Eberhard Arnold

Correspondence, February 1925

[Arnold, Eberhard and Emmy papers - L]

[Draft Translations by Bruderhof Historical Archive]

Society of Friends

Council for International Service

2nd February 1925 [original English]

Emmy Arnold, Neuwerk, Sannerz (Schlüchtern), Cassel, Germany

Dear Friend,

Marion C. Fox has again passed on to us your letter asking for help at Sannerz. She will not be in Germany again for some time.

We are very sorry indeed to know about your difficulties, but it is quite impossible for us to help you even in the way you now suggest. We feel the time has come for foreign relief to be withdrawn from Germany, and this view is shared by our advisors in Germany. We are therefore only keeping on a limited amount of relief, which will be wound up as quickly as possible. In fact we are finding it very difficult to obtain money in England even for this purpose. Will you therefore take this as a final indication that Friends are unable to assist? We have given you considerable help in the past, and trust that you will understand our position. We hope that things may brighten for you before long and that a way may be found out of your difficulties.

Yours sincerely,

Fred J. Tritton

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Sannerz, February 2, 1925

Dear Roland and dear Irmgard,

Many greetings to you two from our whole house! Eberhard is on a journey, giving lectures in Berlin and Saxony and seems to be very much occupied. We have heard nothing from him for a whole week-- only from others about him. You know quite well how it is when he returns from such a journey.

At the very beginning of his trip he paid a visit to Heinrich Euler in Marburg, and he promised us he would report to you about the result. Has he done that? Since we did not hear about it from either you or Eberhard, we called up Mr. Euler and learned from him that Irmgard can be received right away into the women’s clinic in Marburg. We are very happy about this seeing that in your last letter [of Wednesday, January 28] you did once again turn to us in order to find a way out of your unpleasant situation. We have been considering back and forth what had best be done and have racked our brains for a good many hours. \

Most likely Hans Seitz is now no longer a possibility. You see, Hans wanted to offer you his house as a kind of jumping board; there you were to find rest and also time to look around for something suitable. We have been well aware that it would be hard for you to find work enabling you to feed a nascent family. That is why, with Hans Seitz’s agreement, and only because of his outreaching love, we made it possible for you to spend some time with him. By freely choosing to live with the Gotha youth group in that self-constructed cabin you turned down the help offered by Hans Seitz. It was your free decision. We all thought it would have been more prudent, and especially better for Irmgard, if you had gone to Seitz. You thought differently. We have done nothing against it, for after all it’s independent and responsible persons we are dealing with.

May I now let you know what I think about your life in that cabin? I am specially glad for Irmgard’s pluck. For you, Roland, such a life does not require as much courage and renunciation as it specially does for Irmgard. However—and please don’t take this “however” amiss—I regard this romantic, primitive, nomadic existence as quite nice and adventurous for young unmarried folk between 17 and 19, but as quite hazardous or even reckless for persons who by entering into marriage take on responsibility for approaching new life. You have now suffered shipwreck with your venture and have to depend on the help of others, and in your material need you are now once again turning to Sannerz for advice. And yet it was precisely by your taking a distance from Sannerz that you were to prove that you are able on your own to sustain and manage your married life, in particular also your outward existence, meaning food and drink. But it is not this present failure of yours that has brought me to this conclusion! No, from the very beginning I was horrified that in this situation where Irmgard carries new life under her heart the two of you set out in such a childlike, ingenuous manner on this romantic venture. We all said from the very beginning: that cannot possibly have a good ending. It is for us a deep grief and serious worry that you have again shown yourselves so incapable of taking proper care of the three of you—of Roland, Irmgard, and the upcoming new life.

If one accepts unemployment benefits, Roland, it is not by faith that one lives! You know how sensitive I always am as regards the use of these religious expressions! You also know that what I here always found hard with you was that I had the impression: it is human; it not from God! I think in this respect we all have to learn a lot from Barth who inculcates this reverence before God and puts such stress on the distance between our human pettiness and that lofty greatness we call God. Of course, this should not make us lose faith in man’s inward light and should not suffocate and extinguish the divine spark in each human being. But we have to be modest and not always see every sentiment as coming from God. God often works most strongly in unaffected, unselfconscious persons—we don’t have to make a strenuous effort! True life from God kindles new life just by itself. Well, these are my comments on what you wrote in the Wegwarte and also my thoughts about your way of living

Why don’t you two just become submerged among the mass of men? Why, on behalf of that little family you are soon going to be, don’t you just learn, like all the other simple folk in the world, to build up your family life, in the happiness of wedlock and in the coziness of your own home, maintained by the work of your own hands? A true family life of noble mien, such as is now found ever so rarely in the world, is apt to kindle at least as much genuine life as does a communal settlement, which bears witness to community among all men. Most likely, Sannerz has only been possible because of such a truly exemplary family life, and as an amplified union of families it is apt to exert that even stronger impact we are longing for.

That is also what the two of you desire and are meant to become! But you need time for it! So far none of us can yet see how you, Roland, could provide full sustenance for your wife and child on a permanent basis. You do work a lot and are often very industrious, but while you were here also during the last summer there were months when you were a proper failure. And also in the quarter year you stayed up in that cabin the combined work of your hands was not enough to feed the two of you. That is the impression of Eberhard and Adolf, who were up there with you. Now we have the one great request to the two of you: this time please do as we advise you! Take it upon yourselves to separate until the baby is born! Irmgard, for the sake of the child you must go to (Mr.) Euler! And in the meantime Roland will have to look for work with a farmer or market gardener; now in the early part of the year it will surely be easier than in the summer. And when, ten days after the birth, Irmgard is free to leave the clinic, you, Roland, must have available a home of some kind, however primitive, for your wife and child, where you are able to feed them –indeed, just as if it were for your entire life! What matters is that even if you don’t feel specially comfortable with the people around you, you nevertheless learn to hold out and to bear things—maybe for years to come. Your way is a hard one, a very hard one, but it is the result of how you entered into marriage. Getting married in a household that represents toward the outside so strong a witness to purity and truth is a doubly responsible step, but three times as hard is the way for someone that has offended against that witness. Irresponsibility in this area is now, e.g. forcing Max Zink to relinquish the work he had begun--the Habertshof, to commit his wife to a sanatorium, one of his children to the Habertshof children’s home, two more children to the care of his parents, and to look for some publishing job for himself. This time do show yourselves brave—brave enough to be small and to stop wanting to be a light for others! If a fire is truly burning in the two of you--and it actually has often been burning in you, Roland—then it’s apt to rekindle itself.

Hence do not refuse our suggestion! Mr. Euler is really the one possibility we know of! What Irmgard now needs is care, good food and quiet, and at the birth she wii be totally dependent on other people. You, Roland, will then not find it hard to make a go of it on your own. Mr. Euler’s offer gives you another time and chance to put your life in order. Once the child has arrived, Irmgard will need a home for herself and the baby. It’s up to you to provide it for her! This is a responsibility you have to become very deeply and incisively aware of before God. As a husband and father you have to feed and protect your wife and child, thus bearing a great and holy obligation towards the lives of others—an obligation so great and mighty that to begin with it will be quite enough for you to shoulder. Only when you have mastered this one duty can there be a question of serving mankind! Do not forget that the persons close and closest to us are also part of mankind and that they belong doubly to us when, urged on by the ever living Christ spirit, we have chained them to us--when our union is to be more than that wrought by the influences of blood and sympathy.

Urged by sincere care and concern, I implore you, Roland, to really grasp the significance of Mr. Euler’s offer for the two of you. Look beyond practical difficulties—separation, the order of life in the clinic, and others: overcome yourselves and take on sacrifices on behalf of the life soon to arrive.

Thinking of you faithfully, I greet you!

Your

(signed) Trudi Dalgas

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February 3, 1925

Dear Eberhard Arnold,

I would like to write you a few lines in connection with that last evening. Not in order to justify myself towards you but only to let you know that I did understand what you said—the spirit of your words. Lotte told me that you had the impression that was not the case. I did follow your train of thoughts; I was very happy about each of your words, for they told me what I feel but am unable to express.

And yet I emphasized so strongly the factual—the practical aspect! I saw before me the faces of the younger ones and saw on them the need, their brokenness in face ot reality; I felt the urge to help them find the right way, to give them little helpful pointers; I thought of all we have been through ourselves and in part are still going through, and I felt the great wish that you, and those with you, help these people and help us all—you and those with you who have already found a greater security. Maybe after my long illness, my long time of being shut away I, too, am now in need of help, and without being aware of it, I spoke most forcefully on my own behalf.

I hope I, too, may have a chance of coming to you and that you may then find in me someone that shares what you feel and represent.

Greetings to you and to the Sannerzers whom I almost think I already know.

Eva Sachs.

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February 3, 1925

Miss Arbenz

Fidaz near Flims (Switzerland)

Dear Miss Arbenz,

Your letter of January 28 is in our hands. Because Eberhard is away on a two-weekly lecture tour, Emmy has opened it and discussed it with those who got to know Kurt when he was here in Sannerz. We warmly thank you for the touching care you are lavishing on one of our household members. We want you to know that we share your concern about Kurt. We, too, sensed from his last letters that the ego orientation and his over-estimation of his own self, which was always a threat to him, has morbidly increased. He has a strong neurotic tendency, no doubt. We recognized this danger in him right from the beginning, and in our experience a regular cycle of duties proved the best counterpoise for him. During the three quarters of a year that he was with us he attended to his work in our publishing house—expediting and some bookkeeping—in an outstandingly loyal and reliable way for his age, even though in view of his spiritual and in particular musical interests he would not always find it easy to do such an apprentice’s task.

Discussions about philosophical and religious problems have always greatly excited him. You are surely right in saying that what Curt needs is a strong male leader person. Whenever he became too extreme and turgid in his views, he would always be vigorously contradicted here; particularly in response to Eberhard’s quite forceful opposition Kurt would climb down—many times, it is true, only after a hard struggle—and would come to see the limits of his potentials. At certain times we got to know Kurt just as you describe him. At other times we found him to be a very melancholy person. The regular work schedule as well as everybody else’s protest would always bring him to his senses.

That‘s why we now feel it would be best for him to accept Maria Mojen’s offer and to gradually start working again at her small settlement near Ascona. We actually suggested to Kurt before his departure and also repeatedly in letters that he use his half-year’s absence from here to acquire stenographic and typewriting skills for his bookselling career. What made us do that was first of all the thought that he would need some activity while undergoing his cure.

