Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
Chapter four
“The first step in Christian life is the egotism of
complete self­absorption in order to have one’s own
personality redeemed and transformed by Jesus. But
once a person stands firmly on both feet, once a person
becomes whole, then he or she can and must love.”
from Eberhard’s doctoral thesis on nietzsche.
Changing CourSE
Eberhard did not wait in Breslau to receive the official refusal from the church
council but left on October 2, 1908, for a two-week stay in Lichtenrade with
his uncle Ernst Ferdinand Klein. His real destination, however, was the SCM in
Halle. There, his plans for baptism created only momentary ripples, and the SCM
stood by their job offer. The part-time position in the SCM allowed him to regain
persective, at least for the moment, and it enabled him to continue his studies
without his parents’ financial support. On September 23 it had been necessary for
him to tell his fiancée, “My parents refuse to pay my expenses for a new course
of study.” For a moment he even considered choosing a completely different field:
“Should I study medicine?” he mused in the same letter. But he did not mention
this again and returned to the most obvious solution: philosophy.
On October 16 he arrived in Halle and placed an ad in the Generalanzeiger
(the classified ads) for a room. For the time being he would board at the home of
Sievert, the mine director. By now Emmy had returned from her restful getaway,
and Eberhard wasted no time. He arranged to meet her that very afternoon to
celebrate their reunion and to discuss the many things they had been waiting to
tell each other. Above all, they wanted to prepare themselves in prayer for the
urgently necessary talk with Emmy’s parents.
Most likely they met with the von Hollander parents that same evening. None
of them could have anticipated a harmonious conversation; too many spoken and
unspoken reproaches stood between them. Else von Hollander, Emmy’s sister, had
been baptized in Halle on August 2. This had esecially angered her mother who,
after the fact, concocted her own theory that Emmy and Eberhard had persuaded
Else to be baptized. 1 When, on September 23, Eberhard had written openly to his
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