"The Mennonite Nazis" Part#2 -Chester Weaver

Lesson Transcript

Guide me, O, the great Jehovah, pilgrim through these barren lands. Good morning and welcome to Hope for Wandering Amish. It is a blessing to be together again this morning, and we're so happy to have Chester Weaver on this morning again. And thanks for joining us, Chester. I know you're in Texas, so I think you're on a different time zone and have to get up a little earlier than us here in the Eastern Standard Time. But thank you for your heart in sharing history.

And I think our listeners are learning a lot from you and inspired by what you're sharing. So continue the good work. And yeah, we're excited to see what you have to share with us this morning. I'll just have a time of prayer, and then the time will be yours. Then I just want to, yeah, maybe you'll mention that, Chester, at the end. We always have, we always open things up for our audience to ask questions, to make comments. And we all, it's always very enjoyable to hear from everybody in our audience.

So please feel free to ask questions. Thank Chester, whatever may be on your heart. So let's have a prayer. Father, we thank you for this morning. Thank you for blessing us so richly with your church, Lord, with those that are part of the household of faith. And we just pray your blessing on Brother Chester, on this meeting, on the people in the audience. Just bless our time together. We pray for your kingdom to be advanced.

We pray that we would have hearts that are open, hearts that are humble and learning what you may have to say to us here this morning. Thank you. Bless us and draw us closer to you today in the precious name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. All right, the time is yours, Chester. Well, good morning, everyone. It's good to be back again. And I think I should give just a little brief introduction. I did give a further introduction on session or part one, but I think I should just tell a little bit part two.

I live in Texas, south of Fort Worth. I am in the Central Time Zone, and I am a teacher. This is my 40th year of teaching, and I have a particular interest in Anabaptist history. And so this particular story unfolded almost 100 years ago, but it's been buried because it's so awful. And we can't learn anything as long as it's buried. And so it is coming out. As I introduced in the first session, there are books that are now available as this is being more of this story is being surfaced.

So, okay, so in the first session, I presented the reasons why the German Mennonites became loyal supporters of Adolf Hitler. Okay, so one of the reasons I'm doing this whole series is there's no need to repeat history. Those who don't know history are condemned to repeat it, but those who do know history are condemned to sit helplessly by while other people repeat it. But we don't have to repeat it. And so that's the burden driving this. We don't have to repeat the past.

Okay, so if we find out the reasons or discover the reasons why the German Mennonites became loyal supporters of Adolf Hitler, why would we compromise the two kingdom doctrine and become loyal to any kind of earthly political power? So the German Mennonites were willing to forsake their Anabaptist heritage for new and better ideas. Or so they thought at that time.

Well, we are tempted with new and better ideas in our time, but we better carefully examine these new and better ideas, lest they turn out to be terrible ideas, as these Nazi ideas are now cast into the ridicule of history. We don't need to have our story added to that. Since ideas have consequences, we've been observing the consequences experienced by the German Mennonites up to World War II. That was part one. We observed some of those consequences. Today, we'll consider more of those consequences.

We're going to continue the story. And I have a book that you might be interested in. It's called Mennonite Nazi Story. It's actually a student, it's prepared to be a student resource. It's 250 pages long, and it has pictures, it has text. Let me read to you what it says right inside the cover. Mennonite Nazi Story. What happens when the traditional Anabaptist understanding of the two kingdoms is lost?

This resource book is intended for high school students and beyond who could benefit from a collection of resources documenting the German Mennonite Nazi collaboration during the first half of the 1900s. American Mennonites should understand this story to prevent similar mistakes in the present generation. This collection is not exhaustive. The various resources collected here represent various opportunities for launching further student research topics.

So it's 250 pages, and like I said, it has pictures and opportunities to branch out in many ways. This is a very large story. So if you send $40 for the book, plus $5 shipping to Chester Weaver, 504 North King Street, Itasca, I-T-A-S-C-A, Texas, 76055. That's Chester Weaver, 504 North King Street, Itasca, Texas, 76055. You send me a check, I will send you the book. So having said that, we were in the midst of a PowerPoint presentation, and I will need to go back to pick up where we left off.

So I will share my screen. Okay, so this is a little review of what I did present last time. I showed you this picture last time. This is an actual shirt, Prussian Mennonite house, including the brown shirt uniform belonging to the owner of the house. That is an actual photograph. And I think I ended on this particular slide last time. There was a new definition of neighbor. One with whom one shares one's being, in whom your blood also flows. A soul of one's soul.

One's people is the area in which a Christian extends love. We are a part of the German people. The German is our neighbor to whom we declare our love and give our strength. As I said last time, these quotes come from various sources. I don't dream them up. This particular quote came from the book, European Mennonites in the Holocaust, that I introduced last time. There's also a reference and a picture of that in the book that I am offering. Okay, now let's think about this new definition of neighbor.

