Mennonitische Blätter: connecting German Mennonite congregations

Mennonitische Blätter began on 1 January 1854 under Jakob Mannhardt, a Mennonite preacher in Danzig. Its purpose was to help scattered congregations recognize their fellowship and responsibilities toward one another. Mannhardt connected this work with the confession of Christ as the church’s foundation in 1 Corinthians 3:11, the biblical text associated with Menno Simons.

The paper combined accounts of Mennonite history with teaching about faith and congregational order, selections from earlier Anabaptist writings, devotional material, mission reports, hymns, and church news. Remembering the martyrs and attending to the needs of living congregations therefore appeared within the same publication. Its pages became an important record of German Mennonite spiritual and intellectual life.

Mannhardt retired from the editorship in 1874, and Hinrich van der Smissen continued the work for fifty years. Publication was interrupted in 1925 and revived in 1927 under Emil Händiges. The final issue appeared in March 1941 after the German government ordered the paper to stop. The later Hamburg periodical with the same name is a separate serial, distinguished as such in the Mennonite Library and Archives catalogue.