Eberhard Arnold

Correspondence, April 1925

[Arnold, Eberhard and Emmy papers - L]

[Draft Translations by Bruderhof Historical Archive]

April 1, 1925

Dear Eberhard Arnold,

When we last saw each other in the regional parish hall (Landesgemeindehaus) in Berlin, I gave you my promise to visit you at Easter, as I would then not have to travel very far. So now I want to keep my word and will arrive at your place in the afternoon of April 10 (Good Friday). I could remain with you until Monday noon. How is it with room and board? Also: How do I get to you from the Sterbfritz station? Please write to me briefly about these matters.

If on account of the confederate convention you will not yet be home on Friday, that would in no way trouble me; I would then take a closer look at the surroundings and at your own piece of earth. I am myself not able to attend the confederate convention, as I could not be there in time, and a mere half day at Eisenach is not worth expending the needed traveling time and money. Besides, arriving late would make it impossible for me to understand and get a feel of what is going on.

Until we meet again

cordial greetings!

Edgar Weiss

- - - - -

POSTCARD

Frankfurt on Main,

April 1, 1925

Dear Eberhard Arnold,

Please write to me as soon as you have decided on something for Whitsun, and what it is. Are you going to have a gathering in Sannerz, and when? If I can possibly manage it, I would gladly come, since I shall not go to Rothenburg. I regard that convention as totally faulty, at least to judge by its program.

Warmest greetings to all of you and in particular to you, Eberhard!

Joachim Tabel

- - - - -

Letter from Karl Keiderling to Hans Klassen

Lichtenstein, April 2, 1925

Dear Hans Klassen,

Irmgard and I are still remembering fondly the last days when you and Else visited us. Much of what you set adrift among the people here in Lichtenstein and what we experienced and heard in smaller circles is still occupying us. Above all the question keeps coming up ever again : How can one bring the joyful message of the Gospel to those poor, enslaved workers? In former times I, too, saw everything very different from how I see it now. But now where I find myself in the very midst of this need, this drudgery from early till late, where the body gets so worn out that the mind, too, suffers under it, where it costs also me a tremendous effort to still achieve something in the mental and spiritual sphere when the hours of excavating work are behind me for the day—now I look at everything with different eyes. Formerly it was to the workingman himself that I would ascribe the guilt; I always thought he did not have the required will power and needed urge to concern himself with matters greater than the daily trifles. Now, though, I have learned: not the working man is at fault but the system he was forced into

In daily discussions with workers, both older and younger ones, in talks right from heart to heart and devoid of mockery, I sense in them a great longing for something different, something far above this wretched life. They themselves cannot put it into words nor do they want to have anything to do with God and religion, and yet they often bear within them a deep religious yearning, which, however, one must under no circumstances make them aware of within the context of the old hackneyed religious phrases. At bottom their struggle against the church and “fellowship Christianity” did not originate in scorn and mockery but in a terrible despair going on year after year. It’s a fact that they have been driven into despair by what the church and so-called “Christians” have brought to them, so now they scorn and ridicule everything.

That’s why it is very hard to talk with them about such matters. And yet it has to be done; although in a completely different way from what other people are accustomed to. For what good is our proclamation if it does not really get to, and is grasped by, those that need it most. What does it actually mean to proclaim that we take our stand with the oppressed and disadvantaged, with the revolutionary proletariat? Have we ever seriously asked ourselves what actually is the deepest meaning of those assertions?

I cannot get rid of the thought that our whole way of a new life and of proclaiming it anew is useless unless it particularly pushes its way into proletarian circles. From your settlement experiences you will know yourself that we actually do not find much openness for our life among proletarians. And yet it is specially meant for them! We simply must not lose contact with the working masses (through sharing their work, person-to-person talks etc.), so as to daily sense their longing and to feel ever anew how they suffer from being enslaved by a small group of people. We have to live among them and share in their struggle! Ever again then the question arises: How can the lot of these people be changed?

The workers themselves only know the way of violence, which, of course, I cannot walk with them. And that is something I tell them quite openly. However, I decisively oppose your opinion that strikes and demonstrations mean violence. Just as much as the proclamation of the joyful message is part of you and your life, so does the strike belong to the worker’ s life. This cannot be explained theoretically; it is simply a fact. For a long time I could not see clearly what I was to do if there was a strike, especially since you, too, designated as violence this only weapon available to the worker. Now, though, I have the sure feeling that you have transgressed the boundaries as regards the concepts of violence and non-violence. After many inner struggles I have reached clarity that if there is a strike I am going to join it—for reasons of solidarity. One who has greatly strengthened me in this respect is Mahatma Gandhi, of whom you, too, will surely have heard quite a lot already. We feel deeply struck by this mighty non-violent movement, and it concerns us greatly. If it’s all right with you, I would I would like to draw attention to it through a review in the Neusonnefeld Jugend.

We wish you and all your storm troopers victory! Warm greetings,

(Irmgard Keiderling)

- - - - -

POSTCARD

Lotte Wilmers, Seesen

53 Jakobsen Street, Dr. Wilmers

April 2, 1925

Dear house community,

How are you doing? (My brother) Hans rang up yesterday to find out how things are with you, but it was a bad connection, therefore we had to be satisfied with learning that things are improving.