Is that the good Samaritan concept where we help anybody who is in need? Obviously not. It's a narrow focus on Germans. The German people are our neighbors. Those are the people we serve. And so the German Mennonites would only help Jews if it did not put their own lives in jeopardy. In other words, Jews were no longer their neighbors. And again, you can see the source where this comes from. So why did German Mennonites not help Jews when they had the opportunity?

Well, this couple, I think it's the lady here who says this. If you were seen talking to a Jew, then the Germans would treat you like a Jew. Mennonites did not help Jews or hide Jews. It was too dangerous to be associated with the Jews. But then we have people like Corrie ten Boom in Holland, who was not a Mennonite, and others who were willing to risk their lives for Jews. But these people, in cowardice, backed away from their own neighbors. All right, now we need to switch gears here just a bit.

While the Nazi regime was coming into being, the German Mennonites were experiencing terrible things in the Soviet Union at the hands of the communists. Beginning with the revolution, or communist revolution in 1917, and a few years after that, the Mennonites in the Soviet Union in Ukraine suffered grievously. That's an entirely different story. Okay, so the Mennonites in Germany were extremely appreciative of the fact that they were not suffering like that.

And so when Adolf Hitler came along, Adolf Hitler was an enemy of these communists. And so they repeatedly hailed him as the liberating savior from communism. And so beginning in 1935, the Nazis blocked all German Mennonite financial assistance to their persecuted brothers and sisters in the Soviet Union. In other words, the Nazis wanted undivided loyalty. And so if the Nazis are going to become the new Lord, then they just need to meekly submit this.

Stop even understanding their own kinfolk, their own brothers and sisters in the Soviet Union. They couldn't help them anymore. And so they said, "Yes, sir." By occupying the Rhineland in 1936, now that is a piece of land on the north side of France today that was taken from Germany as a result of World War I. And they were forbidden by treaty not to enter that. But in 1936, in defiance of the treaty, Hitler took a huge gamble by occupying it. And the world stood by and watched and did nothing. He got it.

Hitler succeeds at everything, people said. Not long later, Hitler won 98.8% of the vote in an election. "Triumph upon triumph," glowed a Goebbels, the soon-to-be Nazi propaganda minister. "We did not dare hope for this in our wildest dreams. We were all stunned." The Führer was very still and said nothing. He only laid his hand on my shoulder. There were tears in his eyes. Again, that's a quote.

Later that year at the Nuremberg Party Conference, Hitler proclaimed, "It is the miracle of our age that you found me among so many millions. And that I found you is Germany's great fortune." Now, this is not an Anabaptist quote. This is Ambrose of Milan speaking way back, more than about a thousand years before this. He said, "He who knows evil is being done and does nothing to stop it, is guilty with the evildoer." Okay, that describes what was happening with the German Mennonites.

And not only did they not stop it, they became supporters of this terrible evil that was unfolding at their doorstep. By 1938, an overwhelming majority of Mennonite elders and ministers in West Prussia and Danzig were members of the Nazi Party. And as party members, they wear the swastika on their chest with pride and joy. That was a quote by Benjamin Unro, official representative of the Russian Mennonites in Germany. That comes from the European Mennonites in the Holocaust.

That shows how completely the German Mennonites bought into the Nazi development. Here is a picture of Benjamin Unro. This man is known as the Moses of the Russian Mennonites. Heinrich Himmler, which was Hitler's right-hand man, called Unro this title, the Moses of the Russian Mennonites. This Benjamin Unro was a towering German Mennonite mover and shaker of enormous influence. He was highly educated.

And both the Dutch, sorry, the German Mennonites and the Ukrainian German Mennonites looked to this man for direction. Back earlier in Russia in 1918, we have this. With brother Benjamin Unro in the lead, there were those who considered our non-resistance as a mere tradition and pointed out how Abraham of old rescued Lot militarily, how David had killed the giant Goliath, Samson the Philistines, etc. Okay. This was the first Selbstschutz sermon that I had heard, Unro recalled.

With such arguments, Unro and the others sought to move Russian Mennonites away from a longer tradition on non-resistance to a just war position. Now that's him, Benjamin Unro, helping as an enormous influence to shift by his leadership, his trusting people away from the tradition of non-resistance into the just war understanding.

Benjamin Unro said, "There is no contradiction between being a good Christian in the Mennonite tradition and being a supporter of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi cause." Again, this is a quote that came from the Mennonite Quarterly Review, April 2022. There's an article entitled, "Benjamin Unro, Nazism and MCC." In the Hitler greeting, Hitler is in the date of case. Have you never read 1 Timothy 2:2? Adolf Hitler wants nothing for himself, everything only for his Volk.