On no account do we consider it right for Kurt to return to Sannerz already now. The Rhön climate is much too rough, and the doctors have told us that the winter here has a quite harmful effect, the summer on the other hand a very beneficial one. Maybe it would be good if you were to consult your own physician. Most likely the tuberculin embrocations have rendered Kurt very sensitive and have strongly stimulated and increased certain tendencies.

As concerns Kurt’s often very exaggerated conceptions of our work in Sannerz, we have mostly rejected them in good humor, and many a time we had a jolly good laugh at his high-flown plans for the improvement of conditions in Sannerz—like providing electric heating by means of water power or developing our agriculture by taking up enormous credits—wonderful ideas he would concoct while resting on his deckchair. That is how we ever again got to know our Kurt who after all is only twenty years old and carries in his head, side by side with a lot of immature stuff, also much that is fine and deep. In Sannerz it was so good for him to have beside and around him 24 other persons, among whom the younger ones, the growing children, would expect a good deal from him as the older one, with the result that he often had to relegate his ego, his own development and his “task” to a back place. So now, too, regular light work and not being in the center will be most likely to restore his health.

We owe you a great deal of thanks, and we hope that these lines may help to give you a bit more clarity about Kurt’s inner situation. We have Kurt very much on our hearts, for we have all come to love him dearly. Should we perhaps write to Kurt and advise him to now turn to Maria Mojen for help? It may make it easier for you if this advice comes from us.

We greet you in cordial thankfulness and togetherness!

Your Sannerzers:

Signed: Gertrud dalgas

Emmy Arnold

Else von Hollander, Monika v H

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Erich Schnepel, Berlin No. 18 Str. 3

Tel. Alexander 152

Postal Cheque Account : Berlin No. 51475

Berlin, February 3, 1925

Dear Dr. Arnold,

Sorry to say I could not follow your kind invitation for the previous Wednesday, seeing that particularly in these weeks I have been away from Berlin a good deal and in fact spent just a mere few days there. I would have loved to see you again; hopefully it will be possible another time.

To keep up the contact I enclose for you a few letters such as I send out from time to time to a certain circle of friends.

With cordial greetings

Your faithful

Erich Schnepel

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Waldenburg Castle, February 3, 1925

Dear Dr. Arnold,

It’s a tremendous joy to hear that you want to come and see us again. I definitely hope I can be in Lichtenstein on February 9 and that you will again lodge with me. I do not know what arrangements you have made about your time. If you would still like to come to Waldenburg the following day, that would be a very special joy for me.

With cordial greetings and in hopes of a joyful reunion

yours ever

Prince Schönburg

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Schlüchtern, February 4, 1925

Dear Eberhard Arnold,

I have passed on to Heinrich Schultheiß the volume of your “Lectures” that you had leant me, and I thank you for it. Together with this book I have also passed on to Heinrich a volume that Will Völger had borrowed from you and for which he thanks you warmly. It is your book on “Revolutionizing the Churches’. Will V. left it behind with me on Thursday and asked me to let you have it back when there was an opportunity. Now H. Schultheiß, after reading these two works of yours, wants to return both of them to you whenever such an opportunity offers. I am writing this to let you know where your manuscript is at present.

With warm greetings

G. Flemmig

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Sannerz, Neuwerk, February 5, 1925

Dear Lilein [Eberhard],

It’s so good that time passes and that you will soon be home!

Today just for your consideration:

1. C. Paul wants us to put into writing our abstention from buying the house.

2. Mr. May will then right away buy the house himself.

3. Mr. May states that we have to vacate it within a quarter of a year!. In the interest of the workers there have been laws about that as regards industry.

4. Mr. Weiß will perhaps lease the whole lot to us (unless the Catholic priest blocks it).

5. Room has to be found for the youth hostel, as Adolf needs everything for our agriculture. We have been offered wooden huts for sale, at a total cost (including transport) of 2.200 marks--about seven rooms, looking very nice and colorful.

6. We have been asked to take in a total of six children, two of them through Heidi Denzel in Stuttgart. For that we need room, which could be supplied by those wooden huts.

7.Today Adolf is at the Schlüchtern district court because of the Nieß-Klassen case.

8. Would it somehow be possible to get in touch with Kleinspehn?

9. Adolf is again in a better humor.

10. No news yet about Lotte Wilmers. Today she has been away 8 days. I don’t really believe that she will come back; perhaps this is also better.

11. It’s good that Neumann is going to pay for a whole year. Then we shall really come through until harvest time.

12. How did things turn out with Martin Braun [Adolf Braun’s brother]?

13. Today came the letter from Roland and Irmgard [not contained in this collection]. The very same day we received news from you we wrote to Roland as regards Marburg [probably referring to the above letter of February 2 to Roland and Irmgard, signed by Trudi Dalgas]. I shall today reply to him in Lichtenstein, and that’s also where you are going to see him. Do really appeal to his conscience!

Heartfelt greetings from us all!

And looking forward to a joyful reunion!

Longing for you and thinking of you In faithful love

Your Emmy

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Sannerz, February 5, 1925

For Roland [Karl] Keiderling:

Dear Roland,

We have received your letter [not available in this collection]. I have to say that your and especially again Irmgard’s behavior have made us very sad.. I can understand that you two are, or were, impatient, waiting for news as you were. But it’s simply not nice to write in such a tone!

After our visit with Hans Seitz we had advised the two of you to make use of his place, to which you were being invited, to look around for work and accommodation. We advised you against your plan to become settlers, especially as you would then be devoid of a livelihood until harvest time. But you did it nevertheless on your own responsibility, in the same way as, according to Irmgard, your whole marriage had been concluded on the basis of “inmost responsibility and inmost freedom”. You both know that we never shared this opinion, and later on you, too, no longer stood by it. The whole purpose of your separation from Sannerz was that you were first to become a true wedded community and were also come to stand on your own feet economically. It isn’t right to come to marriage at the expense of others! You are after all strong and healthy persons!

In your letter, Roland, you also asked for a report card and other papers. But, dear Roland, when you came here you did not bring along any such papers. You also know that we have no health insurance here nor do we pay taxes for the individuals living here. That is also what we wrote to you at that time. And we did supply you with a report card! What does Irmgard mean by declaring that we failed you? Eberhard did go to visit the two of you at Christmas! And Adolf at the New Year! A fortnight later you wrote that you were doing fine, that Irmgard had found a well-paying job and that you, Roland, also had work. You also wrote that you two had separated from that’ group of settlers and were looking for a place to stay. You, Roland, spoke of a letter you would write, but it has not arrived. In the mean time a card came from Hans Classen asking what was to become of you two [probably a reference to the above letter and telegram from Gräfenhainichen towards the end of January]. So Eberhard, instead of visiting you as he had intended, on January 27 went to see Heinrich Euler in Marburg on behalf of Irmgard. He wanted to write to you from there. I myself have had no news from Eberhard for 8 days, but he has now written to say that he is pretty exhausted, having been on his feet day and night. He also writes that Heinrich Euler is ready to receive Irmgard any day. That is what Trudi wrote to you on the same day that we received this news [see Trudi’s long letter of Febr. 2, 1925.]. So I really do not know what you reproach us with! We have always been active on your behalf. And do not forget that becoming a true wedded couple within a life-sharing community entails a great responsibility! You two have never followed our advice—we do not hold it against you but put it down to your youthfulness—but then you cannot hold us responsible for all your failures! The year for which--with your own agreement—you were asked to take on yourselves a distance from Sannerz, was to demonstrate your ability to build up a family life economically not dependent on.Sannerz. It’s now nearly five months that you have been away, and now you once again make Sannerz bear the responsibility for earning a living for your family--and that after disregarding the advice you were given with respect to your future (Hans Seitz)! Irmgard is able to earn a living as an office assistant; you. Roland, can perhaps earn your own keep but so far are not in a position to provide for a family. Oh, how many times have we said that to the two of you! But all through the summer you refused to listen to our words; you really behaved like under-age youngsters! Even now you are barely able to carry responsibility for your own selves, so how much less for a life-sharing community! And that is what you have to do as a married couple here in Sannerz!

We feel sorry that in the state she is in Irmgard has to deal with so many excitements. That is why I do not address this letter to her. Do not take it amiss that I write so frankly! It springs from a heart that really cares for the two of you.

Greetings to you, and to Irmgard when you write to her!

Signed: Emmy

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Sannerz, February 5, 1925

Hans Classen, Wally and you others,

To begin with, a greeting of hearty togetherness!

This is in regard to an important matter, which concerns not only you but all of us that want to stand together in a common life of readiness for surrender. Today I stood before the local district judge, a fervent nationalist and party leader. I had been called as a witness in the marriage law case “Niss”. The discussion and hearing, at which we were regarded as being on the same level with you and the Habertshof, lasted from 10 AM to 12.05. I was shown pretty well the whole material of the court case, which is voluminous. From the files and depositions of the Gräfenhainichen district court there emerge things that I in no way believe but which in our opinion are of such significance for us and you and are liable to have such effects that we regard it as urgently necessary for us to talk them over together just as soon as possible. As you know, Eberhard is not here and will only return on Wednesday or Thursday of next week. And he knows nothing as yet about all this. We would like to ask you very much to come and see us once Eberhard is back.

I have tried to give as strong and unambiguous a testimony as possible on behalf of you and us. But this requires that we have an absolutely clear view of both sides of this case. And that cannot be done in writing. So please set a date as soon as possible for this discussion.Today I received from you “About the meaning of youth”. Thanks a lot; we want to read it tomorrow. And now cordial greetings to all of you!

Signed Adolf Braun

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Gotthold Schneider, Magdeburg

February 5, 1925

You dear ones,

Warm greetings to you from Magdeburg! And special thanks to dear Adolf for loaning me the bike; I trust he found it safe and sound the next day in Schlüchtern! I am still reminiscing about the reunion we had; I only regret not having still spoken to Eberhard the following morning. I was sick in bed until 12 o’clock noon and in the end only just made it to Gießen in the evening.

Now I definitely hope to briefly meet Eberhard at the trade fair (Messe).

For today: Hail!

Your Gotthold.