As for myself, I feel lousy (mies)—it was probably best for me to have landed here, so as to be well rested by the time I get home. There a number of tasks are waiting for me, as I have already found out. Traveling through the night has done me good; sleeping people have a calming effect.

Hans will not let me go home before Saturday. He smilingly told me, “you don’t have any dough (money),’ so you must obey!” So I am now helping Heidi, who is rather abattu (worn out)—there’s a lot to do in a doctor’s house!

The money for Lotzenius has been sent to Martha —you will take it across to them. won’t you, Martha? [TN: Martha Braun]

Hans asks for my mail to be forwarded here—“he has his reasons” he says. He also says that he asked you if there was any mail there for me.

Now warmest greetings to you all, big and small,

from your Lotte

- - - - -

Binau, April 2, 1925

Dear Eberhard Arnold,

Enclosed I am sending you the manuscript of the new Challenger prospectus, in which I have tried to reformulate our goal. It may also interest you to hear how our work has been received. May I ask you to then forward the manuscript to our friends in Berlin, so that they, too, have our goals clearly delineated to them.

Now I still have to thank you for your books. Oh, they do a man ever so good when he, as is the case with me at present, has to concern himself with Youth Movement literature. Oh, the clarity ad truth of your aims makes me ever so happy! As it ought to be: it is the inward reflection of a certainty, the testimony of a joyful, inwardly sure spirit. How wonderful to see in you anew the purifying might of the Christian spirit! There is no sparkling and loquacious bustling to and fro; everything serves he One, the living God. I have especially been reading in your Innerland, and shall emphatically and urgently recommend it in the Challenger for practicing the Christian spirit; it is excellently suited for that. And now I also know everything I have to know and have gained a clear picture of you, and above all I know that our way leads us together.

I warmly greet you and all who gladly remember me. Until we meet again!

Your Hermann Buddensieg

[Challenger (“Rufer”): a periodical edited by Dr. H. Buddensieg and for a time co-edited by Eberhard. Its full name: Challenger to Change (Trudi Hüssy)\

- - - - -

Letter from Roland Keiderling to Eberhard Arnold:

Lichtenstein, April 2, 1925

We raise our voices singing to greet the morning bright

that o’er us lowly beings shines forth with radiant light;

we stand before God’s presence with hearts that long to serve,

for He has shown us favors that we have not deserved.

Let me greet you with this song, Eberhard! Your letter has given us great joy. It has firmed us up for readiness to do God’s will. For God is once again with us! Or rather: We are again with God!

We have experienced anew how immense is God’s grace and how ever helpful is the grace of Christ. If we had committed all the world’s badness, all its untruthfulness and fornication, envy and hatred, and had then felt deep repentance for it all and had surrendered ourselves to Christ, He would even then have again taken everything on himself and would have re-made us! And we have indeed been made new by Him! We keep feeling that we therefore ought to be thankful, and yet we feel at the same time how ungrateful we still are. The more deeply we now recognize our ingratitude, the more strongly ought we to feel the urge to be there wholly for God, for what He has in mind for us. So we are now standing in a holy readiness and therefore also feel very strongly how we (you and us) belong together.

Something is also moving in the Lichtenstein group. A little while ago, when Hans Klassen spoke to a small circle here, I sensed in people an openness for what is great. It’s a joy for me to have contact with particularly these people and together with them to wait and listen for what is to come from above. I have rarely seen people as ready as these are; they are, so to speak, standing just before the last step. It would be good, if not downright necessary, for you with some Sannerz folk to pass through here and in a small circle to be together with these people. Let us together think of them a great deal, and before we all come together, let us have a quiet hour here with us, so that you can then confront them with a really radical witness, by which, if God is gracious to us, also the last hindrance is overcome. For this reason alone you ought to travel to the Rochsburg via Lichtenstein. This is merely a suggestion I am making, but to me it seems like an inner necessity.

My last letter to you and the enclosed copy of my letter to Hans Klassen will let you recognize how heavy the need of my present fellow workers weighs on me. The question of how to give help there has to occupy us again and again. My very definite opinion is this: Before the worker can grasp our message, he must first be given different possibilities to exist.

The physical toil and drudgery he has undergone year in year out for decades has so warped his mind that he can no longer grasp anything new. To begin with therefore no change from the spirit can here arise; here first of all other economic possibilities have to be made available. The idea that a man must stand above his conditions may find a general application elsewhere, but not here.

Hence we must first of all also represent the economic betterment of the worker, i.e. we must take a stand for the eight-hour day and simultaneously also for providing him with gardening work. The eight-hour day and allotment gardens belong together! For after these eight hours the worker will still want to do something for himself, and a bit of gardening is best—the first thing to newly stimulate his spirit.

I cannot imagine the proclamation of the Gospel, our social message, without our representing—at conferences, meetings, individual discussions, etc.-- these two indispensable requirements of the proletarian life. Here both the party and the labor union have failed the worker; now we must completely dedicate ourselves to this goal! In a non-political way, say, in talks with influential persons—factory owners, district magistrates and others—we must seek to attain this for the workers. Standing up for this ought to become typical for Sannerz and Neu-Sonnefeld!

