Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
subtitled A Guide to the Soul of the Bible, it also gives insight into Eberhard’s soul
and mirrors his inner development after 1918. It reflects, as well, the theological
conflicts of the 1920s. The dispute with Karl Barth and his “totally other” God
takes place both in and in between the lines. 20 Liberal, intellectual theology is
challenged. 21 Ideas from Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis are taken into account.
The revised edition of Inner Land can also be read as a record of approaching
disaster. From one page to the next Eberhard’s premonitions grow sharper, his
warnings clearer. His farsightedness is stunning: months before Hitler seized
power, before the whole of society was forced into National Socialist conformity,
long before the hellish asect of Nazism was recognizable, Eberhard prophesied
the collapse of any kind of national self-redemption. He castigated race idolatry
and foresaw the approaching evil, bloodshed, and death. 22 Naturally his capacity
to predict the future had its limits. Eberhard could have no idea of the crimes the
National Socialists would later commit. A state that trod justice underfoot and set
up injustice as its norm defied even his powers of imagination. 23 After January 30,
1933, when reality surpassed imagination to the most horrible degree, he had no
desire to expend his energies on describing the terror; he did not want to direct any
more attention to evil than was absolutely necessary. Eberhard chose an altogether
different approach: look away from the dangers, focus on the mystery of Gemeinde,
and draw strength from the spiritual powers that help the believers to withstand
persecution and face the enemy. 24 Here once more he anticipated his own personal
experiences and the experiences of the Bruderhof.
By the end of 1932 the revision of the chapter “Light and Fire” had been
completed. It served as a statement of belief for Eberhard and the brotherhood
at the Rhön Bruderhof. After January 30, 1933, the day that Hitler became
chancellor of Germany, any attentive reader of this chapter of Inner Land must
either have been alarmed for the fate of its author – or else have been on the other
side and have recognized immediately that the new state could never expect the
support of such a man.
Eberhard included in “Light and Fire” a short history of the swastika, the eastern
symbol of sun and fire that the National Socialists had chosen – in error, Eberhard
asserted – as the symbol for their movement. He pointed out that this symbol,
which dates back to the Stone Age, has a universal significance for all humanity.
He claimed the swastika for all peoples, regardless of race or color, and quite
secifically for the Jews. With Eberhard’s insights into the universal nature of the
swastika in mind, the horrors of the holocaust, meted out under this very symbol,
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