Hans P. Werner

Biography

Hans Werner was born in Saskatchewan to immigrant parents who came to Canada after World War II. His family moved to Manitoba when he was still an infant settling in Steinbach where his father worked as an auto mechanic. Hans attended high school in Steinbach and at the Mennonite Collegiate Institute in Gretna and completed an Engineering degree at the University of Manitoba. In 1972 he married Diana Suderman and after completing his degree joined her family on a potato and cattle farm in the Winkler area. Hans and Diana raised a family of three children while living in the West Reserve Mennonite village of Schanzenfeld. An awakened interest in history resulted in a return to academic studies and he completed a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree at the University of Winnipeg, a Master of Arts from the Joint Masters program of the Universities of Manitoba and Winnipeg and finally a Ph.D. in History in 2002. Hans's dissertation examined the integration of Mennonite and other Protestant immigrants who came to Winnipeg, Canada from the Soviet Union via Germany in the 1950s and those who came to Bielefeld, Germany in the 1970s and 80s. Research for the dissertation included a number of trips to Germany. The pursuit of graduate studies was made possible by a University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowship, a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council doctoral fellowship and a German Canadian Studies Fellowship. The dissertation was recently awarded the University of Manitoba Distinguished Dissertation Award and is currently being reviewed for publication by McGill-Queen's University Press. Hans has served as Interim Chair of German Canadian Studies and member of the History Department at the University of Winnipeg. He has been active in the Steinbach Village Museum Board and the Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society. Diana and Hans live in Winnipeg and are members of the Bethel Mennonite Church.

Research Interest

Mennonite Immigrants: 1870s The history of Russian Mennonite immigrants to Canada in the 1870s and their subsequent scattering in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Mexico, Belize, Bolivia and Paraguay. Canadian Immigration History The story of Canada's immigrant peoples, particularly those who came during the Great Transformation of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and those who came after World War II Comparative Migration History The study of transnationalism and diasporic communities. People who maintain identities and connections, whether real or imagined to more than one nation state.