I honor him with my whole heart, and I love him as one can only love a sovereign prince, sovereign. First in German means first among his own people. Only history will reveal what God through Adolf Hitler has granted the German Volk in its entirety, including Germans in host countries, and what he will still grant to Europe and the world as well. Hitler is the great combatant of Stalin. Benjamin Unro wrote to J.

Siemens in January 1936, "We stand 100% with Adolf Hitler in his God-given calling to lead Germany out of chaos and thus to support and protect Europe and the world against Bolshevik ruin. One must be a child not to see this." Now this is from the Winnipeg Free Press. This is in Canada. This is from January 30, 1939. There is a Nazi rally among the German Mennonites who had migrated from Germany and Russia to Canada. So let me read what it says.

A Mennonite choir, which sang at the Nazi celebration in Winnipeg of the sixth anniversary of Hitler's rule in Germany, is the target of stinging words in a letter that has come to the free press from a young Mennonite doctor in this city. Words like arrows shot from the loyal heart of a Canadian citizen of the Mennonite faith. Words sharp with resentment and condemnation are in this letter. The writer says he speaks for the vast majority of the Mennonites in this country.

Those who sang in the choir at the Nazi celebration came from a group which was admitted to Canada from Russia in the 20s, said the writer, a group constituting only a small part of the total number of Mennonites in Canada. Mennonites in vastly greater numbers were not pro-German, not in sympathy and his tactics, were not anti-Semitic, but true loyal Canadians. And so we have division going on in Canada on this subject. In Germany, there's no division. But in Canada, some people could see what is going on.

So the people who were loyal to the Nazi cause were praising Hitler's rise to power. The Holden Mennonites have a little magazine called Messenger of Truth. It's their denomination's paper. On March 6, 1936, this is what they wrote. "Don't trust what the media says about Hitler. He's actually a great person. Look what he's done for the church and look how other Mennonites love him. We need to have Dr. Benjamin H. Unro's article translated into English for the benefit of all who don't know German.

He's telling the true story. The European Mennonites wrote Hitler a telegram that deepened their relationship." That's in the editorial notes in the Messenger of Truth in their magazine. In the 1930s, Mennonites around the world were excited to see the rise of Adolf Hitler. There had been much concerned talk of communism, liberalism, and immorality. Finally, God was putting their friend on the throne of power and the wickedness of the world would be held in check.

But remember, not all Mennonites were saying this in the West. In Canada and the United States, the situation was similar. Although the Holdemans didn't participate in politics, the excitement about the godly German, Adolf Hitler, found its way into our church paper. This is a Holdeman writing this. High reviews were given to the works of the highly respected and well-known friend of the Russian Mennonites, Professor Benjamin H. Unro.

He was a deeply intelligent man who wrote prolifically and made no secret of his love for Hitler. He boldly stated on at least one occasion, "I am 100% for Hitler." Okay, so some of the other old Mennonites in this country, in America, I remember they are the Swiss Mennonites. People who have an Amish background are from this background, old Mennonites. They are not Dutch-Russian. And so the old Mennonites created the MCC. And the old Mennonites had men like Ori Miller. And so I'm going to read this now.

This comes from the same article in the Mennonite Quarterly Review. By 1944, Harold Bender commiserated with Ori O. Miller, MCC executive secretary. How all of us were greatly disturbed that we should be retaining Unro on our payroll while he was openly agitating against non-resistance. Our failure to repudiate Unro resulted in a magnification of his influence. That's old Mennonites waking up to the fact that they had compromised something here. Now what are they going to do about it?

Shortly thereafter, MCC chair P.C. Hebert conceded that Brother B.H. Unro wholeheartedly supported the Nazi movement. And if MCC erred anywhere, it was in letting some support get to him when we already knew how he stood. And there's a story of how that worked out.

In 1944, under the legal guidance of Gustav Reimer and Benjamin Unro, Mennonites submitted articles of incorporation for the new conference of Mennonite congregations of German nationality in the province of Wartheland, the new German resettlement area in conquered Poland. Okay, now this is during World War II.

So when the Nazis retreated before the Soviet forces who were pushing them west toward the close of World War II, this is a big story, but thousands and thousands and thousands of German Mennonites in Russia went with the army back to Russia, back to Germany. Well, by this time, the Nazis realized how valuable the Mennonites were. And they had chased a bunch of Poles, Polish people from their farms in an area of Western Poland that they called Wartheland. They called Wartheland here.

And there was only going to be certain people who lived there. It says it limited membership to those of German nationality strictly defined in Nazi Germany by blood and Volk, thus excluding Christians of Jewish or Slavic background. Our people, together with their spiritual leaders, were participating in the Nazi morning celebration, a pagan activity on one Sunday per month. Get that?

