Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
thE fEllowShip of rEConCiliation
Under Eberhard’s leadership in the early 1920s, the “Sunheart House” in Sannerz
had quickly become a center of international contacts and reconciliation. Eberhard
had kept in touch with both German and English Quakers, including Walter
Koch, John Stephens, and Joan Mary Fry, from as far back as the time of the “open
evenings” in Steglitz. In 1914 the English Quakers had formed the Fellowship of
Reconciliation (FOR). After the war the Dutch Quaker Kees Boeke had taken the
lead in building up the FOR on an international scale. Under the label “Christian
International,” the FOR met in the fall of 1919 at Kees and Betty Boeke’s home
in Bilthoven, near Utrecht, Holland. The German representatives were Walter 120
Koch and Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze. On December 19 Otto Herpel published
a detailed report in Das Neue Werk.
Eberhard missed the second conference in July 1920 as well as the first. (The
invitation was lost in the mail.) He sent a message to the conference, however,
declaring his support. Not until January of 1921 did Eberhard finally make
personal contact with FOR representatives, first in Sannerz and a few weeks later
in Bilthoven. 20 There he came into contact with Christian pacifists from England,
France, Belgium, the United States, Hungary, Austria, and Denmark. Afterwards
some of them appeared as guests in Sannerz.
For his part Eberhard agreed to serve on the FOR’s executive committee and to
seak at its national conferences – he would do so in Freudenstadt in 1924, on the
Habertshof in 1925, and in Oberammergau in 1926. But he did more than just talk:
“Action seaks louder than words.” On one occasion during those years of social
unrest Eberhard literally stepped between two antagonistic groups –government
soldiers on one side, workers on the other – armed with nothing but a white flag,
his own courage, and his powers of persuasion. He held true to the example of
Jesus: anyone who guards his own life is unable to be a peacemaker; a person who
always stays at a safe distance will never get his message across to others.
When it came to reconciliation, the real touchstone was the life together in
community. “If you want to rid the world of hate, you must stop hating and begin
to love.” Eberhard was absolutely clear on this point. “If love is not praciced in a
small group, then pacifism is an empty term. The will for peace must be proved
in daily life. We are not interesed in a general pacifism, only in pacifism that will
permeate a person’s whole life with the spirit of goodness.” 21 Eberhard himself was
actually very strong-willed by nature, a born fighter. He could shout at people and
hurt them with his sharp words. Gertrud Dalgas once related that at every Lord’s