Canadian Mennonite
Volume 11, No. 21
October 29, 2007
Peace Sunday Reflections
To remember is to act for peace
Peace Sunday—Nov. 4—is an annual opportunity to preach, teach and reflect upon the gospel of peace proclaimed and embodied by Jesus Christ. At a time of year when our nation honours military service, it is an important occasion to hear once again Jesus’ call to love our enemies, to resist evil non-violently and to live as people of peace. Canadian Mennonite offers the following stories—of a former Nazi soldier and a Doukhobor entrepreneur—as examples to follow.
What did you learn about the whole situation of war?” German master sergeant Erwin Cornelsen asked the young comrade who had just marched into his office. “What have you learned and what does the government and officials say about it?”
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“We have no right to think or talk about the situation. We just have to follow Hitler blindly. He makes no mistake,” the soldier reported.
Cornelsen scrunched his face, stiffened his body and, without thinking, uttered the line that should have taken his life. “No,” he said. “It’s only God who’s unfailing.”
The comrade stared into Cornelsen’s eyes. Saying nothing, he turned and walked back out of the office. Cornelsen stood with a blank stare draped across his face.
The comrades in his unit who had overheard the conversation rushed to him. “Keep your mouth shut,” one soldier said with a furrowed brow and an obvious fear for Cornelsen’s life in his eyes. “You will end up in the concentration camp.”
“I hadn’t been thinking; it just blurted out,” Cornelsen replied.
It was February 1945 and Cornelsen was the “mother” of a Nazi unit in Norway, where he was responsible for the well-being and general health of 200 soldiers.
World War II had been fought for six enormously painful years and Cornelsen’s feelings had finally erupted. It was evident Germany was losing its grip on the war. The reporting soldier had been to a training workshop on how to boost soldiers’ morale.
God intervenes
“If he had reported me to the Gestapo and the higher authorities, I would not have been alive anymore. I don’t know why those men did not report me,” Cornelsen says, reflecting on the incident so many years before. “It just came out without thinking.”
‘If he had reported me to the Gestapo and the higher authorities, I would not have been alive anymore.’
After welcoming me into his home for the interview and seating me in his chair with the well-worn cushions, he sits down across from me as he begins to patiently and comprehensively lay his life out before me.
Cornelsen doesn’t understand why he survived that one sentence of brutal honesty. “[It’s] one experience that I still see as a miracle, as God’s intervention in my life,” he says.
Born May 28, 1919, the former master sergeant now lives in a quaint house in South Vancouver, where he is an active member of the congregation he founded—Sherbrooke Mennonite Church.
He openly talks about his experiences as a member of the Nazi forces under Adolf Hitler. He sees the war as an avenue to promote his now deep-seated commitment to peace. “Those experiences give me a base to talk to people,” he says. “Occasionally I meet Cana- dians who were bragging about dropping bombs in Germany, and so there’s a good subject to talk about.”
One day many years after the war, Cornelsen was working as a carpenter when one of his co-workers—a Canadian war veteran—turned to him and asked a most perplexing question: “Why did we ever go out to war? I went out to kill you and you went out to kill me. Why did we do that?”
They looked at each other blankly. They had no answer.
Passionate for peace
Since coming to Canada in 1956, Cornelsen has lived with a passion to advocate for peace. He learned his lesson by serving in the German army and now dreams no one will ever have to endure another world war.
In a world consumed with war, Cornelsen is still frustrated so many citizens and political leaders believe war is an answer to conflict. Since World War I—known as the War to End All Wars—more than 100 wars have been waged and more than 160 million people have died. More than 68,000 Canadians were killed in the First World War and another 173,000 were wounded. In the Second World War, 45,615 Canadians died and another 54,000 were injured. In Afghanistan, 72 Canadians have been killed since 2002.
Why?
“Human nature,” Cornelson suggests. “It began with Cain and Abel. It’s just human nature that Christ teaches us to overcome. Christ taught us to settle things with our people in a peaceful way. It is simply not the way to settle disputes and, as Christ said, love overcomes everything.”