Would it not be possible at the Rochsburg convention, which Irmgard and I have very much on our minds, to also slip in a lecture on, say, “The social gospel and the proletarians” or something like that? For precisely there people come together who are deeply sincere about the way they are going. In my opinion this would be a very important point of discussion.

Irmgard will not come with me, for just at about then “a tiny babe will cry at night—nix nax”

We hope very much you are going to pass through here still before Easter!!

In heartfelt union with you

Roland

We are already looking forward joyfully to your visiting us at Easter! Greeting you all, big and small!

Irmgard

- - - - -

Breslau, April 2, 1925

My dear Aunt Martha,

Many thanks for your greeting! I am so glad you ask about us. Well, by now I’ve got over the mountain! After my first brave attempts to get up had ended in failure, I felt very poorly for a few days—with thrombosis or inflammation of he veins.. That’s why I am still bedridden at the end of the sixth week. However, things will now soon be all right. Both twins have already gained 1 kilogram and are now weighing 7¼ and 8¼ kilograms respectively. Clemens is the heavier one; Röschen (“little Rose”) is a tender human flower. She arrived first; her brother was chivalrous enough to let her precede him by a quarter hour. The birth went smoothly and well. Both arrived within 50 minutes. The midwife—praise God!--turned up just five minutes before the baby girl’s arrival and announced that a second child was on the way. Clemens asked for the sex of the first child—“á girl!”-- then he rushed off to phone the doctor, who arrived 20 minutes later. By that time the baby boy had arrived, too. From the very first moment we have been very happy for the gift of two healthy children, each of them as evenly shaped, well-proportioned and strong as a child can possibly be. Heini and Eli weren’t any bigger or stronger than these two. I had previously had an awfully hard time; now I know why.

For four weeks I have fed both the twins all by myself; now I let the boy have a bottle twice, the girl once. Their main nourishment is still coming from me—hopefully for quite some time yet.

Little Heiner is still with his dear grandparents—by now already for the sixth week. He comes every day to visit us and greatly admires the babies. Once I had no more temperature last week, I took Eli home. She is very pleasant to have by my bed, and she helps me. Clemens and Eli now even have their meals here in the bedroom. Clemens also shares in the care of the+ twins. When Mariechen is gone in the evening, the two of us join hands in looking after them.

The caregiver is a very nice elderly woman of a rather sentimental disposition from Silesia. She still comes every morning to give the babies their bath. You ought to see that little pair! They are ever so sweet with their cute, large eyes and copious black hair—they get it done every day!—and their dainty, round limbs. The parents love to be here and gaze at them. Mama has been devoting a good deal of her time to Heini these days--it’s really touching! She admires the jolly rascal more than he deserves. In a certain sense he is ruling he roost over there. The parents’ bedroom has been transformed into a store; grandfather has to come and purchase things, while grandmother has to provide the merchandise. Heini is always full of fun and ideas; however, near him there is no chance for a rest. He was given a Rennwolf [TN: Probably some kind of a scooter] for Christmas, and on that he keeps racing Borsig Street up and down every morning.

Eli has roller-skates and is already quite adept with them. Our street is as favorable as one could wish for children’s play. At present violets are blooming in all front gardens. I have had most beautiful flowers by my bedside the whole time: almond treelets, primulas, tulips, and a gorgeous red azalea. And so many friendly visitors! Flowers and visits have also come from all fellow dwellers in our house. And there have been more than 80 letters! I think there is nothing more spectacular one can do than getting twins! Nobody would have expected it of me, nor did I myself!. Right to the end I didn’t have any idea! We keep feeling amazed and happy every single day.

As regards the work, we are going to cope! What actually matters is proper arrangements and inward quiet. While I have to keep to my bed, I have hired help for the dishes and baby laundry. (My home help) Mariechen, by now with me for the fifth year, is, in a typically feminine way, very much in love with the babies. She has chosen the little boy as her special darling, because he has to wait until the more delicate girl has had her fill from me (he drinks more than she does). So it’s in a proper nest I am now living. When both the babies choose to cry, you might think you are in a day nursery.

Since January Clärchen [TN: Clara, Eberhard’s, and Betty’s, sister] has moved together with her friend, Sister Margarete. She tutors a number of private pupils, and the parents let her have a monthly remittance until she is in a better economic position. She had the misfortune of slipping on the ground and breaking her leg;; so she has been bedridden until a short while ago. She sounded very unhappy in her letters. She did experience a lot of kindness while confined to bed, but on the whole she feels lonely. Hannah [TN: Another sister of Eberhard’s] has been at the seaside with some of those under her spiritual care. It will have done her good.

Will you come to see us this year? We will have the christening at Whitsun; could you be here then? Your little godson will already be a big boy by the time you get to know him; you are going to love him, and he you.

Our babies are wearing the jackets you knitted nine years ago for Elisabeth; they have worn ever so well and are still like new.

