Cornelius Krahn (1902–1990): the family’s historian of Dutch Anabaptism
How he is family: he married Hilda Wiebe in 1940, a daughter of Gerhard A. Wiebe (1873–1942) and sister of Christopher’s grandmother Anna Bertha Wiebe (1914–2010). He was Christopher’s great-uncle by marriage. (Gerhard’s 1942 obituary lists “Mrs. Cornelius Krahn” among his daughters.)
Summary
- Born in Chortitza (Ukraine) in 1902, survived the Russian Revolution, civil war and famine, and left for Germany in 1926.
- Studied at Bonn, Berlin, Amsterdam and Heidelberg, under Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and watched the rise of the Nazis. Doctorate, Heidelberg, 1936: on Menno Simons.
- Came to America in 1937. At Bethel College from 1944 he built the Mennonite Library and Archives: the archive that now holds Edna Ramseyer Kaufman’s papers. He was the founding editor of Mennonite Life (1946–71) and an editor of the Mennonite Encyclopedia.
- He was the leading American historian of Dutch Anabaptism, the exact subject of The Wiebe faith trail - Friesland to the Vistula and Muenster, the Dutch Mennonites, the 1711 Swiss and the Wiebes.
His life
| When | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 3 Aug 1902 (21 Jul old style) | Born at Chortitza (Rosenthal), the first Mennonite colony in Russia, founded in 1789 by Mennonites from Prussia. Parents Kornelius and Maria (Penner) Krahn | A Legacy of Faith (1962), p. 10; Mennonite Life, Sept 1977 |
| c.1913 | Family moves to the new Arkadak settlement, Saratov province, on the Volga (the same region as the Wiebes’ Am Trakt) | Legacy of Faith |
| 1917–1926 | ”Vivid recollections” of the end of the Tsar, the civil war, the famine years, mass executions, and the fighting between Reds and Whites | same |
| 1926 | Leaves for Germany; universities of Bonn, Berlin, Amsterdam, Heidelberg; student of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer; witnesses “the rise of National Socialism, the burning of the Reichstag, and the persecution of the Jews” | same |
| 1936 | Doctorate, Heidelberg: dissertation on Menno Simons (1496–1561), published as Menno Simons (1936) | same |
| 1937 | After living in the Netherlands, comes to America; teaches at Bethel, then Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas | same |
| 1940 | Marries Hilda Wiebe (Bethel College class of 1937) | same; Thresher Table (1986) |
| 1944 | U.S. citizen; M.A. in German, University of Wisconsin; joins Bethel College as professor of church history and German | same |
| 1944–1971 | Builds Bethel’s historical library from a small collection into the Mennonite Library and Archives: 12,000 books and periodicals by 1956, focused on Dutch, Prussian, Russian and Polish Mennonite sources | same |
| 1946–1971 | Founding editor of Mennonite Life, an illustrated quarterly | Mennonite Life; MLA |
| 1955–59 | One of the editors of the four-volume Mennonite Encyclopedia (with Harold S. Bender and Melvin Gingerich), writing many entries himself, including “Menno Simons” and “Münster” | encyclopedia |
| 1962 | Honored with A Legacy of Faith: A Sixtieth Anniversary Tribute to Cornelius Krahn | Dyck (ed.), 1962 |
| 1974 | Cornelius and Hilda Krahn are consultants to the Melting Pot of Mennonite Cookery committee, which Edna Ramseyer Kaufman chaired | Melting Pot acknowledgments; Women of the Hour |
| 3 Aug 1990 | Dies at Newton, Kansas, on his 88th birthday, of complications of Alzheimer’s disease | Mennonite Life; obituaries |
Student years: Germany and the Netherlands, 1926–1937
| When | Where | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1924 | (place not stated) | His first publication, Brieven uit Rusland (Letters from Russia), in Dutch: apparently an early tie to the Dutch Mennonites, who were then helping the starving Russian Mennonite colonies | Legacy of Faith, p. 12 |
| 1926 | Leaves Russia for Germany | Finishes his secondary schooling there | Legacy of Faith, p. 10 |
| Winter semester 1932–33 | University of Berlin | Takes twenty hours of courses with eleven professors, among them Dietrich Bonhoeffer, then a young lecturer. Krahn later wrote that Bonhoeffer’s lectures on “the Nature of the Church” “were very inspiring and had some influence on my choosing to write my dissertation on ‘Menno Simons’ View of the Church’”. He also heard Martin Niemöller preach at Dahlem. | Krahn, “Between the Volga and the Rhine” (Mennonite Life, Sept 1977), p. 8; his review of I Knew Dietrich Bonhoeffer (ML, Jan 1968) |
| Jan–Mar 1933 | Berlin | Sees Hitler’s seizure of power and the Reichstag fire (27 Feb 1933). He described Germany as “a country in despair and in search of identity on many fronts”, and himself as a “witness to the burning of synagogues and the beating up of Jews” | same; Robert Kreider, “In Remembrance of Cornelius Krahn” (1991) |
| 1934 | (in Dutch) | Publishes De Mennonietengemeenten onder het Bolsjewisme (The Mennonite Congregations under Bolshevism) | Legacy of Faith, p. 12 |
| 1934 | University of Bonn | In Karl Barth’s class when Barth refused to give the “Heil Hitler” greeting at the start of lectures. (Barth was suspended and expelled from Germany in 1935 for refusing the loyalty oath to Hitler.) | ”Between the Volga and the Rhine”, p. 9 |
| — | Amsterdam | Studies in the Netherlands, the home of the Dutch Mennonites (dates not found; probably at the university and its Mennonite seminary). He “lived in the Netherlands for a time” | Legacy of Faith |
