The previous post in this series identified some of the legal documents that the Mennonites moving from West Prussia/Poland had to secure before making the 900-mile journey: a passport issued by the regional Prussian authorities authorized its bearer to travel and, ultimately, to exit the West Prussian territory; a visa, or entrance permit, was issued by the Russian General Consulate and presented when the immigrant crossed into Russian territory.
Of course, the process depended on the willingness of the governing authorities to accommodate the Mennonite requests, and that was not always freely granted. The Prussian government was caught in a dilemma: on the one hand, the Mennonites were typically productive members of society, not only as farmers but also as shopkeepers and artisans; on the other hand, Mennonites refused to take up arms against Prussia’s enemies, which rendered them less useful to the militaristic Prussians. These competing realities often led to a conflicted state of affairs. Peter Klassen explains:
would-be emigrants often found numerous obstacles to their leaving, not least among them being the uncertain and often contradictory policies of the Prussian government. Administrative officials, concerned about economic productivity, used a variety of obstructionist tactics to try to prevent farmers, artisans, business persons and laborers from leaving: denying permission to emigrate; impeding the sale or purchase of land or other possessions; refusing to process documents, etc. (Klassen 1998, 85)
Eventually the Department of External Affairs in Berlin attempted to bring some clarity to the matter:
While emigration was to be discouraged, limited permission to emigrate could be granted, for “our state … needs citizens and inhabitants who will, if necessary, defend their state and serve as soldiers, which according to their religious principles Mennonites reject.” … On May 17,1788 Berlin authorities seemed to open the door to emigration and stipulated that since Mennonites do not wish to perform any military service, they “shall be given permission to emigrate if they so desire, and if they do not possess any land.” (Klassen 1998, 88)
Unfortunately, the implementation of the policy varied from district to district and time to time. Many of the Mennonites who left for Molotschna in the early nineteenth century, for example, did own land. Obviously, the conditions of the 1788 declaration were not applied rigorously or uniformly. Klassen notes further:
Frequently the government in Berlin gave latitude to local authorities in Marienwerder and Königsberg in interpreting official pronouncements. Lands were not to be left destitute because of emigration, nor were local economies to be adversely affected. Special care was to be taken to make sure that nothing would be done to reduce military obligations. On the other hand, persons not owning land, and thus not tied to the cantonal military policies, might well be permitted to leave. (Klassen 1998, 92)
In other words, as long as the local economy was not damaged significantly by the loss of productive members of society, and as long as an area’s ability to supply the mandated number of militia to the national army was not endangered, permission to emigrate could be granted.
Of course, because human behavior in the nineteenth century was no different from what it is today, it is not surprising to learn that not everyone could be trusted to play by the rules. Klassen, for example, notes one particularly clever way that some Mennonites gamed the system. Because Danzig was still a free city, residents of that city did not need to abide by Prussian law. So it was, Hendrick Donner of the Orlofferfelde church west of Danzig reports, that “many members of his church ignored this directive, moved to Danzig, then emigrated from there” (Klassen 1998, 88).
Because of the possibility of unauthorized emigration, the Prussian government and local authorities expended significant effort to regulate human traffic within and beyond its borders. According to the Wikipedia article “Germany Emigration and Immigration” (here),
Passport regulations between 1815 and the 1850s in German territories were in the hands of police officers. They were allowed access to guest books in inns, they could trace the exact travel route by looking at visas and remarks on the travel documents. People were sometimes willfully subjected to examinations, long periods of waiting or even corporal punishment.
In spite of the government’s efforts to ensure compliance, secret emigration, otherwise known as illegal immigration, from the perspective of the destination country, was a persistent problem. The Wikipedia article adds:
not enough officers were available to enforce emigration-immigration/migration laws which account for the many secret emigrations from German territories. Statistics say that at times 90% of the population in some areas of East Prussia emigrated without official consent. In other German territories the amount of secret emigrations sway between 30 and 50%, and that is only estimated.
It would be foolish to believe that Mennonites emigrated to Russia only when they had permission to do so; certainly some made the trek without the necessary authorization. This raises the question of how to judge particular cases. To bring this home to Buller Time, what are we to make of the fact that the usual sources do not record a visa for Benjamin Heinrich Buller? It may be that a visa exists (or existed) and that we have not yet found it. It is also possible that our ancestor Benjamin was, shall we say, an illegal immigrant to New Russia. We cannot decide one way or the other at this time.
Beyond that, it seems that the larger phenomenon merits further study. If some Mennonites emigrated from Prussia to New Russia without permission to do so, as seems highly likely, can we determine, even roughly, the percentage of settlers in New Russia, or Molotschna alone, who left Prussia and entered Russia without authorization? An intriguing question—I hope that someone someday will attempt to offer a data-driven answer.
Work Cited
Klassen, Peter J. 1998. Barriers to Emigration from Prussia. Mennonite Quarterly Review 72:84–95
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