In Sannerz things are going well; Ebbo’s health --praise to God!-- Is stable. They don’t write us very often. Käte and her children are spending the Easter holidays with Aunt Marianne Arnold in Hamburg. [TN: “Tante Käte”, war widow of Eberhard’s brother Hermann, would later join the community with her son, also called Hermann Arnold ]

And you will soon have a wedding! Your dear sister will be such a good mother-in-law—it’s going to be touching! I still have such a vivid mental picture of Gerhard in his sailor suit and shorts. May the couple find happiness! It’s wonderful he can marry so young!

Now I wish you all the best, dearest Aunt Martha! My warmest greetings to your brothers and sisters! I shall not be in a position to travel; within the foreseeable future, hence meeting you again will only be possible if you come to Silesia. You feel well enough for that?

With greetings of heartfelt love

Your Betty [Eberhard’s sister]

- - - - -

Breslau, April 3, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

Seeing that we are not certain at all whether you will come to the convention or not, I once again rise to the occasion and write to you. We would very much urge you to definitely start your journey on Maundy Thursday, so that you can be with us on Good Friday and Saturday. We would very much regret your not being here on Saturday, just because only then will there be time and opportunity to speak about Buddensieg’s day—having in mind specially those keen to hear what you have to say.

Most likely (name?) will already have sent you money for the journey. I myself am going to travel with those from Berlin, i.e. no more than six people, to Tamie Oelfken.

Warmest greetings to you and the (Sannerz) house!

Your Ulrich [Wolf]

[TN: Cf. references to Ulrich Wolf in Franz Hansen’s letter to Eberhard of March 12, 1925]

- - - - -

POSTCARD

Lichtenstein, April 4, 1925

New Work Community

Sannerz, PO Sterbfritz, Kassel District

Hearty greetings!

At 5 o’clock Friday afternoon arrived our little Roland! After 23 hours (of pains) delivery by forceps under narcosis—ten minutes. Baby’s position was correct, except that head a bit towards the bone. A small turning of the head. Both the doctor and the midwife declare the child to be very robust and well proportioned—one of the healthiest babies, with a hard head, strong breast, --and blue eyes I never weary of looking at.

Irmgard, in spite of severe labor pains very healthy and not too exhausted.

The night was very quiet. Among us great joy—everything like a dream. Irmgard (would be) immensely happy to see some from Sannerz, and you, Eberhard, before Easter. She talks a lot about you folks. More in a letter in the next days.

Roland [Keiderling]

- - - - -

Sannerz

April 5, 1925

My dear Hans Klassen,

Today I must at last send you a personal greeting again. You can hardly imagine how tremendously important it is to me that out of the time of petty things here and there, we come through to a communal witness which is more than a small friendship group and a social work group like so many other groups existing today. It is a matter of a witness to the coming kingdom: a witness in life and deed which is so strong that it cannot be forgotten through many centuries. Our life is only worth while if it is lived in the Spirit of Christ for such a witness. We had a house and 25 acres of rented land ready for you to use, and were waiting for the often requested meeting and a talk to go into the details.

You must not think that because of our close working together with Adolf Braun, our communal vows can be changed in any way. Such a vow cannot be changed at all. Today I cannot yet understand how this vow of faithfulness could remain so long without an actual uniting. However, we want to have patience, and perhaps the situation is such that we at Sannerz, like you at Sonnefeld, still need a little time, before this big communal Bruderhof can become the powerful flame signal of the future for which the world so desperately waits.

Today we ask you only one thing: Come to us very soon, several of you together, at the latest and for certain on the Thursday evening before Whitsun. This meeting will have real importance for us all both there and here, in connection with the forthcoming tasks.

With very warm greetings from our whole circle,

- - - - - -

POSTCARD

from Edgar Weiss

c/o Mr. August Fertig

Miltenerg on M.

Miltenberg, April 7, 1925

Dr. Eberhard Arnold

Sannerz, PO Sterbfritz

Dear Eberhard Arnold,

As there has been no reply to my letter of April 1—did you fail to receive it?—I herewith let you know: on Friday, April 10, as I promised you in Berlin, I shall turn up at your house and remain with you until Monday. I shall arrive on Friday even if, because of the confederation day, you will only arrive home on Saturday. If this will not work out, please write immediately.

With warm greetings

Edgar Weiss

- - - - -

Sannerz

April 8, 1925

Dear Roland and dear Irmgard,

Your letters are a great, great joy to us all. We rejoice with you about your healthy little child and are certain that God's grace will be with this child. He will be a real child of grace. We look forward with joy to the time when you with little Roland will be working and living in our work community as our third family. Although you would probably rather not be separated just now, I ask very much that Roland comes to the Rochsburg, as we have much to talk over concerning the future.

I am completely in agreement, Roland, with your opinion about the strike. Also your emphasis regarding the pressure of outer circumstances and our obligation to enter the struggle for the radical change of this situation, is completely my conviction. To determine the actual relationship between the outer conditions and inner renewal, the relationship between the freedom through the Spirit, and the enslavement through conditions, cannot possibly be achieved through mere words.

We hope that Adolf could come to you by means of the journey money given by a small circle at Liechtenstein. We cannot raise the journey money but we can understand that in the present conditions Peter Klassen cannot manage it, so our visit to Liechtenstein simply cannot take place this time, for I am very much in demand, and therefore unfortunately cannot come. With me it does not depend on journey money, for I could get it from another side, but my time is too fully occupied.