As a part of doing this, part of the package was to participate even in Nazi, they wouldn't say worship, but it's recognizing pagan deities. Its purpose was to awaken and kindle forever anew the forces of instinct, of emotion, and of the soul which are vital for the struggle for existence and the bearing of our people and our race for all times. That's a quote from European Mennonites in the Holocaust. Of course, World War II ended and Wartheland never actually was completed. This comes from a different book.

This comes from a book entitled Heidegger and the Will. And let me read. This is, we're just breaking in here. This is page 74. In such passages, Heidegger calls on students and others to wholly submit to the will of Hitler, who is said to embody the will of the German people. His call demands a referral of one's will, offering it up in service of a greater will.

The individual is called upon to authentically will by sacrificing his or her will to the one great will of the state, a will that is unified in the will of its fascist leader, Adolf Hitler. In these statements from Heidegger's political speeches, we find a call not simply to abandon one's will, but to actively defer it to the towering will of the Führer. And the German Mennonites did just that. At one time, both Jews and Mennonites were welcomed by German princes who needed their tax money.

Both groups aroused popular resentment and persecution because of their economic prosperity. Eventually, German political correctness showcased the prosperous Mennonites for their honesty in industry while declaring that Jewish prosperity undermined German values. An old saying declared, "You have to get up pretty early to hoodwink a Jew.

But if you want to bamboozle a Mennonite, you can't even go to bed the night before." Said of the German Mennonites of the 1930s, this German ethnic mania transformed the public profile of Mennonites. The one-time pesky sect now epitomized Germanness with its steadfast adherence to thrift, sobriety, piety, honesty, and industry. Perhaps most significant was the Mennonite preservation of racial purity. No other German free church was lauded with such praise that German Mennonites basked in this praise.

Without even trying it, they had accomplished what the Nazis were setting out to do to produce pure Aryans. And the reason they did it is because back in Prussia, Mennonites were tolerated. They were only allowed to marry within their own people. If they married outside their people, the resulting children could not be baptized Mennonite. And so that encouraged the Mennonites to only marry Mennonites.

And so without even trying, because of persecution or pressure, they had arrived at the place the Nazis held them up as the way to do it. Let me show you some pictures a little bit later on this. Adolf Hitler spoke of Germany as a body with himself as the doctor. He wanted to make Germany healthy by eliminating diseased, unhealthy parts of the body. Early on, this meant killing the disabled.

But because the Nazis also believed that the Jews possessed bad genes, they too came to be portrayed by public health experts and scientists as a threat to racial purity and a healthy nation. Hitler required every German family to document its lineage back five generations and have the family records notarized. This comes again from the Mennonite Court Review of April 2016.

"Genealogical associations archived and categorized large volumes of Mennonite ancestral information for determining whom to count as Jewish versus Aryan. As a means of ensuring the collective Aryanness of Germany's Mennonite community, genealogical research was extremely effective. Individual members obligated to fill out racial transports were often able to do so with the help of a church archivist or other local genealogists. At least one congregation met to fill out race forms as an official church activity.

One participant said, 'Until now, a Mennonite was considered Aryan without question. A single case would ruin our reputation.'" And so here are some of the pictures. This comes from the Mennonite Quarterly Review. This is what a good Aryan looked like. This is a male. This is so true that I have a friend here in my local community who looks like the second man. You see there, the middle man. He looks like my friend. That's the ideal Aryan male. This is the ideal Aryan female.

That comes from one of these books, Chosen Nation. Racial scientists considered Mennonites to be unusually pure specimens of Aryanism. These three women lived in or near Danzig in 1931. They were integrated into racial studies before Hitler's rise to power. Once again, these are ideal Aryan females. Both males and females were prone to light hair, eyes, and skin. Of all Aryans, Mennonites were the tallest outside of Scandinavia. Again, I'm quoting from one of these books, Chosen Nation.

On the psychological side, Mennonites demonstrated simplicity, orderliness, diligence, integrity, detachment, stamina, but also stubbornness, insularity, and severity. Dutch Mennonites belonged to the Friesen tribe, the oldest and noblest of all Germanic groups whose racial character could be traced back for millennia. Mennonites, directly because of their Mennonite character, have been phenomenally productive, whether as pioneers of agriculture, as industrialists, as businessmen, or as tradespeople.

The German Mennonites engaged in anti-Semitic communication both verbally and in print. They noted that Jews were part of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and profited financially from World War I. They agreed that violence should not be used against Jews, but that legal restrictions were proper. This attitude was all the Nazis really needed to implement their final solution. The German Mennonites would be passive and silent as the Holocaust happened in their midst.

In contrast, the Quakers corporately and individually refused to be passive and silent, actively aiding the Jews where and when they could. Many Mennonite survivors of the Stalinist terror and anti-Kulak and deportation campaigns, that's in Russia, expressed virulent hatred for both Jews and communists as equivalent evils.

