Wüstenfelde, a village near Oldesloe in the German province of Schleswig-Holstein, was the place where Menno Simons could live and work quietly during his last years. Wüstenfelde was a territory belong­ing to the nobleman Bartholomeus von Ahlefeldt, who permitted persecuted Mennonites to settle here. Menno moved to Wüstenfelde in the late summer of 1554 and died here on 31 January 1561. The village was wiped out in the Thirty Years' War. A monument to Menno Simons was erected on the presumed location of the village by the Hamburg-Altona Mennonite Church in 1906.

Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, and Waterloo, Ontario, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, pp. 997-998. All rights reserved. For information on ordering the encyclopedia visit the Herald Press website.

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