- - - - -

Fidaz, April 9, 1925

You dear ones,

Above anything else I wish all of you a lot of deep Easter joy! I know how you celebrate Easter and in my thoughts shall be with you even more than usually.

I expect to arrive in Sterbfritz on Saturday, May 2 at 7 o’clock PM. In spite of his apparently quite depressed financial situation, Ragaz has let me have 25 Swiss francs for my railway fare. Considering how much you have on your plate, Eberhard, many thanks also to you for doing your best to obtain assistance. I also still hope to get something from Förster, and with that there will hopefully enough.

In Zurich I specially look forward to meeting Ragaz and Förster. I shall find lodging with the Peter family. I am going to spend one day in Munich so I can visit the Germanic Museum and view there the different types of organs. I might also be able to visit Frieda Fiehler and Otto Salomon, but unfortunately I don’t have their addresses. Then I shall go on to Münchberg. My parents have just reported to me a very sad occurrence: A former fellow pupil of mine has been lured away by recruiters of he (French) Foreign Legion, and so far there is no news of where he might be. He is the only son in a very dear family.

Most likely you folks will now be having Osterkurs (“Easter course”?)—with a good result, I hope.

Much joy and so long!

Your Kurt

- - - - -

Mühlhausen (Thuringia)

April 16, 1925

Dear Adolf (Braun),

I have just received a postcard from Else [TN: v. Hollander] in Leipzig, and Ilse [TN: probably I. v. Seckendorf], too, had sent me one from Ansbach.; so I have been informed about those (members) out on a journey at Easter and also about the increase among the sheep. Well, it’s bound to be a jolly life there with so many young things! I am happy to hear about the increased milk yield due to the good sheep milk. The new little children—they being the first to require milk-- will by now have appeared on the scene. And how are the cows doing—especially Bless? Be very considerate with her; she is such a good animal, and had such a splendid calf. Did you get some hay? I hope you have got enough, for there won’t be any (grass) outside for some time yet; at any rate it’s icy cold here (in Thuringia)—with rain and in between also snow.

Don’t get any more pigs; there’s enough work there already, and without potatoes there is nothing yet to feed them; better get some pigs later on, and then well-grown animals; for us that’s more profitable.

Mother has got somebody to dig our garden, I myself being an invalid; but we cannot do any sowing yet, because it’s much too cold. I am glad to hear that over there with you things are better. Is Anni settling down nicely? Please greet her from me! May the garden thrive under her hands, giving joy to her and nourishment to the house community.

Are the hens laying well? Any little chicks yet? It will soon be time for them! Here father is paying 10 or 11 pence for one. Does the institute (? Anstalt) have eggs to put under their sitting hen? What is it you folks are now cooking? Please write to me, Adolf! The children’s community will surely be getting ready for a new beginning. Please pass on to the children my warmest greetings!

For me it will be quire a while yet before I can even think of starting to work anew. That’s how it is when you are out of luck The first week I couldn’t do anything with my hand: a pulled tendon, then tenositis, periostitis—well, it just has to be endured! It would all have been OK if only the . . well, let’s just skip it; it’s not worth talking about; it will pass by!

As regards Jakob’s wire message, it has been cleared up in an astonishing way. He did not receive Eberhard’s letter that Ferdinand (Scholl) had himself taken to the post. So he did not know what was happening and decided to come as had been arranged, but wanted to be so courteous as to announce his arrival. The day before yesterday he wrote to me that until now he had not received any letter explaining to him the sudden negative reply. Emmy promised to write.

I myself do not want to have a lot to do with that matter. It’s after all none of my business what happens during my absence. I simply have to let myself be guided by whatever Eberhard has arranged with my brother, with Jakob, and with you folks. If one then gets reproaches and all kinds of conjectures are being expressed—well, that just has to be endured. I just feel sorry for the boy who was holding on to Eberhard’s word and must now be doubly surprised. After all both of us had wanted to pursue this plan only because Sannerz is a soil that many a good seed gets put into. And now it’s entirely up to God to show Jakob the way, even if it does not lead through the Sannerz house.

Through contacts he has, my brother Fritz now wants to help Jakob obtain a job in Austria, which offers better prospects than Germany, so incapable of community. After receiving the negative reply from Sannerz, Jakob right away took a job at a florist’s place and will be there until May 1, I think. His brother, aged 15, has been run over by a truck, and his sister had to undergo an appendix operation; so Jakob let his parents have all his savings, and that’s why he can’t make his way to Seesen.

Even if the rift is so big that you first think it will never grow back together—Jesus Christ will help the most where the need is worst! Against nobody do I bear any grunge; they are all just victims of their nerves. This is my one and only comfort; it was done unintentionally; otherwise the whole of life would be a cheat.

Pass on to Martha (Braun) my thanks for her comforting words! The quiet here has such a wonderful effect on my poor, tormented nerves. To begin with I could not grasp at all that I was so absolutely finished. There was apparently just enough strength left to get me to Seesen; once there, I collapsed completely. Good that I was with my brother, and not with my parents! And then I had it really good! My brother, being a doctor, was made familiar with the whole story, while my parents just think of me as a rather nervous person.