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(Group of young Baptists)

Marburg, February 6, 1925

My dear fellow wayfarers,

Irmgard Keilderling arrived here yesterday evening and already left again early today. She did not come at 4:00 PM, as she had written; that’s why I was not there when she arrived, for I still had to hold an hour of Bible study in the YMCA. So for the time being she was accommodated in an empty single room. But she could not remain there for long and was to be transferred to a room meant for pregnant women able to pay; however, she resisted that. She said she felt an obligation toward the expected baby to find herself in nice and pleasant surroundings--not among girls of that kind. I explained to her that I, too, would prefer to be in different surroundings and that I have my daily difficulties (of which she was able to catch a glimpse, for I was called out to deal with an ugly quarrel) but that I see it as my task to be a light in this situation. Then I reminded her that she as a sinner must not put herself above other woman sinners and that, being a sinner herself, she should try to put herself into their situation and help them. I also said that I do not feel called to be a judge and suggested to her that she should at least wait until getting word from her husband.

She said, however, that the place was completely different from what she had expected, that she had thought she would be able to go in and out as she pleased and would find herself among brothers and sisters. She said she wanted to leave right away but that she had no money for the return journey.

As I did not regard her objections as valid, I did not give her any traveling money. She could have found occupation in the sewing room here, and as time went on I would have granted her any possible kind of relief within my authority; however, the latter is not unlimited, and I cannot upend the house order of our clinic just to please her. She then went off to borrow money somewhere in town and left without delay. I am sorry I have to report this. I talked to her, very quietly and gently, in a single room, so that she might not feel hurt, but neither did I feel entitled to assist her, without your agreement, in striking out on the path of her own will.

Now still something I had better insert here, as it concerns all of us. I have read the essay by Adolf Braun and have passed it on to brother Brauns (“Br. Brauns”?). It’s OK with me to have it printed, since Adolf Braun is a very dear friend of mine. Objectively, though, I am far removed from his standpoint and ask leave to contradict him, and that concerns the following.

1. The assessment of our churches as “smoking stoves” is in large measure subjective. I do not agree with him. Where is there no such smoke? When I look at our churches, I also see a lot that is good!

2. The abolition of state, property, and force also means the abolition of history and human society. This radicalism reminds me of pictures I saw some time ago, which featured modern building plans--buildings in the Art Nouveau style (Jugendstil), in which the laws of statics were disregarded. Now the above laws of thought may well get chucked out by the back door as “intellectualism”; however, being demanded by reality they present themselves ever again right at the front door. As long as I say “I”, the latent war will go on; as long as I have two hands, ownership will not cease. For skill is also something one owns. Spiritual property is perhaps even more valuable than gold, and this is where the sharing of property comes to an end. As long as I have to somehow get along with another person, our living together must have some kind of a form; that is why the state has not yet been abolished.

3. When I mention YOUNG BAPTISTS, I conjure up the image of something that actually exists. I find it impossible to picture what you, dear Adolf, mean by saying that church community is always coming into being, is never actually existent. As a human person I am always becoming something but at the same time I am something. Is it mysticism or is it escape from reality when you put such emphasis on that which keeps taking shape at every moment? Or is it fear of history, which corrects every form?

If it’s just a question of conceptual differences, I would simply ignore them. The question is, however, whether young people follow will-of-the–wisps or things that are real. The tragic of the baptizer movement has been that it turned away from the reality God had established. Whoever reads the early writings of the movement is made aware how ecstatic frenzy more and more replaces the simple heroism of the quiet sufferers, how in place of biblical revelation they put their trust in ostensible “revelations” and can only feel deeply sad that there had been no leaders that could have put the brakes on. I don’t want to heap blame on the baptizers. Amid the torment of their sufferings and tribulations they would often put their trust in false illuminations. But we are facing the same danger! What we need is an absolute sense of reality. You see, what dear Irmgard is lacking is a sense for what is real, for what God has in mind with her. “I feel this is not my task”—that suffices to invalidate any objection.

You should know that I can have no inward part in such a movement and that I feel no compassion at all when such people have to pass through a hard school where nobody asks them what they feel. It’s all pious nonsense in which we surely don’t want any part.

But if we recognize that the war will go on as long as even a feeble and tiny accent is being put on “I” (because that is all that’s needed to re-ignite the conflict), then we finally give up any hope that something new can be built on any outward destruction of what has taken form and shape in history. Kingdom of God entails collapse—that’s correct. But it would mean the collapse also of our bodies, if it were to come upon us in its full radicalism. However, if we do something that leads to the breakdown of our body, we commit suicide! That is why the Kingdom of God becomes reality only to the degree that Christ lives within us, i.e. that we have got rid of living for ourselves. But that is a work to learn which requires our entire life—a work which sets no limits to our radicalism. But we have to set a boundary to it as soon as this radicalism wants to found a church community based solely on itself. As long as men remain sinners, the church cannot cease to bear with, and educate, sinners and thus to itself partake of their sin. For it would be pure pharisaism if we separated from the sinners.

The struggle about the form of the church community will come to rest only when we cultivate a little more intellectualism, i.e. when we come to see clearly that it is only in eternity that the eternal will find its commensurate form. When we see it in its temporal form, then the eternal in lowliness becomes the DONKEY that carries Jesus. When we see it as we gaze forward to the glory to come, then the eternal is Christ’s BODY. It is wrong for us to feel we are the BODY of Christ and not to see that we are DONKEYS. It is also wrong for us to simply put up with DONKEYISM in the church. So we are just left with the consolation that we, though DONKEYS, may nevertheless glory in CHRIST. If we overdo the glorying, we become boasters. And when we judge, we come under judgment.

That is why I cannot go along when things are put into the world and into men’s brains without these human brains being aware of the huge distance separating their imaginings from the reality of life. Yet I love all those who chase after such ideals—for the sake of the ideal that draws them. They are worthy of more. But I can see the end of the world drawing near if they get dominion over it. That is why I warn of these ideals.

Our goal is so tremendously simple: not to live for ourselves. How that is to be done in greater detail is something no one can determine for us, but God will determine it when that day comes. And let s walk in the light of that day when God’s Kingdom will break through.

Warm greetings, especially to my antipode Adolf Braun!

Your H. Euler

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Charlottenburg, February 6, 1925

41 Sesenheimer Street

Dear Eberhard,

I assume you know Max Bertram, Hannover, 1 Grasweg . He used to be one of us, but with my pedantry as a ruthless cashier I have now driven him away. Please help me to reconcile him! As I do with all the dilatory payers, I wrote to him about like this:

\

“As the federation’s treasurer I would be glad it you (and your wife} could as soon as possible let me have the amounts due: 1% of the income and 50 Pfennig for each circular letter. With confederate greetings (Bundesgruß). . .

E.B.”

His reply:

“To Erika Beck

Enclosed 10 marks as contribution to the Free German Work Confederation (Freideutscher Werkbund) for me and Wilhelinine. At the same time we herewith declare our resignation.

Max Bertram.”

Bowing to necessity I had to accept the money. I would have preferred to send it back to him, for if he has so little feeling for our togetherness that my stupid reminder was enough to makes him resign, he has really never been one of us. Would you perhaps be good enough to get in touch with him?

Before our Easter convention we would now like to get out one more circular letter; could the publishing house please let me have as soon as possible any prospectuses I could include in the send-out?

What has made you say to me when we took leave here, “keep on fighting bravely!”, considering that I had been with you in a really “joyful” mood ? I don’t want to hide from you—all the more since you sensed already in Sannerz that I have to wear a mask. Please tell me what it was that betrayed me, for I fear that others, too, might notice it.

Please greet from me all those in Sannerz; it was such a joy to find people with whom I could have community right away

Warm greetings from

Erika [Beck]

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Please, [Eberhard,] read this yourself! No hurry.

Bielefeldl

February 7, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

I have a request: If possible, for a week or so, please do not talk this letter over with people but only with God! It simply had to be written! The long procrastination has only served to show me all the more clearly the necessity for it.

On returning from a journey yesterday I found Emmy’s letter; and I feel a chilly draft blowing from it. Most likely it’s got to be like that, and yet Emmy underlined the “dear” in “dear Huggi”! Very clear is the following sentence: “ For you the question is that you have to affirm fully, completely, and joyfully the testimony of the autonomy, freedom, and responsibility of all inwardly awakened persons. This testimony has to become of such value to you that you are able to give your life for it.” That means that separation from Sannerz is at present the way I am being pointed to. All the seed sown in Sannerz has finally grown so strong in me that my personal freedom, bound only to God and to His task, now means more to me than anything else. It is His gift that my life, whether awake or a-dream, is now once again sensing and feeling, hour by hour this complete surrender to Him.

“Saying yes” to the separation from you Sannerzers is still hurting a lot. But when everything within me started to shake and tremble, also quite physically, on being made newly aware of that separation by Emmy’s letter, what came to help me was the word: “How am I to recompense the Lord for all His good deeds?” I want to accept the healing cup. It does have a healing effect. For during the Christmas holidays I pretty nearly succumbed once again to my purely natural love for your children. And when Emmy stood by my side and, holding up the golden headband, said to me, ”When you come back, you will get it; nobody gets crowned unless he truly fights”, that was a temptation, for what would I like to do more than that, and it comes so natural to me to simply bow to human authority. In my last year among you I was given plenty of practice with that! It had really become second nature for me to let, in place of the will of God, its interpretation by you (Sannera folk) become the standard governing my actions.

At the same time these words of Emmy’s represent another confirmation of what I would like to call the Sannerz peril during the last year. What gives Emmy the right to want to decide if in God’s eyes the fighting “ outside” (in which I am now embroiled) is less “right” than the fighting done at Sannerz? It’s because Sannerz makes a profession of autonomy and freedom and personal responsibility but cannot grant all that to me that I am now outside and not in Sannerz!

You Sannerzers have elevated the miserable money question into something of essential importance, and that, to the extent that light is given to me—inward light, sought after by prayer and granted by God—is unbiblical. For there was no longer community of goods as during the first years; no longer did secretly glowing letters proclaim, with respect to ordinary as well as money matters: “Nobody said of his goods that they were his; they had everything in common”. No, when I became aware of some lack in my work department and expressed that and wanted to have recourse to the communal cash box, this had the stamp of “covetous will” put upon it. By doing so, you (Eberhard) have conjured up endless suffering! What Jesus has in mind is that the other man’s property be protected; wherever we give way to covetous desire--even if only by a greedy look--for somebody else’s property. That is the covetous will Jesus fights against!