Mennonites generally resented, envied, and despised Jews because so many of them seemed to have been found in the ranks of the Soviet secret police and the Communist Party cadre, as well as among the supervisors and managers of collective farms and local government agencies. And so we can raise the question, why have the Jews been mistreated throughout history? Well, they've been above average in intelligence. Other peoples have been jealous of them.

One man, Thomas Sowell, says the best way to get an edge on Jews is simple. Just fail. These people have succeeded so well they have aroused a lot of jealousy, but that's not just all. Dennis Prager says, he's a Jew that lives today, that the reason, the bottom line reason why people hate Jews is because they represent the moral law of God, the Ten Commandments. And people throughout the world are trying to forget God and his moral law. And that is the bottom line reason for anti-Semitism.

Okay, here's some notable Jews of recent times. Everybody knows Albert Einstein, who came up with the theory of relativity. Karl Marx, the father of communism, was a Jew. Henry Kissinger, recent U.S. Secretary of State, was a Jew. Sigmund Freud, pioneer in psychoanalysis, was a Jew. Jonas Salk developed a polio vaccine, was a Jew. Mayor Rothschild, the financier, was a Jew. And today, President-elect Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is a Jew. And we have many Jews that are prominent.

They continue to be prominent in the world today. The Nazis used the cross and the Bible as they did their work. The Jews ended up crushed and dehumanized and all the more alienated from the gospel because the symbols of redemption were used by their abusers. Drowning people, abused by the life preserver, turned to the safer worlds of agnosticism, atheism, or the vague, pluralistic, feel-good spiritualism, which is the position of most Jews today.

How could there have been a God in heaven who allowed what happened in the Holocaust? Probably the only person who had any chance of hampering Hitler was the Pope, who had the ear of 40 million German Catholics, but he barely said a word. When the German forces occupied Rome, he opened his sanctuaries to give refuge to many thousands of non-Aryans, but he was committed to neutrality in his search for peace and feared provoking Hitler, so he opened not his mouth.

The most harshly persecuted Christian group in Nazi Germany was the Jehovah's Witnesses. Of a population of 20,000, about half spent some time in concentration camps. At least 1,400 died in the camps, and about 250 were executed for refusing to bear arms. In Russia, from 1920 to 1940, one-third of all Russian Mennonites were arrested and disappeared. The Watching German Mennonites said in 1936, "The recently resurrected German Reich has become a protective bulwark against the Bolshevik assault.

We have remained spared from the horrors suffered by our comrades that share our faith and racial stock in the Soviet Union." Joseph Stalin said, "Death is the solution to all problems." No man, no problem. And he was willing to kill, this says 20 million of his own people. I think it turns out more than that. It's like at least 60 millions of his own people, or the communists, mostly him, were willing to kill so many of those own people because that's the solution to problems.

In 1937, Hitler ordered all German children into the government schools. He said, "The youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason, we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our youth with the spirit of this community." At a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled, this Reich stands and is building itself up for the future upon its youth.

And this new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing. So more of his quotes. "He alone who owns the youth gains the future." How fortunate for leaders that men do not think. It's always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge. Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it. Hitler said in this book, The Burden of Guilt, "My educational method is hard.

The weak must be chiseled away. In my order castles, young people will grow up who will frighten the world. I want a violent, arrogant, unafraid, cruel youth who must be able to suffer pain. Nothing weak or tender must be left in them. Their eyes must speak once again the free, magnificent beast of prey. I want my young people strong and beautiful. I shall train them in all kinds of athletics, for I want youth that are athletic. That is first and foremost. Thus, I will face the pure and noble raw material.

Thus, I can create the new. I do not want an intellectual education. With knowledge, I will spoil the young. I would vastly prefer them to learn only what they absorb voluntarily as they follow their play instinct. They shall learn to overcome the fear of death through the most arduous test. This is a historic stage of heroic youth." And so there is a picture of Hitler youth. That's the young boys. And almost every boy in Germany became one of the Hitler youth.

And there's the girls, German maidens, the League of German Maidens. Now, this is a picture from the book that I had offered earlier. The man you see in the center is Heinrich Himmler. And the girls you see there are German, sorry, Russian Mennonites. But those are not head coverings. Those are nurse caps. So Hitler said, when he was visiting the German Mennonites in Ukraine, he says, "I was in Ukraine and I looked over the people. Your Mennonites were the best," he said to Benjamin Unruh.

In 1941, the Nazis created a movie targeting Mennonites. It's entitled Friesens in Peril, or better known, Red Storm Over the Village. I watched this thing. It about makes the hair stand up in the back of your neck. It was made to convince Russian Mennonites to forsake their non-resistance and to become a part of the Nazi cause. John F.

Kennedy said, "In my lifetime, the great enemy of the truth is often, very often, not the lie, deliberate, contrived, dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic." In 1937, Eberhard Arnold's German Hutterite community was forcibly dissolved and its members deported from Germany.

