Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
the communal life, cleared up misunderstandings, and diffused suspicions: “Our
settlement and household community is not the means to some particular end, not
even a religious end; it is the other way round. What people term as our settlement
is the unavoidable result, the fruit of something germinating in our hearts.” 14
nEw lEadS
In the first months of 1921 a correspondence had developed between Sannerz
and Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas. Just another among innumerable
exchanges. There was no indication that this contact would have esecially far-
reaching consequences. A philology professor named J. G. Evert had become 108
interesed in Das Neue Werk and ordered a few books from the publishing house.
He introduced himself as a Mennonite and drew Eberhard’s attention to two
Christian communities that praciced community of goods: one a “Hutterian
Bruderhof ” in Alexandria, South Dakota, the other an Amish settlement in Iowa.
He also enclosed in his letter the 1917 petition from the Hutterian Bruderhofs
to President Woodrow Wilson. In it the Hutterites appealed to the president to
resect their commitment and their consciences and to exempt the Hutterian
Brethren from military service. This letter was Eberhard’s first awareness that
there were still Hutterites living in community and that they had remained true
to their forefathers’ peace witness right up to the present day. He printed the
petition in the May 1921 issue of Das Neue Werk. 15 Shortly afterwards the journal
also carried a prose translation of J. G. Evert’s poem “The Martyrs of Alcatraz.”
This was entitled “Hutterian Brethren in Military Prison in America.” 16
Eberhard did not seek immediate contact with the Hutterian communities in
North America. Now, however, he had first-hand information about them. And
he had names: David Hofer, Elias Walter, and Joseph Kleinsasser, the elders of the
three branches of Hutterianism: Lehrerleut, Dariusleut, and Schmiedeleut. 17 For
the time being other events shunted this information to the side. But it had been
found and would not be lost.
a yEar of CriSES
The year 1922 began with unspoken accusations. During the conference of Neuwerk
coworkers in Schlüchtern at the close of 1921, tangible suspicions permeated the
room: Did the Sannerz community household think that they were better than the
others? Were they attempting to compel heaven to come down to earth? Eberhard