I feel commissioned to oppose this new law that you (Eberhard) have put on the brothers necks. It has no biblical foundation. Whatever God lets me have in the way of money—remarkably, whenever I am on a journey, totally strange persons are apt to slip me money or some useful thing—why should I not make use of those to carry out tasks God has for me?

Whoever calls on the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved! Three days later came the moment—in the evening while in bed—when after having been silent for months, Jesus asked me once again in a very personal way, “Do you still love me? Or is your love to me so weak that you can’t follow me and serve somewhere else just because you won’t take upon yourself being condemned by the people dear to you?” That told me that He would give me strength to leave (Sannerz) even if you had to condemn me. My attempt to let the two Lottes [i.e. two coworkers both called “Lotte”] see things more clearly was of course wrong. That is something God has to do when He wills. And if Emmy does not yet see the truth and has spread untrue things about me, she will also put that right later on.

I must learn to wait. Ever since 1922 when the “enemies” undressed and pilloried

me, I have had this premonition: How are you going to feel when your best friends do the same to you? The hour did come and is not yet past. But what is happening to me is similar to what you (Eberhard) experienced with Neuwerk. Your name is inseparably bound up with it all through the beginning years.—it can’t be helped. I, too, bear everywhere witness to Sannerz , even if you (folk there) now have to turn against me and cannot regard me as “sent out for service’ by you. Yet I am a witness for you and give testimony wherever I am being asked—always hesitant and conscious of my weakness, but with the quiet prayer that God might allow His seed to grow

Outwardly this is, more or less, how I now see the way before me: continuing my itinerant work until Whitsun, followed by caring for my sister while she expects her first baby.. Then in June-July I am going to replace Trudi during the summer holidays or, if seen as a danger for young people in Sannerz, I shall undergo further training—but only because that one wing of Christ’s great church community believes it has to represent this particular standpoint which I cannot share—on the grounds of autonomy, of freedom, of my own responsibility. But it hurts me to see how you people stab your own witness in the back. You simply make my reacceptance dependent on this: ”Will you bow down in acknowledgment of what we believe we have recognized as right?” But then: what happens to freedom and autonomy? And what is it to lead to? Perhaps before long yet another “super-biblical” interpretation and recognition will come along! I see that as tremendously dangerous and am grateful that purely physically I now have once more enough stamina and backbone to resist; meaning that I shall not simply succumb, driven by home-sickness and love to my children.\

(Eberhard), I think you have unwittingly fed my brain with things that I, lacking as I do a proper basis of theological studies, simply cannot digest. What triggers within me dedication and readiness for service is not the vista of the Kingdom of God as seen by Jakob Böhme and similar thinkers but rather a look into the actual prevailing conditions, the way Jesus did and thereupon exclaimed, “I pity the people!” Facts, reports about inner city mission, Otto Rühle’s book “The Proletarian Child”—these are things never met with in my Sannerz children quarters. So I became narrow and ego-centered, and all I could still see was my own and Inge’s need, and my strength for service all dried up. Now, though, all the pain of the past year is beginning to be transformed into strength.

There was one time (Eberhard,) when you were a strong help for me--last autumn, on that fateful evening when, just back from Bebra and tormented by furies, I became aware of my total collapse. You then just said to me a few words about welfare children being bound to go off the rails. All through these past months I have found this confirmed in my school work.. Teaching a class of normal children is relaxation and joy for me; my deepest interest, though, goes out to the others. So I am looking for our second house; I do not give up the hope that we shall once more come together. I have already been given a quilt and a sheet for that new house! What I would like best is to get myself accepted for a time as a fellow inmate in some reformatory, so as to learn by actually living with the girls and sharing their work and food, their sleeping quarters and their conversation. There might be a chance for this in Königsberg and East Prussia, where a former teacher of mine has, in conjunction with the midnight mission, acquired 80 acres of land and a house.

You see, (Eberhard,) the rift between Emmy and me came about a year ago when she started to speak about ”whores’ children”, and with you at the moment when you confronted Friedel with an either-or. By declaring, “Suschen (i.e. little Susie) either goes into welfare, or she comes to us”, you were not true to yourself—that amounted to compulsion! But you probably did not know how great is the bitterness dwelling in the heart of a child that has been through the welfare services. Before you reply to me, (Eberhard,) please read the chapter on “Welfare Education and Ways Leading to Vice” in Otto Rühle’s book ”The Proletarian Child”; then you will understand why Friedel, at that moment under compulsion, decided for us. That was when I started to question your attitude and ways. There, empowered by your superiority, you forced a weak human being to say a lie—a lie that was later held against her. I have no outward connection with Friedel but am waiting for her to be saved.

It is Emmy’s wish that we be given an effective activity like that carried out by Eva von Thiele-Winkler and Pestalozzi—well, in the past year we (at Sannerz) have strayed away from what they represent, namely the seeking out of the erring and the lost. However, it can all be given to us; it depends on our faith, our life.

Look (Eberhard), this is what unites us. I feel very closely linked with all of you What I object to is simply your legalistic attitude to money. I presently continue, exactly like you, to live in voluntary poverty, but it must be possible for it to remain voluntary day in, day out; it must not become an object of struggle, a dogma, which then produces first-class and second-class Christians. That is what I struggle against—even if it were to make me lose everything!

Adolf can put in a word here only when those amounts of “his money” are no longer at his disposal.. ”For the present he still acts as the dispenser and in his department enjoys the advantage of having financial means available to him. If I am to be a future coworker of yours in Sannerz, I want to be not an almswoman but an almoner—I want to do work and with my head and hands want to create something of use, thus letting me have something to give to those in need.

You, (Eberhard), are a channel through which God lets (ever so) much stream into Sannerz. I, too, must be allowed to be such a channel. And now may God help his children to become united!

Suse Hungar

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Work-Fellowship ((Arbeitsgemeinschaft) Neu-Sonnefelf

Forest Mill (Waldmühle) Breitewitz

Near Gräfenhainichen , District of Halle on the Saale

February 9, 1925

Dear Adolf,

Greetings to all of you. Having received your lines, we would like to ask you very much to write to us more about this matter. As far as we know, the local district judge has been goaded by the Protestant minister here, and now both of them are trying to make trouble for us. Most likely the charges Mrs. Niss had at that time raised against us are playing quite a part in this.

What in fact does the term ”marriage law case Niss” mean? We do not believe that Mrs. Niss actually filed charges against us at that time. Lotte is after all of age, and our district judge said himself that the parents therefore can no longer charge us with having used compulsion on her.

Mrs. Niss has now dissolved her household. A week ago she asked us to take in both her and Hannchen (“little Hanna”), saying that she herself wants to end her last days in peace and quiet with us and that we should forgive her what has taken place in the past. We thereupon went to see her and had a look at her wretched situation..

They [the Nisses?] can no longer hold out in Rossla. Director Schmitz’s wife told me, “If you so much as mention their name, people will already pick up stones!” I told Mrs. Niss that we forgive and forget everything in the past and are ready to take in her two youngest children. She herself had meanwhile decided to go with her husband, who happened to be present and talked things over with us. We parted in peace and took the two children along with us. So that’s how things are at the moment, which may well be quite new to people.

Nor are we afraid of other defamations, no matter where they stem from. At the right time God always brings light into the darkness. We are thankful and glad we can face our opponents with clean hands. What do these people actually want? We heard of “communist intrigues”, “political matters”, “procuring and suchlike things”. Could this maybe go back to our attending that communist meeting together with you at that time? This had not pleased the Gräfenhainichen citizens at all, we heard, and especially the pastor has been mad at us ever since. We are taking it all quietly and joyfully, it being a sign that they do take notice of us, and if we would have to justify ourselves, that would be a wonderful opportunity for bearing witness, and it would be good for you or Eberhard to be present, especially since you write that this concerns also you. Please let us know in more detail what actually is their complaint against us and who are the complainants.. We can then see more clearly.

What is clear to us and was also communicated to us by the district judge (Amtsrichter) is that there is a question about our being entered in the register of societies and that he is gathering information regarding that from all over the place. Last fall the matter with the Nisses proved very convenient for him, as well as also the gossip among the Bitterfeld Baptist church at the convention. Even Schüttel, the preacher of that congregation, did not shrink from prodding our father to bring action against us. But as the latter did not do that, because, as he said, he had no reason for it, Schüttel tried to incite the son of the family, who a short while ago had returned from Sweden. However, W. Schüttel, too, is now beginning to feel uncomfortable, being unable to submit to the (Baptist) Confederation (Bund) any objective grounds for excluding us. So now he is quickly inventing a reason himself. One day he turned up, terribly agitated, at out mill [i.e. the Waldnühle Breitewitz] and then went off, as he said, to file charges against us with the district judge. Why? Neither we, nor our parents up there, nor Schüttel himself have any idea!

So one day we went to the district judge ourselves and simply asked him what he had against us. His embarrassment let us see that he himself is very uncertain about his case against us. He is aware of our fight against alcohol. On one occasion he quickly hid his wine bottles when we came in, then stumbled over them and caused a mighty clatter—very embarrassing for him. The senior minister (Oberpfarrer) is reported to have said he would do everything in his power to have our children’s work transferred to the established church. How easily such priestly souls feel stepped on their corns!

In addition there is now also the question of inoculation So far the matter has gone up as far as the provincial president and is likely to be brought before the minister himself.

Adolf, it’s not possible for us to come now! Even though one of our children is sick, we have a lot of urgent work, and some of us are away on journeys, I would nevertheless come right away. However, the main thing is missing—we have no money for the trip! Please let us right away have further details about the whole matter, or come yourself!

We regret very much that Eberhard could not come to us when he was in Berlin, but we understand very well that his schedule is extremely crowded. If we had heard in time of his being in Berlin, one of us would have gone to meet him there.

Emmy wrote of us being in Würzburg, but that’s an error. We have not been down there for quite some time—not since December.

How is Else doing? \Cordial greetings to all of you with a joyful Sturmheil (“storm hail”)!

Your Hans Klassen.

We definitely expect an answer!

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Charlottenburg, February 9, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

While still awaiting your reply to my letter, here I am already dispatching a new one! Do you have opportunities to win new “subscribers” for our circular letter? If so, please let me know how many additional copies you would then need.

In haste cordial greetings to all!