To distance themselves from the Hutterites, the German Mennonites wrote, "The Hutterites belong neither to German Mennonite churches nor to any other organization within our free German Mennonite church." In other words, we don't want to have anything to do with those people. In 1938, official church president Friedrich Werner gave orders that on Adolf Hitler's 49th birthday in April, all Protestant pastors must swear an oath of allegiance to the Führer and Reich Chancellor, Hitler's two titles.

Werner's decree included the words, "Anyone who refuses to take the oath is to be dismissed." German Christians took the oath immediately with joyful hearts and in obedience to inner command. The German Mennonite church joined the Protestant flow and complied. Confessing church pastors, however, felt that they had been ordered to break their ordination vow to do such a thing. The text that accompanied this oath described it as more than the recognition of the duty to be subject to the governing authorities.

It meant being in the most intimate solidarity with the Third Reich and with the man who created that community and embodies it. And so Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the confessing church pastors. He and his companions traveled from one pastor's meeting to another to persuade ministers not to take this oath. They had little success with their arguments. The whole matter became one of the most shameful defeats of the confessing church. The zeitgeist of the era was to support Hitler. He was the man.

He was the savior of Germany and possibly of the world. Every member of the armed forces, the Nazi military machine, was required to swear this oath. "I swear by God, this sacred oath, that I shall render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the German Reich, supreme commander of the armed forces, and that I shall at all times be prepared as a brave soldier to give my life for this oath." There was not one German Mennonite who refused conscription in World War II.

Official German Mennonite publications supported the Third Reich, praised the Nazi armies, rejoiced in their victories, and called for Mennonites to lay down their lives for their friends. With the 1939 reunion of Danzig with Germany, the Prussian Mennonites praised the act as nothing short of the merciful will of God. In a few short years, the victories crumbled into ashes and bitter tears. And this is what it looked like in a few years. That is Danzig. Bombed out Danzig in 1945.

Until its ceased publication in 1941, the German Mennonite periodical, blah, blah, blah, continued to laud history and Hitler and his policies, as well as provide theological and biblical reasons for supporting them. In 1941, Hitler said, "I can't break the church over my knee.

It has to be left to rot like a gangrenous limb, but the healthy youth belong to us." Heinrich Himmler said, "We shall not rest until we have rooted out Christianity." When the Nazis permitted the German Mennonites' freedom to exist as a church only if they abandoned all critical public commentary, they had no anchor. And they said, "Yes, sir." And I just shared that. Not one able-bodied Mennonite man of draft age in all of Germany refused conscription. Some even joined the notorious SS.

Now, that has a story all of its own, and I should tell that story at a different place. We're running out of time here. This man was a German Mennonite, Heinrich Wiens. He did relinquish his Mennonite membership before he did this, but he was on one of these mobile gas units to go out and kill Jews. And there's a story on that. I'll have to save that for a different. And that picture and that story is in this book that I have, at least part of the story.

While the public faces of German Mennonites consistently supported the Nazi regime, this was not a result of cold calculation. Neither did it take place in the absence of soul searching. Nonetheless, their faith failed to provide a perspective that transcended the trappings of their culture and their era. And again, this is another story. This book is highlighted in the Mennonite Nazi story at all as well. This is a German Mennonite couple, Johannes and Gerda Reimer.

Their daughter is in the back right of this photo. Her name is Ruth. That's her family, including the grandma. And I'll just say that the husband here was an SS man. He guarded Nazi places. And this Ruth that you see there did not consider her father to be a Christian. He actually survived the war. There's a story. It's called A Place for Ruth. We can't tell that story here. The biggest flaw of the Mennonites was not any immediate error.

Instead, it was the natural consequence of years of gradual theological adaptations and compromises to better fit within the German community. The consequences for the German Mennonites of abandoning their New Testament principles was complicity with the Nazi regime and being collaborators in the Jewish Holocaust. And again, this is a longer story. I'll just read this without telling the story here. This is in the context of the Soviets pushing the Nazi armies as they're retreating back to Germany.

In 1945, the Mennonites of the former West Prussia were the hapless victims of the advancing Russian army. A general fear of being caught by the invaders led many to flee to the West. Those who remained or waited too long to escape, usually the sick, the young, and the elderly, suffered mightily at the hands of the Russian army. Starvation, rape, bodily injury, torture, deportation to Russia, and loss of life were among the horrific events of those days. Congregations and families were torn apart.

Most would never see their homeland again. The vibrant communities of Mennonites in the West Prussia were utterly destroyed. And this is where this Ruth Reimer was living. I think she was a girl whenever the family escaped all this and went to Denmark. So these people, for the Prussian Mennonites, rather than having their insecure fears of being expelled from Germany by the Nazis, realized Prussian Mennonites found a much worse fate at the hands of the advancing Soviet army.

