Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
with great accuracy the development of the church’s struggle and had detected and analyzed in a very
exact manner the National Socialists’ demonic use of symbols, the suggestive force of the mass marches,
the colors, and the banners.
30 Ludwig Müller, born in 1883 (the same year as Eberhard Arnold), became bishop of the regional church
in Prussia in 1933 and Reich Bishop of the “German Christians,” an organization with a poorly disguised
affinity to the Nazis. To resist the influence exerted by the German Christians on the church, the
Confessional Church was formed.
31 Leonhard Ragaz to Robert Friedmann, March 30, 1935, BA.
ChaptEr fiftEEn
1 Cf. Leonhard Ragaz to Hans Boller, August 22, 1931, BA: “Even if it should prove that the Bruderhof is
not your final stopping place, this stretch of the road is undoubtedly intended and blessed by God.”
2 E.g., As Josef Stahl wrote from the Lake Byron community on March 24, 1929: “We are very glad to hear
of and acknowledge your godly zeal and eager love and longing to be included in the number of God’s
elect… because…so-called Christians do not want to pracice such self-surrender. Although many of
them have heard and know about it and acknowledge that it is a work of the Holy Spirit, they go away in
sorrow as the rich young man did. And they do not want to come to the supper of the Lord. And so the
Lord swore in his wrath that they should not taste of it.”
3 Leonhard Ragaz to Robert Friedmann, March 30, 1935.
4 Transcript of a talk given by Eberhard to Leonhard Ragaz and members of the Werkhof, March 11,
1935, BA.
5 Even during the days of Sannerz, Suse Hungar had repeatedly left the community for periods of several
weeks at a time and had then returned. Eberhard had a very lenient attitude to the restless streak in her
characer. The Bruderhof stayed in contact with her over the decades.
6 Marianne Hilbert in “Erinnerungen an Eberhard Arnold.”
7 Robert Friedmann to Leonhard Ragaz, May 24, 1929. At Friedmann’s invitation, Eberhard Arnold
lectured in Vienna during November 1929; cf. chap. 13, On the Trail of the Past.
8 Quoted by Robert Friedmann to Leonhard Ragaz, August 24, 1929, BA.
9 Eberhard Arnold to Robert Friedmann, February 13, 1934, BA.
10 Robert Friedmann to Leonhard Ragaz, March 27, 1935, BA; Leonhard Ragaz to Robert Friedmann,
March 30, 1935, BA.
11 Robert Friedmann to Leonhard Ragaz, March 27, 1935, BA: “I admit that I cannot distinguish between
exactly how much of Arnold is genuine and comes from the very depths, and how much is mixed with
all-too-human influences.”
12 Cf. chap. 12. During the years 1929–1935, Ragaz was obviously torn between sympathy toward and
appreciation for the Bruderhof, and mistrust and criticisms against it. Hans Meier, for example, reports
in Solange das Licht Brennt [As long as the light burns] (Norfolk, CT: Hutterian Brethren, 1990),
45, that in December 1933, Ragaz wrote a letter of recommendation for him to Thomas Masaryk,
the President of Czechoslovakia, a personal friend. Shortly before this Ragaz had acknowledged that
Eberhard, in a meeting of the FOR in Bad Boll, had esablished the connection between the questions of
property and nonviolence.
13 The Nazis’ winter relief (Winterhilfe) program was a compulsory charity instituted to provide aid in the
form of food and clothing, esecially in winter.
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