Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
community members, such as thirty-two-year-old Friedel Sondheimer, had
already been moved to safety.
At the end of the day the Bruderhof would win its fight for the integrity of the
community. In five years under Nazi rule the National Socialists failed to daunt
or divide the Bruderhof, failed to induce individual members to leave, and failed
to force the brotherhood to make concessions to the Brownshirts’ ideology. But it
is true that during this same time the Bruderhof grew more isolated. Good friends
such as Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze had gone into exile. In mid-December 1933
the Dahlem pastor Martin Niemöller, cofounder of the Pastors’ Emergency League,
refused to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Bruderhof members because of
their attitude toward military service. The Confessional Church was still absorbed,
year after year, with itself and with its understanding of government authority. 15
Relatively few people showed the courage to admit friendship with the Bruderhof.
Karl Heim was one of the few. Throughout these years the Arnolds kept up a brisk
correspondence with him and his wife, and he in turn wrote recommendations
and letters in favor of the community.
thE fight for thE ChildrEn
On November 22, 1933, a few days after the Nazi raid on the Bruderhof, Eberhard
felt obliged to write a letter to the school authorities in Kassel, applying for a
young teacher for the Bruderhof ’s elementary and middle school – “a teacher
with state qualifications and a supporter of National Socialism.” Evidently the
local authorities had threatened to close the Bruderhof school because it did not
provide an education oriented to National Socialism. There are only four possible
explanations for the wording of Eberhard’s letter:
The first is that the brotherhood had actually become reconciled to letting the
children come into the hands of a loyal follower of the party line. But that would
have meant a betrayal of their convictions, and as such it is an unthinkable idea,
considering the community’s background.
The second possibility is that the brotherhood hoped to keep some part of the
responsibility for the school and so be able to exercise an influence on the children
and even on the “young teacher.” That would have been an unpredictable game of
chance and hardly consistent with the clarity that Eberhard had always demanded
in other matters.
A third conjecture is that the brotherhood wanted to wring a bearable
compromise from the authorities through negotiation. That is at least credible.
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