Your Erika Beck

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Society Against Pauperism and Beggary (Body Corporate)

Dresden, 8, Elbgässchen

February 9, 1925

Mr. Eberhard Arnold

Sannerz settlement on the Kinzig in the Rhön area

Province of Hesse-Nassau

Highly esteemed Doctor Arnold,

It has been a great joy for me to get to know in you somebody who places not only the social and political element but also the religious one into the center of his world view and his life’s work. And in the religious area you see faith in a personal God and the fact of God’s Spirit becoming man in Christ as the axis that everything swings round.

Nowadays the religious-minded among our so-called “cultured” or “educated” persons tend towards pantheism, claiming support from certain leading spirits like Goethe; they reject faith in a personal God they would then also be personally accountable to for all they do and leave undone. They label such faith anthropomorph, see it as an outgrowth of the Jewish spirit and regard pantheism as genuinely Indo-Germanic. This is admittedly true but does not detract from the Jewish people’s glory of having assured monotheism as the foundation for moral progress.

The views expressed in your booklet “The Religiosity of Today’s Youth” are just about wholly also my own, and I shall gladly make an effort to gain for this writing appropriate notice and interest in our bourgeois circles. True, politically I do represent a different standpoint. Before the war I had been a so-called “state socialist’ (Adolf Wagner); however, with Wilhelm II and his accursed camarilla putting an effective end to both state socialism and monarchism, Edelsozialismus (“higher” or “elevated” socialism) has now become homeless. For neither the social-democratic achievements nor the personalities of those now in authority give me a positive impression.

I can’t be a communist, for with the demise of the enthusiastic first leaders the well-intentioned communist attempts have all been deprived of their attractiveness—and for the most part also of their moral character. And this is not an accidental development but a physiologically necessary one. This in no way diminishes the ethical value of such attempts. In any case, we socio-religious folk do not want to get too deeply involved in politics—not in economic politics either. I regard as wrong a struggle against “capitalism’ as such; for it is a necessary stage in the development of civilization though not its end. It is not capitalism but rather mammonism that we emphatically want to fight against, as you pointed out very well in your lecture.

Mammonism has existed in every form of economy and in every layer of society. Side by side with all legal measures and with social and economic reforms the basic demand always remains the same: the inward change of each individual, which, of course, cannot be brought about by compulsion. Quiet, peaceful work of elucidation and conversion is the only way; however, a precondition for the effectiveness of that work always remains the good example presented by the individual, the congregation, and the state.

In the summer I intend to visit some of the settlements created in your spirit and hope to gain there uplifting impressions.

Seeing that you had to register a very regrettable financial flop in Dresden, I am happy to let you have a little special contribution from a small fund that English friends have put at my disposal for my welfare work among the aged. This, the “German Distress Relief Fund”, takes a special interest also in the moral upswing of our German people and will surely approve of 20 German marks being donated for your purposes. I would appreciate it if for the benefit of our English donors you could express with a few friendly words your hope that the pernicious hatred that ever again severs the different nations might at long last be overcome. As a German pacifist I like to stretch out my hand to the English brothers and remember the lovely two years, so fruitful for my inner development, I experienced in my youth on the other side of the Channel.

With cordial greetings

Your Dr. P. Scheven

Enclosed with the above letter by Dr. Paul Scheven to Eberhard:

In the hope of newly preparing the ground for an amicable understanding between the two kindred nations, high-minded humanitarians in England have sent to Dresden liberal donations for the purpose of mitigating the need of persons who without any guilt of their own find themselves in dire distress.

May these donations not only generate gratitude but also serve to reconcile the nations!

Dr. Paul Scheven

Chairman of the committee for

“Old-Age Relief by English Friends”

Dresden, 8 Elbgässchen

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Fröbersgrün, PO Bernsgrün (Reuß)

February 13, 1925

Fritz Wellmann to Eberhard Arnold:

Do you still remember me from Greiz? Maybe you have heard my name from others. I would still like to discuss with you in writing something that will not leave me in peace. Maybe you still remember the atmosphere in Greiz on Wednesday evening [or Tuesday? --February 10]. `On the one side people not concerned about deep things, on the other persons like that hapless Frank, Doctor of Laws and corporation lawyer etc. In that situation I, and we, were not in a position to stand up too sharply against you. That was simply not possible; hence we remained silent, and I expressed only what simply had to be said. But now after the event I may, and must, say something with respect to what you brought to expression.

Above all my request is that things be clearly defined. We already spoke about the term “church’, and you know that “resignation” is possible only from the “regional” or ‘national” church (Landeskirche) but not from the (true) Church, and you know, as I do, that the “Christian civilization’ you fight against and condemn, is bound to be deeply untruthful, and so are terms such as “people’s church” (Volkskirche) and others.` In future please distinguish clearly between Church and church, the latter term referring to, say, the “regional”, “people’s” or “so-called” church or however you want to name it. You surely know that Jesus and the Apostles, the Apostles’ Creed and also Luther have always used the word “Church’ in the sense I mean it.

Next: never bypass the consequence that the Church in its struggle against all that is satanic, i.e. against lying, mammon, murder, and impurity is bound to fail, simply because everything human cannot help failing there. (Yet) it is a “must”, a necessity for the Church to take up this struggle in all its forms.

Finally: what really shocks me is that you not only used terms such as “church community”, “community”, Jesus, and “the Christ” as well-nigh identical, but—though this may be excused by your free and informal style of speaking—you often use “I will” and “I must” almost in the same breath, for instance when reproaching Luther with failing to ground the whole Church upon the Word—as if he “could” have done that or as if he could have “willed’ or ”wanted” it. That this is not actually what you mean was made clear by your last reply, where for you, at least as I understood it, man’s will, if if raised to an ultimate extreme, becomes a will in a vacuum (bis zum Hohlraum?). It always has to be ”I must”--never “I will”, for “willing” or “wanting to” would have to exclude “being able to”, which is after all only given by the “you must”. (?)

I would also very much like to converse with you about Fichte and Luther, but I know too little about Fichte. Until now he has always struck me as the man of the absolute ego, with Luther and his servum arbiltrium as his greatest opposite. An in-depth study of Fichte is to set me right about this.

I believe, by the way, that you actually agree with me in everything, but I simply had to write this to you. I think, you, too, must have sensed how alike we are in what we feel, and this letter is not to take anything away from that.

Your Fritz Wellmann

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At present Limpt, Lippe

Permament address: Mrs. Hungar

Bethesda House

Bethel near Bielefeld

February13, 1925

My dear Emmy,

Your letter of February 3 has impressed me as both sweet and sour—as cannot be otherwise between the two of us at present. All the fresh new life round about—all that budding and sprouting keeps urging us towards joy and life, and all the more harshly do we feel that which hurts and disappoints and separates us. I felt a cool breeze blowing at me from your letter, Emmy, but it cannot be otherwise. All the more do I feel urged to divulge that all my thoughts keep circling in unending joy around the children’s world in Sannerz.

I still cherish the hope—a diminishing one as time goes on—of receiving the gift I had so clung to at the beginning —the hope that the time away from you “would help me find a true joyful’yes’”, as you, Emmy, would wish it. There are deeply entrenched obstacles, though.. The more I try to fathom the question of property from an educational angle, the more do my misgivings increase. One example in lieu of many: In a Bielefeld school kindergarten where children from broken families, aged seven but unready for school (presently accommodated in a children’s home called Luther Foundation (Lutherstift) are occupied, loved, and cared for, the following scene takes place. For the third time little Freddy pulls out his terribly torn and dirty pocket lhandkerchief. The teacher. “Please see to it that you get another one tomorrow; I can’t stand stand the sight of it any longer!” “But it’s mine! It’s the only thing I still have from my home! If I put it in the laundry, I’ll never get it back!” It’s with tears in his eyes that Freddy raised his protest, and the teacher comprehends. For Freddy this dirty rag is the very last item he still has from his own home! .In the Lutherstift everything is communalized: today a certain article of clothing goes to this child, tomorrow to another one. And att that age one has not yet reached the degree of perfection that makes you take good care of things used by everybody, or do it “for the Lutherstift’s sake”; hence the children grow careless and unheeding —an easily achieved result. But the children do guard, and hang on to, that last piece they still got left from the “home” they used to have! So the teacher understands, and at wash time she helps Freddy wash also his handkerchief. He beams all over and says, “Now I had better not use it at all, for when I do it goes into the laundry, and then I’ll never get it back”.

With Gottfried Kämpfer it’s an old pair of trousers the boy keeps on wearing, even though he has completely outgrown them and though they make him a laughing stock to his comrades. Gottfried does it because his “mother’ has let him take those trousers with him as a last piece of his “home”, they being part of his deceased father’s suit. And oh, the grief and resentment piling up in this boy’s soul when he is forced to surrender an article like that, which doesn’t mean anything to other people.

So you see, Emmy, everywhere I come across things that are bound to startle me. Why did a man like Father Bodelschwingh feel that a home of his own has educational value for a worker? Why did he see to it that a worker was provided with a cottage that would little by little become his property and would give his children a little place they could really feel homesick for.

When I try to bring up things like this in Sannerz, I can scarcely even finish the sentence, because I put a brake on your folks’ forward thrust, because I dampen the spirit or “burden the younger ones among the inwardly awakened helpers with my own needs”. Earlier on this had not been the case! I remember incidents when you, Emmy, would together with me confront some matters that, in the children’s interest, we felt dubious about.

Why, three years ago, did we see it as an unobjectionable and irrelevant matter to give out, or be supplied with, pocket money? Let’s be honest about it! I definitely know that at that time Else, too, was in favor of pocket money, it offering a chance to now and then individually “make a joy” to this or that person. At that time Eberhard did not consider that question an essential one; he would allow us to develop freely! What’s’ keeping him from doing that now? And if you folks now think you have to exclude me, I know you are finding it hard; it hurts you, but you cannot do otherwise, it seems.

You see, a part of Sannerz does belong to me! It does remain the first place where I felt at home, even though I now have to stay away from it! I have put into it all I had as well as five years of work, and even if you now expunge my name from the responsible circle, I keep feeling inwardly co-responsible, from the first breath I draw when I wake up in the morning right until I drop off to sleep and even into my dreams! And as long as I am able I must also jointly with you stand behind it with all the work I do with my hands and my head.

I leave it for all of you to decide if I come into question as a replacement for Trudi during the holidays. I do think an avowal of autonomy and freedom ought to make that possible. But if children and young people cannot, without being inwardly endangered, cope with the disunity (I mean inwardly—not in words) occasioned by the divergent inner development of an older member, I am also ready to renounce whatever claims I might still have to my old home and to spend my holidays somewhere else.