| 1935 | Bonn → Heidelberg | Rides a bicycle to Heidelberg to study with Walther Köhler, the church historian of Luther, Zwingli and the Anabaptists. There he meets Harold S. Bender of Goshen College, also writing under Köhler (on Conrad Grebel); Bender was “surprised to find that a young Russian Mennonite was also completing work in Anabaptist history”. They “struck up a warm friendship”. Krahn probably introduced Bender to Bonhoeffer’s ideas. | Keim, Harold S. Bender (1998), p. 247; Sundby, Conrad Grebel Review 40 (2022) |
| 1936 | Heidelberg | Doctorate. Dissertation Menno Simons (1496–1561): Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte und Theologie der Taufgesinnten (Karlsruhe, 1936): part 1 a biography of Menno, part 2 his idea of the church. Same year: “The Conversion of Menno Simons”, his first article in the Mennonite Quarterly Review | Legacy of Faith, p. 10 |
| 1937 | To America | ”In view of the political conditions in Germany”, he emigrates and joins Bethel College | Wipf & Stock author note |
Afterwards: in 1975, speaking to Mennonites of West Prussian background in Uruguay, he described how the faith and courage of Niemöller and Bonhoeffer had helped him in those years. Someone in the dark hall shouted “Landesverräter!” (“traitors!”). A few weeks later, at a tent meeting of several thousand at Espelkamp, Germany, many of them West Prussian and Russian Mennonites, the song leader announced Bonhoeffer’s last hymn. (Mennonite Life, Sept 1977, p. 10; International Bonhoeffer Society Newsletter 39, 1988)
Why it matters to this family: a Wiebe in-law was one of the few Mennonites to sit in the classrooms of both Barth and Bonhoeffer during the Nazi takeover. He brought that experience, and the study of Menno Simons, to the Bethel College archive that now holds Edna Ramseyer Kaufman’s papers.
Primary sources to get: Krahn, “Between the Volga and the Rhine 1902–1936”, Mennonite Life 32, no. 3 (Sept 1977), pp. 4–10 (Bethel’s online Mennonite Life archive; blocked to automated access); Cornelius Krahn, August 3, 1902 – August 3, 1990, memorial booklet ed. Hilda Krahn (1991); “Bonhoeffer Memories of Cornelius Krahn”, IBS Newsletter 39 (Oct 1988).
His main works
- Menno Simons (1496–1561): Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte und Theologie der Taufgesinnten (Karlsruhe, 1936), his dissertation.
- From the Steppes to the Prairies (1949), editor: the Russian Mennonite migration to America.
- “Documents pertaining to the migration of 1873–1875”, Mennonite Quarterly Review 24 (1950), editor.
- Exiled by the Czar: Cornelius Jansen and the Great Mennonite Migration, 1874 (1956, by Gustav E. Reimer and G. R. Gaeddert, in the Mennonite Historical Series Krahn edited): Jansen led West Prussian Mennonites to Beatrice, Nebraska, the Wiebes’ and Claassens’ American home.
- “Anabaptism in East Friesland” and “The Emden Disputation of 1578”, MQR 30 (1956).
- Dutch Anabaptism: Origin, Spread, Life and Thought (1450–1600) (1968): the standard book on the question Christopher asked about the Wiebes’ faith origins. archive.org
- C. Henry Smith’s The Story of the Mennonites (3rd ed., revised and enlarged by Krahn).
- Hundreds of Mennonite Encyclopedia and Mennonite Life articles.
Hilda (Wiebe) Krahn
Anne Wiebe’s sister. Bethel College class of 1937. President of the Western District Women’s Association in the mid-1950s; spoke to churches on “With European Mennonite Women” after the couple’s travels; consultant with Cornelius to the 1974 Melting Pot cookbook. One of her recipes is in Thresher Table (1986).
Where the two halves of Christopher's family met
Christopher’s grandparents’ sisters, Edna Ramseyer Kaufman (Ramseyer side) and Hilda Wiebe Krahn (Wiebe side), worked together on the Melting Pot of Mennonite Cookery at Bethel College in 1973–74, a generation before Christopher’s parents’ marriage joined the two families. Edna’s papers are now kept in the archive Cornelius Krahn built.
Archives and further reading
- Cornelius Krahn papers, MLA.MS.165, Mennonite Library & Archives, Bethel College (finding aid); its inventory includes a biography.
- Mennonite Life, September 1977 (75th birthday issue), and the 2011 Mennonite Life article on him (mla.bethelks.edu; blocked to automated access).
- The MLA biographical wiki entry, “Krahn, Cornelius (1902–1990)” (blocked to automated access).
- Do not confuse him with Cornelius B. Krahn (1883–1975), whose papers are in the Mennonite Heritage Centre, Winnipeg.
To do
- Read Dutch Anabaptism (1968) for the Wiebe faith-trail note: Frisian congregations, Danzig contacts, early refugees task/ai
- Christopher owns a copy (Amazon order): find it on the shelf and photograph the contents page and the chapters on Friesland, Emden and the spread to Prussia task/human
- Hilda Wiebe Krahn’s dates and obituary task/ai
- Read Krahn’s memoir “Between the Volga and the Rhine 1902–1936” (Mennonite Life, Sept 1977) task/human
- The MLA.MS.165 inventory: family correspondence with the Wiebes of Beatrice? task/human
Record compiled 31 October 2026.
About this research
Supporting documentation is linked throughout. This project is an exercise in AI-assisted research and development, and I haven’t manually verified every link or conclusion. All transcriptions and translations of Swiss parish records were made with AI, and their accuracy should be treated accordingly.