Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
Neusonnefeld or vice-versa, or the esablishment of a completely new community
in a third location.
But this attempt met with no response either. Both proposals to unite can
hardly have been rejected on pracical grounds. Possibly, though, Eberhard himself
presented a dichotomy: as the chief proponent of uniting, he also may have been
the primary obstacle to it. Who would have led a combined Sannerz-Habertshof
settlement? What role would Eberhard have played in a united Neusonnefeld-
Sannerz youth group? Would there have been any place for Neusonnefeld’s leader,
Hans Klassen? On other occasions Eberhard’s secial gifts and characer prevented
closer cooperation with similarly strong personalities. 9 Yet, undaunted, he made
such attempts time and time again for the sake of the cause.
thE frEE gErmanS
What was sought in vain with other Christian communal settlements – a unity of
aim and acion – was almost attained with sections of the Free German Youth. 10
In order to understand the glowing enthusiasm of Eberhard’s involvement with
the Free German movement, it is necessary to look back at 1920. At that time
he defended his contacts with the Free Germans by saying, “I relate to them as
a missionary in Japan would relate to groups in that country that are spiritually
awake and interesed in religion…I am grateful for every door I can find open
among relatively honest, simple, and receptive people, and there is such a door for
me here.” 11 It is no longer possible to esablish the date Eberhard became a formal
member of the Free German Fellowship.
A brief ten years after the first Festival of Free German Youth in 1913, the
Free German Fellowship and related movements again sent out invitations for a
Hohe Meissner youth conference at the end of August 1923. Eberhard served on
the planning committee. 12 About twenty-five hundred young (or young-at-heart)
people accepted the invitation. The conference took place during the struggle
against the French occupation of the Ruhr district. The popular sentiment of the
gathering echoed the national outrage: “Our Germany, profoundly humiliated
and mistreated, shall show the newly emerging world that it wants to help in
constructing a better order for humanity.” All the previously touted unity soon
evaporated, however, when the meetings actually took place. Young representatives
of the Communist party broke up several workshops. At times the conference was
chaotic.
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