“I basically think there are different ways and means of settling international disputes and international differences,” he muses. “I just can’t go out and kill my neighbour if we don’t get along. We sit down and talk about it.”
His peace position has never been stronger than it is now. He marched for peace in Iraq, feeling peaceful demonstrations are a doorway to pressure Canada’s government to abandon military action.
He strongly maintains that Canada’s role in countries like Afghanistan should be strictly as peacekeepers, discussing resolutions rather than imposing solutions with violence.
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Following Hitler to war
While he has a formidable reputation as a non-violence activist today, Cornelsen was not always as passionate about peace. He wasn’t even drafted into the military. When he was 17, he willingly joined Hitler’s ranks.
He was born in the small Mennonite village of Schweingruber—directly translated as “pig sty”—and grew up on a farm. The oldest in a family of nine children, Cornelsen bore much responsibility for the farm although he had little interest in farming. Instead, his desire was to become a teacher.
When he was 17, his family couldn’t afford to give him the necessary education to become a teacher. A member of the Hitler Youth, he took up the Führer’s offer of free education to anyone who served in the army for 12 years.
Teaching peace to solve conflicts was not a focal point in his Mennonite congregation growing up. “Yes, our forefathers have taught to remain peaceful and not go to war,” he remembers his catechism instructor saying. “But now we all have to serve our fatherland and our Führer, Adolf Hitler.”
If the instructor had emphasized non-violence or anti-war sentiments, he would have been taken to a concentration camp, Cornelsen explains, adding, “I don’t hold that against him. That was the situation in those days, and since most of the Mennonites were farmers, Hitler’s whole new economy had saved many, many farms from going bankrupt.”
Only one year after signing up at a Nazi rally in 1938, Cornelsen realized it was a mistake to have joined Hitler and his militia.
But stationed in Berlin, he joined throngs of German citizens anxiously awaiting the arrival of their “glorious leader.” His eyes scanned the crowd that flooded into the streets. The crowd pushed forward to capture a glimpse of the Führer.
As Hitler approached, the masses chanted “Heil, Heil.” Citizens were jumping, shouting and crying as the nationalistic emotion grew. And in the middle of the crowd was Erwin Cornelsen—jumping, shouting and crying in unison with the people around him.
Finally, he saw Hitler, the excitement climaxed and people cried with emotion. It was mass hysteria. Then just as quickly, Hitler disappeared, the crowds dispersed and Cornelsen walked home, agonizing over what had gripped him to join the hoards in exultation of Germany’s political mastermind.
He asked himself, “What happened to you? What took place?” As a Christian, he could not follow the crowd. He could not become another puppet in Hitler’s show. He knew to worship another man with such fervour would be to turn his back on God.
We still need you
“You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them,” he says now, quoting Exodus 20:3-4.
Since his epiphany, Cornelsen has concentrated very much on keeping the peace at school, in the church and his community—even among his children.
“I had made my decision to follow Christ already and it was so strange to me that here was something so demonic going on,” he says.
Cornelsen talks about these times with a wrinkled face and drooping eyes. It is not a fond memory, but he tells it so others don’t repeat this history. This is one of his contributions to peacekeeping, and he expresses his story to whoever is interested.
Since his epiphany, Cornelsen has concentrated very much on keeping the peace at school, in the church and his community—even among his children. As a father, he says, “I had to sit down and make the peace position very important to them.”
Cornelsen still believes it is a miracle from God that he wasn’t sent to a concentration camp because he was so open about his decision to follow Jesus Christ rather than Hitler. One evening, when the result of the war was still in doubt, he was discussing the future of Germany with a superior officer who was a strong Hitler advocate.
“Just wait until we have the victory,” his superior said, looking deep into Cornelsen’s eyes. “That same day, we’ll take care of the strongest enemies we have within our nation. We will take care of all the Christians because Germany cannot govern the whole world with people within our nation who are not completely dedicated to our system. The plans are all made. That very night we will take care of the enemies we still have within our nation.”
Cornelsen fired a glare right back into his superior’s eyes and didn’t blink. “Why don’t they take care of it now?” Cornelsen asked.
“We still need you,” said the captain.