By summer 1945, the Prussian Mennonites lost their 400-year home in the region, and it is still gone to this day. All under there are graveyards. I will say here at this point, when the Soviets came through this area, they raped every single woman they could find.

After the Nazi atrocities became fully known to the public in 1945, the Mennonites found themselves battling the demon of their own creation in the stark realization of having compromised their fundamental tenets of faith by their allegiance with one of the most evil regimes in human history. It took 30 years before writings of addressing the Nazi past came to be written by German Mennonites. And for this, for many, this was a very painful process. And again, there's another story I don't have time to go into.

But one of the Nazi concentration camps, Stutthof, was located east of Danzig in the midst of Mennonite farmhouses. A large number of smaller camps belonged to this KZ also. And inhabitants of the area often saw starving prisoners in their striped dress on their way to the places of their forced labor. This camp was run by Mennonites. And these Jews and people in the concentration camps, these workers, starved workers, worked for Mennonites. There's a picture of one of these books that's also in my book.

And here's a picture of Adolf Hitler above the picture. This is a picture of him above the pulpit in Paraguay. This is all in my book. And I've got to bring this to a close here shortly. So we could ask the question, why did the German Mennonites enthusiastically support Adolf Hitler? Number one, he provided religious direction. Number two, he improved the farming economy. Number three, he created a stronger central government. Number four, he worked to destroy communism.

Number five, he offered hope to a discouraged Germany. And number six, he offered a comprehensive solution to German problems. We look back at that time in history and are perplexed. Couldn't the German people understand what was happening? Didn't a constant diet of slanted media raise any concerns? Incredibly, few were aware of how their views and values were being shaped because it was accomplished through entertainment.

They laughed together at the comedies, cried together through emotional scenes, and rejoiced together when German heroes conquered. These movies were the talk on the streets the next day. They couldn't wait for the next film. But unknown to the public, they were allowing media to change their views, their values, and the very core of who they were. So in 1995, a national coalition of German Mennonites published the following statement.

Most Mennonites in Germany gave in to the temptation of Nazism and sacrificed a peace witness. Very often, they valued their commitment to the state higher than their duties to Mennonite brothers and sisters in the Netherlands and France. Nearly all Mennonites remained silent in the face of Nazi crimes against Jews and others. We can only plead for forgiveness with the words of the Lord's Prayer. That was 50 years after World War II ended.

They finally made, and this, to my knowledge, is the first public statement that they made. And now, since that time, there's much more coming to light. And again, I don't have time to do all this. Said of a former Mennonite Nazi in 2001, 23 years ago, the majority have not recognized the need for repentance of any kind. Most of them are gone by now. The Mennonite open-mindedness toward the Third Reich was possible when Mennonites left the early separation and integrated into the Protestant society.

This pattern has not changed since 1945. Why did German Mennonites become Nazis? They were the heirs of groups who, after long centuries of being disadvantaged, had now made tremendous gains and had flourished quickly after adapting to German society. They had long since lost any connection to the critical stance of their first Anabaptists, and their understanding of their own history was revisionist.

They adopted the prominent Protestant theology of Lutheranism, according to which the head of the state is acting as God's instrument, although there was also some dissent. In general, however, German Mennonites of this time separated their personal religious beliefs from their political opinions. There is no denying. This is written by Simon Wiesenthal, and I could tell you a story about this. There is no denying that Hitler and Stalin are alive today, metaphorically.

They're waiting for us to forget because that is what makes possible the resurrection of these monsters. And that's where we'll end it today. All right. Yeah, thank you for that. Thanks again for sharing with us, Chester. You had mentioned that these stories, there was an effort in keeping these stories buried, and I can see why, because they're very sad and very shameful.

One thing I noticed coming out of you sharing quotes and stuff was with the Russian Mennonites, there was a blending of Old Testament moralities with New Testament theology, and that keeps coming out in history. Yes. Because if you try to justify killing from Jesus' teachings and life, you don't find anything in the life of Christ or his teachings. Exactly. Exactly right. You have to go to Abraham, you know, in militarily freeing Lot, or David killing Goliath.

You have to pull out those Old Testament stories to justify killing today. So history keeps repeating itself. And that very thing happened with the early church when Constantine was grooming the early church. That very thing happened where they started bringing out those Old Testament stories to justify war, killing.

David Brousseau calls it the two coming together, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world, calls it the Constantine hybrid there with the early church, which is also a very, very sad part of history. So we can't erase history. We can't go back and undo it, but what we can do is learn from it and not repeat those bad things to the best. By God's grace. May God help us all. So yeah, is there anybody in the audience that would have something to share with Chester here or make a comment? We can open that up.

