Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
home for the community outside of Germany. The Alm Bruderhof at Silum was
not a long-term solution. It was too small to take in all the community members
if worst came to worst. And two Bruderhofs were one Bruderhof too many for
people who felt called to complete unity. “We feel we need to draw together,” was
Eberhard’s simple explanation. If the Bruderhof had to leave Germany, then at
least it should regain its outward unity.
Apparently from time to time Eberhard had looked for another, larger house in
Liechtenstein. A note about a telephone call on October 9, 1934, reads, “We either
buy the Gutenberg-Balzer property or take a ten-year lease with first option to
purchase.” 10 But could Liechtenstein really offer security for any length of time?
A large portion of its citizens sympathized with the powerful new Germany. The
brothers and sisters at the Alm Bruderhof had already heard this plainly enough.
It came down to the Netherlands, England, or Scotland.
Hardy Arnold accompanied his father on the journey because of his English
contacts and his grasp of the English language. Traveling first to the Netherlands,
they visited representatives of the Mennonite churches in Amsterdam and
Utrecht, and rummaged through the Mennonite archives. The talks with the
Mennonites resulted in a few gulden and the promise that more would be done for
the Bruderhof, an offer that Eberhard later took up. In the Netherlands, Eberhard
discovered a remarkable proposal: the government was looking for settlers for
its land-reclamation project in the Zuider Zee and was ready to finance the
Bruderhof ’s beginnings there. Of course the government required guarantees that
the settlers would not later become a burden on the national welfare services.
Next, the two travelers left for London. There Hardy learned what dogged
persistence his father’s characer contained. For five straight days Eberhard kept
up the same routine: every morning he visited the Quaker office, limping up
several staircases. He would knock, go in, and explain his requests to Joan Mary
Fry, the General Secretary, and to the other Quaker functionaries. He made the
same explanation again and again. In the end Eberhard’s perseverance paid off. The
Quakers agreed to give six hundred pounds sterling, earmarked for greenhouses
on the Alm Bruderhof. In addition to the Quakers, Eberhard and Hardy met with
social workers, university groups, and with people at the International Fellowship
of Reconciliation center. Then father and son went on to Edinburgh, where
Kathleen Hamilton’s mother introduced them to every possible church and to
international clubs, artists, politicians, and professors.
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