In 1982, Cornelsen visited this man in Germany. He marched up to the captain’s doorstep and knocked on the door. His superior of nearly 40 years ago opened it.
“What do you think about the situation now?” Cornelsen asked. “Things have turned out just the other way around, and what do you think about your ideas and discussions about the Christian faith?”
The former captain cleared his throat, stared into Cornelsen’s eyes and didn’t blink. “Mr. Cornelsen, a German officer does not change his mind that quick.”
Hope found in the Bible
Life should not be spent dwelling on the failures and tragedies of the past if nothing is learned. If the mistakes of previous generations don’t teach society about the future, then history is of little value. Using history as a learning tool brings optimism to a world savaged by war and destruction. Maybe one day we’ll truly understand our past and in doing so create a great society.
Cornelsen says that while this is important for the next generation, there is a much greater hope that can bring peace to the world. Soon after the war was over and Germany had lost, soldiers were depressed, aimless and hopeless.
Cornelsen saw a soldier slicing into his wrists. “I can’t live because Hitler doesn’t live anymore. I can’t live,” the miserable soldier said.
“What are you doing there?” another soldier asked Cornelsen.
“‘Reading the Bible,’ I answered,” Cornelsen recalls. “And that’s the only thing where I find hope and conciliation and peace again.”
The interview was over. As I stepped out of his home—my mind racing through the stories he had shared—I took two steps down the front stairs and looked back as he closed the door. Right beside the door was a sign with a poppy flower on it and these words: “To remember means working for peace.”
An act of conscience
Some people are persuaded to go to war and follow the drum of patriotism in defence of one’s country. Others refuse to follow the herd because their conscience dictates that killing another human being is contrary to everything that they have been taught in a civil society; they follow the biblical injunction: “Thou shalt not kill.”
Those who refuse to kill are legitimate world citizens who are courageous. Their actions reflect a moral stance on vital issues of humanity as expressed by concerned citizens around the world. In 1895, 7,000 dissident Russian Douk-hobors burned their guns and swords in a mass demonstration to the world to get rid of the institution of militarism and war once and for all.
Earlier this year, a Doukhobor friend from Saskatchewan sent me a letter with the following story of his son who is an entrepreneur with a conscience:
I now want to share with you my pride and respect for my son, Kim. I was sitting in his office last week and he says to me, “Dad, I received an order from the Canadian military; they want me to produce several thousand military badges. What do you think?”
Needless to say I was taken aback because the order is for many thousands of dollars. I then said to him the order represents a lot of money that you can use.
He said, “Dad, I know, and I have made a decision. I will not manufacture these badges because they promote the military that I am totally against. It is more important to me and my family to know the principles I stand for than this money. So I will inform them of my decision.”
We sat silent for awhile and it took all my willpower not to shed tears. He did inform his family and they were supportive. So, my friend, is it not gratifying to know that there are people like Kim in this world whose actions follow their beliefs!
Kim, you are a hero for taking such a principled stand, and for refusing to contribute to the war effort. Instead, you are helping to create a non-killing society.
The last word goes to Kim himself: “I am making sure that my kids see what war and politics are really about. I have said it before, that people have the choice to produce good things and bad things in their factories. If each factory owner refused to produce weapons, there would not be any. So if you own a factory that produces a million guns, then are you not responsible for a million lives lost? How many people would not have been killed if those weapons were never made? It is not so easy to kill with your own hands because your conscience will get hold of you.”
For Discussion
1. Why did Cornelsen join the German army under Hitler? What happened at the Nazi rally in 1938 that made him think it was a mistake? What effect did his war experience have on him?
2. Cornelsen remembers that long after the war, a co-worker, who was an Allied war veteran, said, “I went out to kill you and you went out to kill me. Why did we do that?” Do you agree that it is human nature to impose solutions with violence in times of conflict? How do countries persuade their people that such violent action is necessary?
3. In the “An act of conscience” story, an entrepreneur refused to make military badges. If you were a struggling factory owner would you have made the same decision? Under what conditions would you refuse to make military products?
4. How did Cornelsen and the Doukhobors work for peace? How can we, as congregations, work for peace? How important is it to have peaceful interpersonal relationships?