Sorry, I need to give you the ability to unmute yourself, which you should be able to do that now. So feel free to share. Yeah, well, thanks so much, Chester, for your time. And I really appreciate what you're doing. We need more people like that to go out and tell people what history was. And I've heard that before. Dean Taylor has talked, had several talks on what the Mennonites did. Or was it Dean Taylor? I'm trying to think exactly where I found out about that.

But there's new things I've learned from you as well. So that's a great part of that. I think we need to be reminded of what happened and how the Mennonites were just changed over time from being there in Germany. And today, we probably have a lot of similarities, and it's probably good if we were reminded more of that so that we don't have as many or don't fall into that same trap. So maybe you could tell us a little bit where we're heading the same direction. Oh, I would take too much time.

We're supposed to be ending this. That would introduce a whole new time session. Okay, anytime we compromise the two kingdom concept, we're heading down that road. That's the simple answer. And for some reason, we somehow think it's harmless. And just recently, in the election, I understand many thousands of older Amish voted in this last election. It's like, don't you know? Does not history mean anything? Yeah, that's very, very sad. I heard a quote here several months ago, the loss of the two kingdoms.

Yeah, it kind of stated it as probably one of the biggest losses of Christianity when that two kingdom concept was lost. And the Christians, the church blended itself with the kingdoms of the world. All right, is there anyone else that would like to share something? Hey, this is Jonathan Chester. I just want to personally thank you for your story and your reminder. Yeah, your teachings have been a big influence to me. And yeah, I've seen things play out. And I just want to encourage you and bless you for your work.

Well, thank you, Jonathan. It just does my heart good to see somebody like yourself who is learning from history. And so the job of a teacher is to work himself out of a job. So you pick it up. I have gray hair. You don't look like gray hair. So you pick it up and you do the work in the next generation. Sure, thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. Is there anyone else out there that would like to make a comment? Thank you, Jonathan. Good to see you on this morning. Thanks for contacting me and inviting me up. Yeah.

Brother Chester? Yes. Are there any instances in modern times that you can think of, like here recently, that this is starting to repeat itself and the danger of that? Yes, in the last election. It has already started. Yeah. I'm embarrassed. We're kind of behind the curve on this. We should have been doing better years ago. We're already at this place where it's beginning. Yeah, it's the place of compromise. And we have actually been there for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow.

May we do our part in warning people and praying and living the life that Christ has called us to live. And you brought out about the symbols of redemption being used to kill Jews. And that is so sad. And that's something that has repeated itself down through history. It's very, very sad. Yeah. Yeah, thanks for joining here this morning. And really appreciate your investment, Chester. I'm very grateful for that. And I guess stay posted for next month. We have scheduled. You can pray for me.

I have a topic that I'm planning on sharing next month, the first Saturday of January, which will be 2025. Planning on doing a little overview also of church history, starting with some stories, things that I've experienced and seen in my own life and then the teachings of Christ and how they got lost. And yeah, hopefully we can work together to revive, in a way, revive the church and revive the teachings of Christ.

As I look at the Western church, I just see them largely lost in our churches, which is in North America, which is very, very sad. Then I think Atlee is planning on bringing on Daniel Willis the middle of this month, which shouldn't be too far away. Is that right, Atlee? Yeah. So that should be, I think it was the 21st possibly, but we're not sure yet. So let me look here real quick. I guess just look for a post. We talked about the 21st, but he doesn't know yet if he can do it then.

So it might be middle of the week or evening sometimes. So we'll let you guys know. That'll be posted. I guess anyone that's interested can find the website, Hope for Wandering Amish, get signed up for email updates, WhatsApp updates. There's different ways to get updates. And then also the middle of January, there's some sisters planning on doing a talk, a Sisters Hope for Wandering Amish, which we're really excited for that.

So again, Atlee's been developing the website with a page for the sisters groups there or the sisters group and ways to get updates and stuff. So yeah, there's a couple of different things happening there. So our heart is to build God's kingdom. And yeah, so appreciate your prayers. And again, this was really great this morning. Again, we can't change the past, what has happened, but we can learn from the past and embrace the teachings of Christ and help the church propel forward. So thank you very much.

Is there anything else? Just a big thank you. Yeah. All right, Chester, would you like to close us in prayer? Then we can consider ourselves dismissed. Heavenly Father, thank you that there are some people who are interested in learning history. I praise you to bless every effort to both learn and share the truths from the past to prevent us from repeating unnecessary mistakes.

I pray that you'd bless these people in their efforts, that they might be able to help spare people from unnecessary mistakes and grant the bigger picture to deeply impact our hearts so as we as a people would wake up to what's happening and refuse to compromise on the two kingdom theology. So bless us all as you see we have need. Teach us. I pray that you would impact us in ways sometimes which we may even resist. Teach us and reach us to help us and be merciful to us. And bless our churches to that end as well.

In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. All right, y'all. Blessed day. Same to you. Bless. Bye. Guide me, O the great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren.