Mennonite German Soldiers: Nation, Religion, and Family in the Prussian East, 1772-1880

Appendix

A P P E N D I X Document 1 Mennonite Charter of Privileges [1780] We, Frederick, by the Grace of God, etc., certify and hereby proclaim that in response to the utmost submissive request of all the Mennonite congregations of our kingdom of Prussia in East and West Prussia, including Lithuania, we deign to grant them a most gracious assurance and gracious charter of privilege written in our own hand which continues the toleration and freedom from registration for the military which they have enjoyed in our kingdom until now. The Mennonite congregations currently number 12,603 souls and have agreed to pay an annual fee of 5,000 Reichsthaler starting on Trinitatis 1773 in support of the Military Academy in Culm in exchange for exemption from military registration and impressment. Therefore they will be forever freed from military registration and personal military service and permitted and protected in their enjoyment of religious freedom, commerce, and livelihood by our gracious approval of this most submissive request. We promise and affirm for ourselves and our heirs to the crown that as long as the Mennonite congregations and their descendants in our kingdom of Prussia comport themselves as loyal, obedient, and hardworking subjects, pay their 255 Translated from Bär, Westpreussen, 2:385–86. Also reprinted in W. Mannhardt, Wehrfreiheit, 131–32, and Leman, Provinzialrecht Westpreußen, vol. 2, bk. 2, 184. 256 Appendix property and business taxes promptly, fulfill the common duties of subjects required of all our other loyal inhabitants, promptly pay to the appropriate treasury the established annual 5,000 Reichsthaler for freedom from military registration, and otherwise act in all cases as upright, loyal, and obedient subjects, they will remain eternally free from military registration and personal military service and their enjoyment of religious freedom and freedom of commerce and livelihood according to the laws and regulations of our Kingdom of Prussia will be undisturbed and protected . We certify that the current gracious charter of privilege was most personally signed and impressed with our royal seal. Potsdam, March 29, 1780 Document 2 Edict Concerning the Future Establishment of the Mennonites in All Royal Provinces Excluding the Duchy of Silesia Berlin, July 30, 1789 We, Frederick William, by the Grace of God King of Prussia, Elector of Brandenburg, proclaim hereby that we certainly remember promising the Mennonites residing in Our lands our royal protection and freedom to practice their religion. Although We are inclined on the one hand to remove all coercion from our subjects’ exercise of freedom of conscience, the well-being of our states requires on the other hand that the adherents of religious opinions which prohibit them from fulfilling one of the preeminent duties of loyal subjects—the defense of the fatherland—may not have all those civil privileges enjoyed by subjects who willingly undertake this duty, but rather they must submit to curtailments which provide a modest, if inTranslated from Penner, Mennoniten, 2:220–27. Also reprinted in Leman, Provinzialrecht Westpreußen, vol. 2, bk. 2, 270–75, and W. Mannhardt, Wehrfreiheit, lxxvii–lxxxiii. adequate, indemnity for their exemption from that most important duty of a citizen. Our Jewish subjects are subject to the same conditions, and Mennonites have even less reason to see such as coercion of conscience [Gewissenszwang ] since these limitations do not impinge upon religious opinions and church services but merely deal with them in the civil sphere of their membership of the state, to the defense and culture of which they contribute even less than do the Jewish subjects. We wish, therefore, to order and command:§1 that since the Mennonites of East and West Prussia and Lithuania have been promised exemption from military service in the charter of March 29, 1780, which we have confirmed, in exchange for an annual fee of 5,000 Reichsthaler for the Culm Military Academy, this arrangement shall not be altered, even though the current number of males is much higher than at the time the payment of 5,000 Reichsthaler was ordered. In order that this favor not be unduly expanded and that the Mennonites by paying exorbitant prices or by not paying the common obligations otherwise carried by the community shall no longer be able to easily acquire the most comfortable and productive properties out from under our other subjects who serve in the military, therefore§2 all current or future Mennonite property owners, especially those...