Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
Eberhard held a noteworthy talk in Edinburgh on April 23, 1935. Speaking of
the situation in Germany he said, “Human blood is put in place of the divine Spirit,
the materialistic belief in race in place of the breath of God, morbid hate in place
of love; the mammonistic rule and the bloody violence of the state, the triumph
of private property, in place of true social justice; the merely feigned peace of the
sword and preparation for war in place of a genuine will for peace…and above
all, embittered hostility to the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount – the Antichrist
against Christ!”
And on the situation of Christians in Nazi Germany: “There are undoubtedly
Christians everywhere who abhor this apostasy with its heathen admixture, who
would rather die than consent to take part in this impure confusion. In central
Europe too it is certain that such Christians can be found – but only with difficulty.
The power of public enslavement, the brutal suppression of every expression of
free spirit, has driven them from all public places.”
Eberhard pleaded for the “necessary outer and inner help” not only for the
Bruderhof but for all Christians in Germany. 11 And in Great Britain, Eberhard
and Hardy had their ears filled with all kinds of well-meant but contradictory
advice:
John Fletcher, a World War I conscientious objector regarded by many as a
living legend, said that without a doubt the Bruderhof ’s young men should have
remained in Germany. Rather die than yield – that would have been a witness for
the cause! 12 The attitude “of giving one’s utmost and remaining alert and acive
to the end” appealed to Eberhard. At one point he seriously considered sending
a few brothers from the Alm Bruderhof back to Germany “to stand firm on the
question of military service as a test of characer, to show their faithfulness to
their promised word.” 13 Fortunately he soon abandoned these ideas.
Leyton Richards, a charismatic personality and a Birmingham minister,
justifiably doubted whether the Alm Bruderhof could survive economically. 14 He
suggesed that the community immigrate to Canada, and he was ready to make
funds available for the move.
Joan Mary Fry advised them to come to England instead, but at the time land
was virtually impossible to obtain. So at the time of Eberhard’s return to the Rhön
Bruderhof in May of 1935, the Netherlands still seemed a more likely choice.
All these ideas had a point, and many of the contacts made or renewed during
this journey provided reliable support a short while later. A letter Eberhard
sent to the “emigration office of the Dutch Anabaptists” a few weeks after his
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