Mennonites in Neumark 1

From time to time we have mentioned in passing the circumstances that led to the establishment of Mennonite villages 120 miles west of the Mennonite communities along the Vistula River, but we have not previously recounted in full the broader historical contexts and key events. To fill this gap, the present post will begin to tell the story of why Mennonite (and Buller) families left the Schwetz area to live in the Neumark region and then later left Neumark behind in search of a better life in new locales.

The story begins in Jeziorka (A), the Mennonite village just to the west of Schwetz and the Przechowka church (C). In 1727 Mennonites began leasing land around Jeziorka from a Polish noble, but in the early 1760s one of the noble’s descendants tried to change the terms of the lease. Rather than accept the new lease terms, the Jeziorka Mennonites began searching for someplace better to work and live, someplace more accommodating to the commitments of their faith.

According to Peter Klassen:

In 1764, delegates from Jeziorka went to Berlin to explore settlement possibilities. Such a move would mean leaving Polish jurisdiction and moving to lands ruled by Frederick II [king/emperor of Prussia]. One of the king’s officials, Franz Balthasar Schonberg von Brenkenhoff, was charged with bringing new settlers to the Netze (Noteć) River region, near Driesen in Brandenburg.… When he invited Mennonites to settle there, they accepted. (Klassen 2009, 86)

These Mennonites were granted certain rights by Frederick II’s privilegium of 7 February 1765: “free exercise of their religion, recognition of their word in place of the oath, [and] freedom from military service for themselves and their posterity” (Hege 1957).

Later on, the settlers were given permission to erect their own schools and church buildings. As we noted with the initial Mennonite community in Volhynia (here), the new settlers were allowed to use wood from crown land to construct their homes. According to some, each family also received “at least 40 ‘Magdeburg Morgen’ [perhaps circa 25 acres] of land” (Hege 1957), although, as we noted earlier, some families appear not to have had any land at all.

Franz Balthasar Schönberg von Brenkenhoff

The thirty-five families who arrived in the Neumark area established at least two villages: Franztal and Brenkenhoffswalde, both appropriately named after the emperor’s official who had brought them to their new home: Franz Balthasar Schonberg von Brenkenhoff. Mennonites also lived in a third village, Neu Dessau, but a majority of the residents there were Lutheran, so Neu Dessau cannot be considered a Mennonite village in the strict sense.

The families did not own their own land but rather leased and lived on crown land, on land belonging to the Prussian king. The leases to the land generally extended over a lengthy period of time, often decades, which transformed the leases into a valuable property of sorts: the right to lease a particular piece of land owned by the crown could be bought and sold and passed down from generation to generation. We saw earlier that David Buller 346 sold his rights to a plot in Neu Dessau for 570 Reichsthalers (here). This arrangement created a certain stability for all concerned without the king needing to give up ownership of his property.

At the outset, life in the Netzebruch was hard but rewarding. One report concluded that “the Mennonites proved themselves most industrious and most useful” (Hege 1957). Of course, church life formed a central part of the community’s existence. Peter Klassen explains that the Mennonite settlers “at first held church services in homes, but in 1778 they dedicated a newly constructed church building in Brenkenhoffswalde. Nine years later, another church was built in Franztal, with financial help from Holland and Hamburg” (Klassen 2009, 87). Clearly, these new Mennonite communities were not orphans in the wilderness but rather full members of the broader Mennonite family who received support as needed and presumably contributed support as they were able.

Over time, Brenkenhoffswalde became best known among the Mennonite community, and even the Prussian empire, for several of the leaders of its church. But that really is another story, and it will be the focus of the next post in this short series on Mennonites in Neumark from beginning to end.

Works Cited

Hege, Christian. 1957. Netzebruch (Poland). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Available online here.

Klassen, Peter J. 2009. Mennonites in Early Modern Poland and Prussia. Young Center Books in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.