I would gladly come to you simply because I love the children and you and belong together with you. I do not believe, though, or feel convinced in my heart that the way you in Sannerz interpret the Bible is the one and only valid one. I admit that your form of life has something to say to the world; however, it includes loveless actions towards persons and a lack of reverence before things and gifts (reason etc.) bestowed by God’ I am referring to incidents that you, Emmy, have often enough experienced together with me. Just one example: You are as close to me as my own brothers and sisters, but I also have several sisters in the flesh living in Berlin and Dresden! At Christmas I had asked every single one of you: Do send me a program telling where Eberhard is going to speak in Berlin and Dresden; I would like to inwardly participate, and my sisters there should also be in a position to hear him--how could they otherwise draw inwardly closer to Sannerz? Well, an excessive workload may count as an excuse [for not sending me the programs], but maybe it was simply not seen as important… At the very end of your letter it says quite casually, “Eberhard is on a journey”. Once Eberhard pointed out to me reproachfully that [my sister] Fe was not greeting the house community in her letter. Well, how is she to come closer to you in Sannerz if she knows Eberhard is speaking in Berlin and I don’t even let her know where and when! [My sister] Hanna wrote the other day, “We daily experience in a wonderful way that what is needed most will always be there—yet never too much! It so makes me think of you and Sannerz.” She would so gladly have traveled from Sebnitz to Dresden with her husband [to hear Eberhard speak]. This was a deep disappointment for me; however, one has to be really close [to the person involved] to be able to share such a feeling.

With Olga [v. Hollander] no longer alive and you, Emmy, working so totally hand in glove with your two sisters, you no longer try to gain a real understanding of my inner situation. Earlier on you would know my needs from your own experience, and you would often suffer under burdens Eberhard had to put upon you for the sake of his mission. We remain human beings; God does not simply lift us out of it all, and a kind of limitation keeps cleaving to us. And even though Christian Morgenstern says, “I spread my arms just as He did and like Him would embrace the whole wide world”—we are left with the “I would”. There will always be such as stand off to one side—people we do not reach. We are not “He”.!

Dear Emmy, Else, Moni, Trudi, have I now once again exasperated you? I cannot simply submit! And that’s not what you want either. But believe me: the separation does hurt terribly! I am conscious of my homelessness out here every single day, and my theme forever remains “the struggle to bring sun and happiness into our children’s lives”. That theme keeps recurring in a thousand variations whenever I speak to adult circles, be they deaconesses or women’s associations or welfare workers, or girl students of gardening--or the Socialist Workers’ Youth who have today once again invited me. [Cf. Suse Hungar’s letter to Eberhard of January 18, 1925.]

All the best to all of you

Your Suse Hungar

Emmy, instead of the February money I send you this time the quilt covers for the three children. Mö ]Monika Arnold] will get two for her birthday [on February 20] for the daddy-mummy beds to be diligently used by Muschi.

Mother sends greetings to all of you.

Please confirm receipt of parcels!

- - - - -

Fidaz, February 13, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

I am presently reading your Inner Land and am really enjoying it with my whole heart. Kierkegard’s With Fear and Trembling and Raabe’s The Hunger Pastor have also given me great joy. That is what I have been reading lately. Reading is now my only refuge.

I did not want to worry you folks in Sannerz with the things I have to contend with here and therefore have remained silent, even though they really burden my heart. But now that Miss Arbenz has written to you, there is one thing I want to say to you, Eberhard, and to all of you there: You know me and also know (from Mrs. Peter’s letter) in what sense I have spoken and acted here. Do not lose faith in my “loyalty” toward the ultimate things and thus also toward Sannerz. From the very unpleasantness I have been through I have garnered many a lesson for myself. But no more about this! I have said what I had to say and don’t want to incommode you with any more. Eberhard, you can surely sense how embarrassing I find this whole business. Here everything has now been cleared up—thank God!

Perhaps it would have been better for me here if I had done without those Tuberclin embrocations, for they have done me no good at all. My reaction to them has been very bad. Right after the first embrocation I could scarcely eat any more. I have of course dropped them now.

How is Else getting on? Please, Eberhard, greet everybody, especially the children! Every single day I am waiting to hear from you! In my thoughts I am pretty well only with you by now!

In faithful friendship

Your Curt.

I am so looking forward to spring, which will bring me back to Sannerz! If only I were further ahead with my health!

- - - - -

Sannerz, P.O. Sterbfritz

District of Kassel

February 14, 1925

Dr. Paul Scheven

Chairman of the Committee for

Old-Age Relief by English Friends

Dresden, 8 Elbgässchen

Highly esteemed Dr. Scheven,

We are in receipt of your kind letter enclosing a donation of 20 marks from the chest of the “Old-Age Relief by English Friends”. We thank you very warmly for your spirited espousal of Eberhard Arnold’s work and hope very much that in the coming summer you will be able to visit us here in Sannerz. Sterbfritz respectively Vollmerz, our two railway stations, are on the Schlüchtern-Würzburg line. Schlüchtern is a changing station for trains from northern Germany. From Vollmerz it’s a walk of not quite half an hour to Sannerz. We enclose for you a report by Gertrud Dalgas, the teacher of our childrens’ community, which, having been written earlier, outwardly and in the numbers given does not quite agree with the present state of things but will nevertheless give you an impression of our life of communal housing and work.

We joyfully look forward to your coming and greet you very warmly.

Neuwerk Community, Sannerz

- - - - -

Sannerz in Hesse-Nassau

February 14, 1925

To the German Distress Relief Fund in England

Durch Dr. Scheven. [original English]

Dr. Paul Scheven, President of the Committee of "Altershilfe Englischer Freunde" has had the kindness to deliver M. 20 - for Eberhard Arnolds work from the funds put to his disposition by his English friends.

We are very glad of the interest Dr.Scheven takes in our work. He sees joining lines between your will to help men and ours. The unity of nations we see as a thing of deepest, earnest and greatest value. Every trial to approach the nations is a joy. In this sense we ask Dr.Scheven to deliver our kindest greetings to you.

Yours affectionate

- - - - -

Sannerz, February 14, 1925

Dear Roland Keiderling,

We have now returned from our journey and are back in Sannerz. We were happy to see the two of you and want to ask you, in particular also Irmgard, to really behave properly this time. It truly represents a great kindness on the part of our prince that he has placed the dwelling at your disposal. On our last day there the prince still said to me that you are not to change or improve anything in the dwelling without the consent of the steward. I promised him to pass this on to you.

And please be very considerate and obliging towards the (princely) servants and toward Mrs. Von Wetten up in the castle. Maybe Irmgard could now and then do something with the children. We now hope to hear only good things about you and also that you will soon offer an apology to Gertrud Dalgas.

Next week I am going to send you a little parcel with stockings for Irmgard and a comb for Roland, and would you also like a little something from the butchering?

With many greetings from all of us to the two of you

Your Emmy Arnold

- - - - -

Bethesda, Bethel near Bielefeld

February 17, 1925

Dear Tatti (Tata),

I am so afraid that when this parcel is unpacked, Helle [Hans Hermann Arnold] might consider himself hard done by, that’s why I have come up with something special for him. Enclosed are cards, which he is to paste together for you, and I also put in the frieze for Mölein’s [little Mö’s] doll’s corner. Could you fasten it with thumbtacks to her little screen wall, or to her bed in case she now sleeps in a wooden bed? It’s to be a greeting for her 9 children. And Helle might do the pasting of the cards when he is with you; he will surely enjoy that, and it’s a greeting for you in you sick room or for Emi-Ma’s birthday.

I greet you warmly!

Your Suse Hungars

Dear Tatti, in this parcel is a little birthday job Helle could do under your guidance. Please read it without Em-Ma being present. How are you getting on?

Next month you will again get some money from book sales. Kaiserswerth has bought two songbooks!!! Lippe doesn’t want them!

(cut-out)

Brandy maker—that’s okay?

Brandy bibber—o dismay!

From both of you I’ll stay away!

- - - - -

Hanau, February 17, 1925

Dear Miss Dalgas,

We have received your esteemed letter and warmly thank you for it. As we see from your letter, you are ready to receive little Helmut into your community, which makes us very happy. I concede that to begin with it will be a little difficult with him, but he will get used to things before long, for he is compliant and docile; he also eats well. As regards food and board expenses, we can only pay 12 marks a month (but that definitely), for we still have to take care of the bigger boy here. I will also see to clothing and footwear [for Helmut], as well as to his bedding and underwear. Maybe some time you will also find a suitable place to stay for the bigger boy. I am firmly convinced that that boy, once he gets away from his mother’s circle and into a different environment, is going to improve, for he is not a bad boy for sure.

Now for today cordial greetings to you and your whole house community from

Your Mrs. Schwing and H. Jean Breidenstein

- - - - -

Presently at Tharandt near Dresden

67b, Kirchgasse

February 16, 1925

Dear Mr. Arnold,

I am so sorry that we were unable to talk together after the lectures. Those evenings were a real experience and have given me a great deal.—but have also left me with many questions! There is little point to discussing these in writing and, if the intended visit with you does materialize, as I definitely hope, I shall then vex you with them orally, always assuming that the evil Mammon one is indeed inwardly independent of but outwardly is kept on a tight leash by, will not upset our plans. At present I find myself thrashing about desperately in the whirlpool of science. Exams are to start on March 2nd and 3rd and will terminate around March 13.

For the time being all good wishes to you and your dear ones and once again thanks for everything!

Yours sincerely, Kohrun [?]

Your last lecture in Dresden (on “Life and Love”) and the subsequent discussion have stirred up in me thoughts respectively misgivings that we absolutely must talk about together. Should it prove impossible for me to come to you, I will after the exams write to you in detail about everything.

- - - - -

POSTCARD

Wetzel & Son, Hamburg 13

Hamburg, February 19, 1925

Dr. Eberhard Arnold

Sannerz near Schlüchtern

With reference to a discussion we had earlier on with our Mr. Paul Wetzel, we are pleased to inform you herewith that we are ready to put an older grand piano at the disposal of your youth group for practicing purposes. We ask you to kindly feel responsible for the costs of packaging, freight, and delivery, which we shall calculate at the lowest possible rate. We look forward to hearing from you where the piano is to be shipped.

We send you our kind regards and greet you!