(Adolf,) let the others there know they ought to be glad that I went off that evening, for a house like Sannerz cannot cope with a whole pile of overwrought nerves. For the work there is so great--it must not be ruined by mistrust and irritation! With faith and trust being the one and only basis, when this is missing, any communal work becomes impossible. A commune or community is something so ideal, so beautiful as to be scarcely attainable—as my married brother put it--that it’s truly worth living and striving for the realization of this goal. How ever things may turn out,¬ I want to radically go that way!

If I could only work again! Oh this miserable weariness and the aching head! We have a woman who comes three times a week for a few hours (to help with the work) while I do the other things as far as I manage with just one hand, and mother and father, both feeling quite poorly, do what they can. And yet they feel it’s so wonderful that I am here—it has really made them revive, and I firmly believe the main cause of their physical ailments is their yearning for us, their offspring. My siblings in Berlin were here for Easter, and their presence really made our parents happy.

Well, we shall see how it will all turn out.

Greetings to you, Adolf, and to Martha and everybody

from your Lotte Wilmers

Emmy had promised me she would write!

I have to have my voting certificate (Wählerschein)

[TN: Cf. Lotte’s postcard of April 2, alter arrival at her parents’ house at Seesen.]

- - - - -

Hamburg, April 16, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

I have concerned myself in quite a definite direction with the question of the house purchase. [TN: Subsequent letters will make it clear what house is to be purchased and for what purpose.] As things are, with the exception of the last year, the pupils of the Hamburg Institute for Deaf-mutes have in the summer always been accommodated in some holiday home. It’s a total of about 80 children, and at times these eighty have all been lodged simultaneously in one and the same home; at other times they have been accommodated simultaneously but divided up into different homes. But it’s also happened that the children, divided into their various school classes, have been accommodated separately and then for longer periods.

In the 5 rooms available in that house it will be possible to accommodate about 20 children plus two or three teaching staff. As it was in that Vogelkoje children’s home on (the island of) Sylt, some of the beds would have to be bunks—one above the other. And your house community’s barn might be suitable as a dining room, with no need to make big changes. There is just one question: Do you people have the beds and .bedding required?

Second: How about the food? In previous years this is, more or less, what the children were fed:

First breakfast: coffee or milk with two slices of bread, or soup

Second breakfast: bread with butter

Lunch: pot stew, usually with some meat in it

Afternoon coffee: milk and bread or buns

Evening meal: soup with two slices of bread.

If supplied in this manner, the total expense for room and board would come to between 1.20 and 1.50 (marks) per day and child. But can you really manage to see to the provisioning? If yes, what is the minimum price you people have to ask? As regards the food, you could of course supply a more vegetarian diet, which is thoroughly desirable and which you may be able to grow on your own land. On the other hand, an aggravating factor in your case would be the long distance (from Hamburg), as the considerable fare expense would increase the total cost.

If all our children came to you in stages and we were to pay the room-and-board price we paid the year before, it would mean a total turnover of between 3.200 and 3.600 marks. If everything works out, the first train with children could reach you as early as June 1, The following holiday time could then be left open for ordinary use, but we could send you another group of children by August 1. So far this is but a proposal meant to inform you, Eberhard, and to simply indicate a direction. Perhaps you let me know to what extent the proposal could become reality. If it turns out to be possible and we arrive at a firm deal with the Institute for Deaf-mutes, there will then also be the definite possibility of a prepayment.

Perhaps you could answer me as quickly as possible, Eberhard. Whatever form your reply may take, I shall in any event make an effort on behalf of the outstanding moneys, in the hope that it will work out.

Very cordial greetings to you, Eberhard, and those with you!

Your Alfred Schär

- - - - -

April 20, 1925

Dear Sannerz folk,

Enclosed the first proofs [?]; more will follow later. I hope you will like them.

Emmy, the soothing news is that nowhere in the Berlin gardens did I see any cabbages planted out yet; hence Sannerz is actually not so far behind. To all of you hearty thanks for the beautiful days we had!

With a good greeting

Your Ulrich [TN: U. Wolf in Berlin—see his letter to Eberhard of April 3]

- - - - -

WARRANT OF APPREHENSION

Wanted: Else von Hollander

Last stay: Berlin, with Mrs. Voigt, wife of Mr. Voigt, Royal Surveyor of Works,

Wilmersdorf, Nassauische Str. 7, 8

She absconded: April 19 midday

Direction: Halle

Special marks: She was in good health and spirits.

Likely goal of journey: Communist nest Sannerz

Assumed time of arrival there: April 21

The local police authorities are asked to suitably receive the wanted E.v. H.

Local police authority Berlin-Steglitz 1925

Ulrich Wolf, police captain

(on an extra sheet a sketch of Else v. Hollander)

[TN: All a big hoax by U. Wolf!]

- - - - -

Jüterbog, 4 Schiller St.

