Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

ChaptEr ElEvEn
Against the Wind
1 Wegwarte is the German name of a small blue wildflower, also known as “bride of the sun,” and introduced
in North America as chicory. Some sources translate the magazine’s name as Wayside Flower.
2 Eberhard Arnold to Adolf Braun, April 26, 1924, BA.
3 Quoted from Eberhard’s “Die Lebensgemeinschaft und die Zukunft der Arbeit” [Community life and
the future of our work], unpublished manuscript, (1921–1922), BA.
4 In a letter from the Neuwerk Sunheart Community to the “werdende Gemeinde” of Neusonnefeld,
August 24, 1924, BA. “Our community household feels that its fundamental vocation is to work for the
nascent community church.”
5 Report about the work at Sannerz, Easter 1925, Geschichtsband, vol. IV, bk. 3, no. 34.
6 The quoted text is from Eberhard’s article “Warum wir in Gemeinschaft leben,”Die Wegwarte, no.
10/11 (1925). English edition Why We Live in Community (Farmington, PA: The Plough Publishing
House, 1995). In October 1925 Eberhard wrote a note in which he referred to the necessary reverence
for Gemeinde and its members. Geschichtsband, vol. IV, bk. 3, no. 49.
7 Eberhard Arnold, “Die Lebensgemeinschaft und die Zukunft der Arbeit.”
8 Eberhard Arnold to the Habertshof cooperative, February 1922, BA.
9 E.g., Hans Brandenburg, in Die Brücke zu Köngen [The bridge to Köngen] (Stuttgart: 1969), 76, said
that “it was hardly possible to find compatibility between Wilhelm Hauer’s personality and Eberhard
Arnold’s characeristics.” Wilhelm Hauer was leader of a Köngen youth group.
10 For a brief explanation of the origins of the Free German Youth and its role in the Youth Movement
context, cf. chap. 7, n. 1.
11 Eberhard Arnold to Ludwig von Gerdtell, September 7, 1920, BA.
12 For a discussion of the 1913 Hohe Meissner conference, cf. chap. 7, Youth on the Move and related
notes.
13 Eberhard was referring to the discussion between Hermann Schafft and the Communist party
functionary August Wittvogel at the Meissner conference; cf. Normann Körber, “Kampf um die
Schlüchterner Jugend” [Fight for the Schlüchtern youth] in Hermann Schafft: ein Lebenswerk [Life and
work of Hermann Schafft], 62ff. In communist terminology, the “last battle” (or “fight”) refers to the
final overthrow of capitalism.
14 “Der Ruf an uns” [The challenge to us], leaflet, October 1923, in Geschichtsband, vol. IV, bk. 3, no. 2.
15 Eberhard Arnold to Ludwig von Gerdtell, op. cit.
16 “A Christian movement that gives a united witness to Christ is not to be found here; neither is an
honoring of men, which directly opposes him,”wrote Eberhard in “Die religiöse Welle in der freideutschen
Bewegung” [The religious upsurge in the Free German movement], unpublished manuscript (1923),
BA.
17 Hans Joachim Schoeps (Rückblicke, 45) wrote, “A large part of us in the Free German Union consciously
represented a liberal humanist attitude alongside and in contradiction to Eberhard Arnold. And we got
on together very well. There was a great and generous spirit of mutual resect because anything narrow
and sectarian was completely foreign to Arnold.”
18 “Die religiöse Welle in der freideutschen Bewegung,” op. cit.
19 According to Hans Joachim Schoeps’s account (Rückblicke, 45): “When there were powers that opposed
the Holy Spirit, powers that he sensed as coming from the world of demons, these had to be conquered.
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