Yours respectfully!

[Friedrich]

[Cf. the postcard “our Mr. Paul Wetzel” wrote to Eberhard on January 13.]

- - - - -

Berlin, February 20, 1925

All you dear ones,

Many thanks for Else’s letter, which was forwarded to me here. But Else quite omits to write how she is getting on and if I am going to see her in Lyz [?].

Here I have again experienced a great deal—many beautiful things and also much that was sad--in part occasioned by Lesser, Rennebach, Schenk, Fischer, Koezle, Maus, Riggel etc.

As regards the business, it’s of course a great pain that so many booksellers (especially those in Hungary and Austria) are so remiss in their payments. However, you dear people, do also consider my own situation! I do not receive, the way other salesmen do, an allowance for daily expenses and a small commission—no, I undertake every journey at my own risk! In particular at the time of inflation my sales trips to Holland, Switzerland etc. involved staking not only my own bank balance but also that of my parents. The risk incurred by the publishers was lessened by the fact that the credit list enabled them to balk at attending to this or that order.

We can honestly assure you that right to this day the sales journeys have not allowed us to build up any reserve funds.

Yesterday I visited Wilfried in the Dessau hospital. It’s now the third time for him to undergo a tuberculin inoculation. Let’s hope that his illness is of the kind that can still be treated with simple medication.

I assume Eberhard will come to [the trade fair in] Leipzig!

Cordial greetings to all!

Your Gotthold.

On my next trip I am going to collect the outstanding debts in Switzerland.

- - - - -

``Darmstadt, February 20, 1925

Highly esteemed Mrs. Arnold,

First of all I want to make up for what I ought to have done before and long after the event express to you my sincere thanks for the many presents Birgit received for Christmas either directly from you or through your kind mediation. She has been ever so richly provided for. I also want belatedly to apologize to you for having earlier on sent Inge to your house at so inconvenient a time. It was all due to a misunderstanding. As usual, Sigi had once again done something stupid.

As regards Sigi, she is now to spend some time with her grandmother in Berlin. My mother-in-law had long had the wish to have Sigi with her, but until now this had not been possible as she didn’t have sufficient accommodation. Since Christmas, though, she has two rooms to live in with one daughter and urgently wants Sigrid to come. She is specially attached to this granddaughter because Sigrid very much resembles my deceased husband, who had been her favorite son. In addition, Sigrid is the baptismal daughter of the grandmother.

I have been corresponding back and forth for a long time before resolving to let the child go there. Considering, though, that at one time you yourself thought it would be better for Sigrid to come into a house where she could be intensively cared for just by herself, this may well be the right thing to do. Nor can I take it amiss that the grandmother wants to have her granddaughter by her now that she has the required facilities for that, and all the more since Sigi cannot be with her mother. True, Sigi will find herself in a very confined situation, but I think she is not going to be much aware of it or bothered by it. Of course, it’s going to make her very sad when she hears that she has to leave your house. However, that’s what usually happens in life: things simply don’t go the way we would wish them to go.

So now I would like to express to you, Mrs. Arnold, to the other ladies there and to all the children, in fact to all members of the household my deep and heartfelt thanks for all the patience and love you have shown to Sigrid. She is so very much attached to you all, and it has the whole time been a great consolation to me that amid all my adversities and struggles I could always tell myself, “Sigrid is in good hands and has found a friendly place where she feels at home”. I am simply not in a position to offer my two girls such a place—such a true home. May I ask you and your husband to hold such a “home place” open for Sigi in your house?

I have of course no idea how life is going to lead her. She is never going to be an independent, fully developed person. This is a sad fact I now have to become reconciled to. When Sigi was last here in Darmstadt, the doctor confirmed this to me. I had had her once again examined by a well-known neurologist. So who knows how Sigi may yet get tossed about in life? It is consoling to know of a place where my poor girl would have a hole to creep into and where she is not looked at askance and gets rebuffed. I know only too well how difficult it is to cope with Sigi.

I would be glad if Sigi could come to Darmstadt on the last Saturday in February, i.e. on February 28. I could then await and meet her in Frankfurt, and over at your end somebody might be kind enough to take her to the station in Schlüchtern. She could come with the same train as Inge did recently. I would actually like to go and fetch her, but it’s simply not possible to get away from the business, as so very many people are ill.

Sigi will then remain here for maybe a week and the following Saturday will travel on to Berlin. Please let me know lf it’s possible to have all her things ready by that time. For it might just have been the weekly laundry day, and not everything might be dry yet. I have of course not tied all these arrangements to one specific day, and Sigi could just as well travel the next following Saturday. But it would suit me best if she could travel on a Saturday, because I then close down earlier and don’t have to take out extra time from my job in order to meet Sigi. Any things she cannot fit into her suitcase she might be able to pack in a cardboard box I look forward to hearing from you about all thiese matters. Please give my greetings to Sigi; I am now too tired and sad to do it, but will do it on Sunday.

I cannot share my worries with the child, and there is nothing cheerful I could think of; that’s why I so rarely write to her. In my thoughts, though, I am very, very often with all of you there. You have no idea how rich you are through having so much love and through being able to give so much love to others. Please let my Sigula go from you fully aware that your house does remain a “home place” for her.

Warm greetings to you personally and to all household members!

Your Else Vogel

- - - - -

Bethel, February 22, 1925.

Dear Eberhard,

Today you folks will presumably have a birthday celebration [Mölein’s birthday on “February 20], and I feel right among you all more than at other times. Being this time unable at your return home to walk out as far as the mill to welcome you the way I used to do, I will today simply come to bid you welcome “at home” in Sannerz. A whole week of migraine reminds me vividly of former occasions when I was scarcely able to listen to your journey report we had so eagerly been looking forward to. However, we can have but one life at one place simultaneously, and my present work often lets me feel a very strong comradeship with you, just as though we were running hand in hand over mountains and hills. I still greatly prefer using my own feet to rushing about in other people’s cars, even though it is slower and often wearisome.

But my writing to you also serves the purpose of telling you about Klärchen [Eberhard’s sister Klara]. My goodness, the energy you Arnolds have to overcome pain! If that gets mated with (the pluck of) the Hollanders, what will the next generation turn out to be? Well, it’s now six weeks that “delicate” Klärchen has been lying in bed with her leg in plaster because of a double leg fracture, and for three weeks now she has constantly been giving private lessons right there in the hospital in order to earn her living --the operation having cost 75 marks [?]. She charges 1 mark per hour for reading Molière and Racine with an upper-grade highschool student! (By comparison, her lady friend earns 5 marks a day plus board for doing ambulant nursing, which keeps her busy the whole day!} I think it must be a joy for you to hear that Klärchen has newly wakened to such a burst of energy. She will have to lie in hospital until the roses bloom. Couldn’t you perhaps write to her? She suffers quite a lot from losing her brother who had once been a comrade to her; so could you possibly do that? You can dictate ever so quickly after all! I could only see her for five minutes in between tutoring two students. She has a really nice way with those youngsters, such as I would never have expected of her.

Now for today just good greetings to you and Emmy!

Your Suse Hungar

- - - - -

Bethel near Bielefeld

Bethesda House

February 22, 1925

My dear Else,

Your dear letter of February 4 has given me great joy, and I thank you for it all the more because you wrote it in spite of the pain and weakness occasioned by your illness. You dear one! The letter only arrived on February 20, so I hope very much that since then your condition has improved and your strength increased, as was in fact confirmed to me by [my daughter] Susa, who is with me today.

The little daisy is for me an especially welcome spring greeting from dear Sannerz. It is such a joy to see how side by side with the crocuses ever so many small flowers are already in bloom in the big garden here even though we had a considerable snowfall yesterday.

It’s wonderful that Susa’s frequent presence here keeps me in a much more living contact with you than before; on the other hand I can fully participate in her present activity through what she reports to me.

Wishing you complete recuperation real soon and with many cordial greetings to all the dear folk there

Your faithful Mother Hungar

- - - - -

February 22, 1925

Dear Else,

Was that ever a joy when on return from a longer journey to Brake-Lemgo I opened the small parcel and found that wonderful belt! Just imagine: it was right on Mölein’s birthday [February 20] that I could wear it for the first time! And all through the day, how often it reminds me of your tough, valiant fight against the power of the pains! Now many people want to know if they can order such belts and what you folks charge for them. Please let me know about the price! I could of course get a lot of orders if you people over there were able to fill them. You dear Else! I thank you so much for your effort! That belt is so beautiful! My new dress is dark green, the color of moss, but I don’t know if [my sister] Fe will so make it that it needs a belt.

On Sundays I am either with Mother or on duty—on March 1 for the first time in a church in Salzuflen. The superintendent, a very old gentleman, has arranged for me to address a women’s circle there. Given that the carnival racket is now taking on such really nasty forms, everyone is calling for help, and they are having recourse to this unusual method.

In Lemgo I spoke in all school classes, as well as in the Bible Circle (BK), in the two associations for young maidens and the sewing circles for mission. However, the people in [the principality of] Lippe are very slow to move and want to hear the same thing four times before rousing themselves to take action.

There was a bazaar with dancing and liqueur booths for the benefit of a war veterans’ memorial (netting 10.000 marks in three days)! I am getting a thorough training in the art of awakening and rousing people. Yesterday evening I went with the Salvation Army to sing in public houses, visiting 20 pubs and selling 100 “War Cries”.

(Here the letter [obviously by Suse Hungar] breaks off.)

- - - - -

Hamburg 21, 5 Goethe Street

February 23, 1925

My dear, dear Ebbo,

It was really very nice, in spite of being so short, that you could be here. And how are you all doing at present? Is Else better again? And otherwise are you all well? I am fine, with a lot to do, which is always good, though one would mostly appreciate having longer days or less need for sleep.

Mr. Heitmüller is now once again evangelizing in various parts of Hamburg. March 9-14 our whole staff of coworkers is going to have an off-time (Freizeit) at Timmendorf on the Oppe River—very important for our whole work. We have a house there.

My dear Ebbo, when I think of your inward experiences during the past 6 or 7 years, I would like to ask you—and that I am surely allowed to do, am I not?—how deep in your heart you are now regarding your development in those years. Oh Ebbo, I so desire that you might see what was wrong, what was not pure in its motives as well as in the way it was carried out, so that God can use you differently from how it is now. If we ask Him for it, the Lord will also grant us to see ourselves and to recognize our false ways.