April 21, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

I have just now written to the owner of the house in connection with the purchase. Simultaneously a copy has gone to our attorney Guido for his appraisal. Since a purchase mostly gets concluded right at the spot, and with you also otherwise being more free than I am to move about, I want to ask Guido whether he can’t obtain legal authority for you. I would also like to hear from you if the house has been appraised by an expert from that same area; if not, I would regard such an appraisal as highly advisable.. Then, too, the question of mortgage encumbrance has not come up yet. I have intentionally refrained from mentioning it because under some circumstances it can serve to depress the sales price. Could you possibly manage to gain access to the land register? For that, too, you might need legal authority. And could you please also use that opportunity to find out what the legal costs would come to.

As you can see I have once more landed in Jüterbog. I hope you are all well and greet you from my heart!

Your Erich Mohr

- - - - -

April 22, 1925

Dear Dr. Arnold,

I received yesterday a report about your work, which I read with great interest. Many thanks for sending it! It was a great pity that we could not see each other when you were in this area; I was myself not available on that day, and you probably had to return right away. But I heard about the Rochsburg convention through the young people who presented the play about he Prodigal Son here in Waldenburg. Unfortunately the weather was unfavorable nor had it been adequately publicized that the play was to be presented, with the result that unfortunately but a small audience was present. However, those who were present were given a very strong impression.

In connection with one of our talks in Lichtenstein I would like to suggest that you read Bauduin’s book Suggestion and Autosuggestion which will surely be available in the Würzburg library. It deals with the activity of the French doctor Coué from Nancy, who is registering unheard-of successes. It has elucidated to me a number of things.

I am enclosing a small contribution for your children’s work and remain, with sincere greetings to you and yours

Yours ever faithfully

Prince Schönburg

- - - - -

Hanau, April 24, 1925

Dear Miss Dalgas,

We herewith send you Helmut’s things, his certificate of departure, and his school leaving certificate. Kindly send back the summary of his school report, and be so kind as to send us an attestation certifying that Mr. Breidenstein will be responsible for covering Helmut’s overhead expenses during his stay at Sannerz. The attestation has to bear a stamp or at least the signature of the head of the house community. Please also return to me the guardian’s signature that my mother had left behind there.

And now we would like to ask how little Helmut is doing and how he is getting on. To me it seems that he very quickly got used to things. Could you perhaps once give us a precise report about the little man?

Greetings to you from

Your Gretel Schwing

And cordial greetings from my parents!

- - - - -

Sannerz, April 25, 1925

Copy

Mr. Breidenstein, father of Helmut Breidenstein, born December 3, 1916, has obligated himself to regularly contribute 12 marks per month for Helmut’s upkeep. . .

The board of directors of the Neuwerkverein, E.V. (New Work Association, reg. soc.).

Mrs. Emmy Arnold

Else von Hollander

Dr. Eberhard Arnold

Suse Hungar

- - - - -

Sannerz, April 24, 1925

Dear Kurti,

We have been very happy about your gentians and also about your dear letter. It’s a great joy for us that you will soon be back now and that we may expect you in Sannerz on May 2. Professor Ragaz has informed us that at our request he has sent you 25 Swiss francs and that he hopes he can send you once more an identical sum. We are simultaneously writing to your parents with the request that they send you he money still needed for your fare. We are so happy to have you return to us as a living member of our community and hope you will more and more gain entrance into the responsible circle.

- - - - -

Sannerz (PO Sterbfritz)

April 22, 1925

Dear mother and dear father Breitfeld,

We are very pleased to hear that at the beginning of May Kurti will come back to us in Sannerz. We have done all we could possibly do and with the help of our friends have made it possible for Kurt to undergo for half a year a top-notch course of treatment for his lungs, such as even the very best sick-fund could not have provided, and we are extremely grateful for that. From a Swiss friend we have also received a small contribution towards the cost of Kurt’s journey home to us; however, we cannot do any more right now and would like to ask you to please provide 50.00 marks to facilitate Kurt’s journey home.

The doctor assures us that Kurt is well enough to again carry out light work, and since we have such great trust in Kurt we want to take bit upon ourselves to let him, with due restraint, work here. To begin with, he is to work as much as possible not in the publishing house but should rather take on light work in the garden; only when he is totally restored to health do we want to employ him again fully in the publishing house and he is to complete his training there. We do not know, of course, if he is healthy enough to stand the hard winter climate here in the Rhön, so it would be good for him on his journey back to let himself be thoroughly examined in Münchberg by your own family doctor and to bring the medical certificate along with him.

With cordial greetings from the whole house community

- - - - -

Sannerz

April 25, 1925

Dear Fräulein Scholl,

our sister in the Lord,

I have been intending to write to you for a long time. I have often asked your dear brother Ferdinand to invite you to visit us, but till now you have not had the opportunity and freedom for such a journey. I am firmly convinced that we would find a decisive mutual relationship with you, for our community is simply with Christ, who was crucified for us and rose from the dead, and from whose personal return we alone expect the coming kingdom. For that we live and we want to conduct our lives in his Spirit and nature.

