.E. Linn St., Boone, Iowa 50036 S10 Harvey C. Stumpf, 728 N.E. 153rd, Portland, Ore. 97230 S11 Molly Sturtz, 1532 Maine, Saginaw, Michigan 48602

W1 Edna Wagner, 108 N. Tyler, Pierre, South Dakota 57501 W2 Mrs. Gerda S. Walker, 1840 South Utica Street, Denver, Colorado 80219 W3 Mrs. Roseann S. Warren, 546 Sparta, Helena, Mont. 59601 W4 Mrs. Gale Weber, 249 Mohawk Avenue, Rexburg, Idaho 85440 W5 Eugene J. Wegener, 1003 Mercer, Boise, Idaho 83703 W6 Mrs. Adeline M. Weston, 7537 Circle Parkway, Sacramento, California 95823 W7 Herman D. Wildermuth, 7487 Bannock Trail, Yucca Valley, California 92284

(WP7, p.67)