Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
The only other possible explanation is that the brotherhood wanted to buy time
and was striving meanwhile to find an entirely different solution. This supposition
is supported not only by the events that took place following Eberhard’s letter but
also by a report from Hans Meier. Already in the last days of November, Hans,
his luggage crammed with shorthand notebooks (the verbatim records of many
public gatherings and confidential brotherhood meetings), had been sent out by
the brotherhood with the task of finding a safe place for the school children. 16
On December 5 the Fulda Insector of Schools, Dr. Hammacher, arrived at the
Bruderhof. He insected the school and was very much put out that the children
did not know any National Socialist songs, and he openly threatened that the
foster children would not be able to stay. This was the very same Dr. Hammacher
who had visited the Bruderhof in December 1930 accompanied by fifty assistant
teachers, all of whom had left very much impressed by the Bruderhof ’s standard
of education.
Still, despite this struggle over the school, the joys and sorrows of day-to­
day Bruderhof life continued. There was a burst of joy when, on December 20
(Eberhard and Emmy’s twenty-fourth wedding anniversary), Emy-Margret gave
birth to her second child, a son who was named Hans Benedikt.
Eberhard, now the grandfather of two, wrote to Zacharias Walter in James
Valley, Manitoba, and eleven other Hutterian ministers. 17 The letter is noteworthy
because it contains the first reference to plans for a second Bruderhof – a Bruderhof
outside of Germany. In so doing Eberhard openly refers to the advice given to him
by David Hofer, the late Lehrerleut elder: “Stay in Germany as long as you can
keep the control of the school in the church’s hands.”
On December 29 a letter arrived from the chief government official in Kassel:
the school authorities found themselves obliged to withdraw permission for the
maintenance of a private elementary and middle school.
On January 4 Eberhard politely informed School Insector Dr. Hammacher that
the Bruderhof school had been dissolved. The children of school age had moved to
another place, Eberhard explained, “…so that there are no longer any school-age
children of German nationality resident on our Bruderhof.” In fact the children
had already been in Switzerland for days, staying at the invitation of a Frau Anna
Schmidt in a children’s holiday home in Trogen, Apenzellerland. 18 They were
safe – for the time being. But the Swiss officials were unwilling to provide them
with papers for a permanent stay.
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