But according to my personal experience if God is to answer us, we must really have it on our hearts that our request be heard. As you know, Ebbo, you at that time entered into close contact not only with Flemmig but also with others who either had not experienced any rebirth in the biblical sense or were at least very unclear. That is what I saw and heard quite distinctly in both Oeynhausen and later in Sannerz. And simultaneously you turned away from the majority of God’s children! Our (recent} talks made it evident to me that you do not see that clearly. For you are now surprised that the people of the fellowship movement, or quite a few of them, are now no longer accepting you in such a way as would accord with your deepest and innermost stand. Ebbo, you know that at that time you turned strongly against them. Have you forgotten that? And you did indeed go in ways different from theirs. Don’t hold it against me that I am telling you this, but I have been recalling to memory what we were talking about (during your visit), and, to be quite open to you, I have to tell you that you did pursue other ways! Maybe you no longer remember yourself how strongly and unilaterally you emphasized the one side, the Sermon on the Mount, and how sharply you criticized those that would put forgiveness of sins too much—according to your opinion—into the foreground.

Do you understand me, my dear Ebbo? I really do not want to push my own opinion. Perhaps I would be able to speak to you more distinctly and surely more urgently if I had gone with you on your way and would now recognize it as a false one.

Oh, Ebbo, what I wish for you is that you be at the place where God wants to have you and where you are best able to work effectively. Dear Ebbo, how awful if it were only in eternity that you would recognize that! And your strength would not have been at the disposal of God’s Kingdom the way it ought to have been!

I once spoke with Nagel, or he with me, about you. When I told him that you would be glad to renew contact with the fellowship circles but that they did not seem to want it, he said that after what happened this would not be possible just like that, because you had at that time spoken so sharply against these same circles. This is how you cut yourself off from them.

However, the outward separation will be overcome once you see clearly how you separated yourself inwardly from those you in fact belonged to and how you took your stand more emphatically with those who in part had not been reborn and hence were still outside the Kingdom of God. And, if we follow Scripture, that was quite wrong! Do you know what I feel, Ebbo? May I tell you? I think you would find it very hard to own up to what you did wrong!

But now, Ebbo, please don’t take it amiss! Take this letter as a sign of love! I greet you very warmly. Next time you come you can find accommodation with us! Please greet Emmy and the children! Emmy must not be cross with me!

Greeting you in love

Your Hannah.

- - - - -

Sannerz, February 24, 1925

Dear Mrs. Vogel,

Yesterday we received your dear letter, and I hasten to reply to it. It fully agrees with out own impression that for the time being Sigrid should go to a smaller household. It is really a very good solution that Sigrid is to go to her grandmother.

We have come to love the child very much, and she should always regard our house as her home. Maybe she can be back here for a few weeks already in the coming summer. Monika [v. Hollander] has taken a lot of trouble with her in the kitchen, and she, also thinks the child has learned a good deal. Gertrud Dalgas has consistently let her take part in English lessons, and our teacher Ludwig Wedel has frequently taken time just with her. She also liked to take part in singing and harmony lessons. We all have the impression that it would now be very good for Sigrid to get a thorough coaching in a small household. Maybe she will then after all get so far that she can one day take care of your own little household.

We all greet you warmly!

Your Emmy Arnold

- - - - -

Sannerz, P.O. Sterbfritz

District of Kassel

February 23, 1925 .

To Firm Wetzel & Son

Hamburg 13

We are grateful that at Mr. Paul Wetzel’s prompting you wish to ship us a grand piano and are ready to defray the costs of packing and shipping. Be so kind as to attend to the packing at your earliest convenience and to inform us when we may expect the arrival of the piano. With friendly greetings

- - - - -

POSTCARD

February 24, 1925

To Mrs. Arnold in Sannerz. Near Schlüchtern

P.O. Sterbfritz, District of Kassel

Dear Emmy,

At half past four on Sunday morning Betty gave birth to a pair of babies, a boy and a girl, following a terrible hour. The babies are completely well and so touching and delightful to behold. The little girl weighs 6½ lbs., the little boy 7½ lbs. It’s an unfathomable miracle that everything went so well and that Betty is now in a normal condition, even though weak and nervous, after all the months of sufferings of all possible kinds. Now God will surely also help her forward. Elli has already been with us for 8 days, Heini since yesterday. We shall most likely have to have them here for quite a while yet. The heavenly simplicity with which Elisabeth faces the event is quite touching. Some things must have struck her as strange, but she does not ruminate about it. Her delight was indescribable when Daddy brought her the news on Sunday morning. Heini confronts the event more with manly quiet and dignity.. Today he observed drily, “Now Dr. Müller-Hans is going to be envious ‘cause he’s only been given one girl!” As you can imagine, I have now a lot to do and see to, but it’s got to be done! What can I give to E.M. [Emmy Margret] for her birthday to make her happy? Does she need underwear—maybe 6 day shirts?

Heartfelt greetings to you all from Betty! In love

Mama [Mother Arnold]

- - - - -

Bielefeld, February 27, 1925

Dear Trudi,

I am once again spending a night in our old apartment on the Bürgerweg. Next door the tenant and his wife are singing songs from the Zupfgeigenhansl. From the station I had gone quickly to see my mother in Bethel. I had so firmly reckoned with a letter from Sannerz that my stupid heart, once it had understood (that there wasn’t one) played a very foolish trick on me, necessitating my stretching out on the sofa and little by little recovering my senses. Expectancy! Waiting! Patience! Have to get used to it!

Then a leisurely stroll home via the Sparenburg, with the sickle moon and stars so distant and yet so near. How much longer must we keep on tormenting each other like this? At any rate I would like to once again thank you, Trudi—for one never knows how much longer one may still be allowed to write—as I recall how a year ago you so lovingly came out with little Inge to meet me in Hanau. That memory is now lying far behind me like a very distant picture. . . as it says in the song:”Oh, how far away!” However, it was really loving what you did, and I still feel grateful to you even today, and also that you sometimes let the children write to me at that time. Their little letters meant ever so much to me; sad to say they are locked away in the bureau the key to which has got lost, and there are no new letters any more--except to foreign people who send charitable gifts, and that is already taking a lot of time in school, as I can well imagine. So let’s make a large place for the burial and sing “All the birch trees grow green”.

Today Mother confided to me for the first time that she “has come to see that at that time it would in God’s eyes have been better for me to affirm my Salvation Army way instead of struggling against it”. (So that’s how it is:) After you have struggled till you drop dead, they will come with the garlands!!!

There is no need for you to confirm this package and letter; it doesn’t matter any way whether something arrives safely or gets lost. Of course, in the case of that parcel from the grandparents in Breslau there was indeed regret that the money was missing, and that’s why I inadvertently came to deem it important to ascertain if everything had reached the recipient. You can ask Else to pull out my book account and get Ilse [von Seckendorf] to mail me a statement of account so that I can have the remainder transmitted to the account of the publishing house. So that will clear the decks. Will you be so kind as to do that?

I was with the Dölldissens this week, and they greet you warmly. They were very kind and loving. Mrs. Dölldissen has a very hard time. The inherited farm which none of the siblings wanted to take on, appears to lie under a satanic ban, which even affects two of the siblings.—a situation very similar to how Zündel describes it in Blumhardt/s Möttlingen. It has been a hard week for me—all these impressions!

I am not sending you now, as I had promised, the arithmetic book, which I am still working my way through, nor Eberhard’s theological German. Otherwise there is nothing else from you I still have here, I think.

The other day I cams across the enclosed bed cover material; I think this might be a nice pattern for the girls’ room. I take it that you haven’t received any bed linen for little Luise; maybe there is enough material here for two coverings. When you people think of me, remember that I love you all and think of you with heartfelt gratitude

Your Suse Hungar

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Fidaz, February 28, 1925

Highly esteemed Mrs. Arnold,

Please excuse my being unable to write you any sooner, but I had a lot of work to do. I thank you very much for the letter you wrote jointly with Miss Hollander and Miss Dalgas. What I have gathered from it is that if Kurt Breitfeld is to have a change of residence, only Ascona would come into question. In this context I might point out that Kurt has no money for traveling. A journey from here through the Gotthard tunnel to the Ticino area would cost about 50 Swiss francs. So as long as his parents have not sent him money for the journey. he will not be in a position to travel.

I have told Kurt that if he wants to remain here he must not conduct himself as he did at the time I described to you.. I was forced to confront him with this either-or. After a number of vain attempts I gradually managed to make him recognize that he was wrong. He is now trying hard to keep quiet. I have informed Kurt that I had to write to Dr. Arnold ih Sannerz. This has grieved Him deeply, but precisely this has helped him find a deeper insight.

I have also asked him to break off the tuberculin embrocations, for his stay here is useless if these only serve to make him regress. To enable me to invite Kurt for a longer stay, I have imposed certain restrictions upon myself. This, however, has a sense only if it helps Kurt gain better health; it loses its purpose if what is attainable through air, sun, food, and bed rest is being undone by the effects of the tuberculin method, as has in fact been the case. Since the embrocations have been stopped Kurt has registered a weight increase. I was compelled to use this way to at least provide myself with a bit more quiet since my own health is not very stroing and in the long run would not have stood up to all the excitements Kurt faced me with. Once Kurt recognizes that he has the healing process—the mental one and, with that, also the physical one-- in his own hand and thereby also bears responsibility for the harm he does to himself and his fellow men by simply letting himself go, he will also get the will to control himself. I would like to ask you to exhort Kurt to do that. For him so infinitely much depends on his own inner attitude, and whatever you or Dr. Arnold can say to him in this respect will have the deepest impact on him.

Do you think also the month of April in Sannerz will still be unsuitable for Kurt? Please let me have your opinion about this! After the middle of March Kurt might once again have himself examined by the physician here and could let you know what the latter has to say about the state of his lungs. If Kurt’s parents are not ready to pay for two journeys and Sannerz would not be advisable for him in April, I am prepared to keep Kurt here until the end of April, provided he remains quiet.

He is quite grieved that for many weeks already he has had no news from Sannerz and would like to know if Mr. Wedel has received information about Indian literature from Mr. Attenhofer in Chur, whom I asked to write to Mr. Wedel [TN: i.e. Sannerz teacher Ludwig Wedel].

Friendly greetings to you, esteemed Mrs. Arnold, to Dr. Arnold, and to your houselold members from

Your Maria Arbenz

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