Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
felt it necessary to emphasize to people like Georg Merz, Hermann Schafft, Georg
Flemmig, and even Karl Barth that Sannerz was “nothing secial, only one house
among millions.” 18
The next surprise came from an unexpected quarter. Otto Salomon had grown
more and more discontent, both with himself and with the community. He was
caught up in Goethe’s idea of “elective affinities”– community members should
be akin to each other in their intellectual level, background, and education. He
was not pleased that “so many worthless people” were taken into the community.
Coming from this angle his next step was predictable: In February of 1922 Otto
Salomon went to see Georg Flemmig in Schlüchtern and together they founded a
“brotherhood of the open ring,” a young men’s group. He left Sannerz and moved
to Schlüchtern. The two events –the formation of the “brotherhood” and Otto
Salomon’s desertion from the core group at Sannerz – struck a terrible blow to
the little community. Gertrud Dalgas, hardly more than a newcomer to Sannerz
herself, called it a breach of faith. She was not far off the mark: a brotherhood of
the open ring already existed – the “Early Church”– and it was still going strong.
Emmy was the hardest hit by Otto Salomon’s departure. For years she could not
get over the fact that it was “Otto, of all people” who had given up living in the
Sannerz community.
Then the publishing house ran into difficulties. The war had ruined the
nation’s finances. Inflation had set in, at first gradually, then at full gallop. Prices
for periodicals and books had to be adjusted –meaning raised – with increasing
frequency. This worked to the advantage of customers who procrastinated
payment of their bills, but not for honest businesseople who met their obligations
promptly. As the reserve capital of the Neuwerk Publishing House dwindled with
the depreciating currency, the shareholders grew more and more uneasy. Eberhard,
as business manager, could exert little control over the course of events.
In the spring of 1922, however, it seemed as if many problems would simply
evaporate in the spring sunshine. At Easter Heinrich Schultheis gave up his pastoral
position in Gelnhaar and moved with his family to Sannerz. 19 Eberhard’s personal
relationship with the “red parson” was as close as their political views were distant.
The only clouds to mar the happy weeks that followed the Schultheises’ arrival were
arguments at the Neuwerk Pentecost conference in Wallroth near Schlüchtern,
where Wilhelm Stählin was the main seaker. In his recent book, Delirium and
Recovery in the Youth Movement, Stählin had vowed to end the stormy, enthusiastic
phase of setting out and had championed a return to middle-class conditions. 20
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