To us, as it is with you, the word of God is the only guideline and source of strength, but always in the Holy Spirit, which comes ever anew to us from Christ. Through the leading in recent years we feel more strongly united with the Bible, with the spirit of the prophets and apostles and with the Spirit of the Early Church than in earlier times, in which we emphasized too exclusively the individual soul. It is certain that the Lord promised his kingdom of peace would come on this earth. Everything is ruined through sin, and Satan himself must be overthrown. For this reason our hope is founded alone on the new day coming from God, on Christ who will come again. We do not expect anything good for this earth which is not connected with this return. The saying, "Brother, love the earth" I understand in the sense of the Lord's Prayer, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done", this in the sense of the Revelation of Jesus Christ by John.

Therefore it has become clear and living for us that the Church of Christ, the community of the faithful is called, as the Body of Christ, to live as Jesus lived, and to put into practice already now the community of the coming kingdom of God. Certainly, as with other matters of consecration, we can only do it as it is given to us, as it is brought about by grace; but as far as that we must really do it. It will be known to you that in all the centuries the discipleship of Jesus has been lived in this sense as brotherly community, as household community, as work community, and community of goods; as the way of communal poverty, in friendship with all the poor, to whom the gospel must be preached.

I found it important to send you this witness to Christ from our household, because we believe the alliance and unity with all genuine Christians to be most essential. I know to what extent your witness has become a blessing to your brother Ferdinand, so that also the things in which you do not yet recognize and live the truth, may be a strong influence on him. As Ferdinand has probably already written to you, it has not been possible for him to come into true community with us; he cannot understand our positive stand of faith in Christ. Therefore we cannot share with him in our communal life of faith and our prayer life. The manner of his rejection makes it practically impossible, although from our side we would have very much liked it to come about. However our communal work, also in the publishing house is only possible if this community in the Spirit of Christ is gained from the community of work. So in face of the present situation there is no other way but that Ferdinand leaves us. We are trying to find a place for him as suitable as possible to his wishes and abilities.

Our wish for Ferdinand is that he may meet with a witness to Christ which he is inwardly capable of absorbing. Perhaps God will direct you to this! We will give him not only a suitably good recommendation for his work, but also a suitable sum of money necessary for the intervening time until his next job. We are thankful to Ferdinand that he helped us in various places with true surrender and effort. We will always remain his friends and are sure that one day we shall completely understand each other in the deepest things. Only we must not force anything and prolong living together artificially, as long as the inner requirements are not given.

Eberhard

- - - - -

Sannerz, PO Sterbfritz

April 25, 1925

Dear Prince Schönburg,

How we rejoiced when we received yesterday your dear letter including also a donation for our children’s community! All of us have so come to love you that we wish our friendship and brotherliness might come to expression in a constantly renewed community. At the Rochsbulrg I vainly tried to phone Waldenburg. Until Easter Sunday I had to be at the convention of the Free-German Work Confederation (Freideutscher Werkbund) in Eisenach, and I had to leave immediately after the Rochsburg convention, since also for the week after Easter every single day was booked. I had been pondering the possibility of coming over to Walden on the third Easter holiday (Easter Tuesday) or of possibly having you right in our midst [at the Rochsburg]; however, the goings-on there and the discussions between the “five big guns” (as the young people put it) kept us so fully occupied that we could not squeeze in anything else. [TN: The “five big guns” refer to the 5 main speakers at the Rochsburg convention: Hermann Schafft, Günter Dehn, Karl Aé, Alfred Dedo Müller, and Eberhard.]

Some day I shall surely come back to Saxony, and then I shall not neglect to inquire on the very first day whether it would be convenient for me to come to Waldenburg. If this time a meeting had been possible, I could have related to you ever so much about Eisenach and the Rochsburg, and I hope for an early opportunity to bring you up to date.

As regards the book Suggestion and Autosuggestion, I am going to order a copy right away and will write to you about it as soon as I have read it. Within a few weeks I hope to have completed a small literary work, which I am going to send also to you. In the mean time it has been a joy for my wife and myself to discover that the Furche Publishing House has re-issued the book we had been talking about at that time in Lichtenstein while remembering your ancestors. We are sending you this book entitled From two centuries of Herrnhutian history and brotherly life, as we think you will enjoy it, just as we do here in Sannerz. All of us cordially invite you to visit us here as your friends and jointly with us to have joy in our children.

With faithful greetings from us all, especially from my wife, I remain

Yours respectfully and loyally

Eberhard

- - - - -

Sannerz, April 25. 1925

Dear Georg Herde,

It was just while reading the memories of that first Bible Circle time in Breslau that the news of your engagement to Heidi Kleiminger reached me. I am inwardly so wholly rooted in that time and know all my present decisions so completely one with the resolve of that time and with the grace then given that it always makes me feel specially drawn to you and some other brothers. There is a very deep mutual understanding between Paul Herzog and me, and I am convinced that you and I, in spite of the difference in our respective leading and task, do do feel completely one in the basic core of love to Jesus and expectation of the coming kingdom. That is why I would like to ask you to come and visit us here in Sannerz for a few days with your fiancée or, if already married by that time, with your young wife. We are about to set up a little house for our guests this summer.

With all my heart I share your joy that now you, too, can, within a family, place into its center the light that is everything to all men. In a greater and deeper way that new home of yours is to renew what was once given to us boys as we sat round the table by that big sofa of yours.

- - - - -

Sannerz, April 25, 1925

Dear Alfred Schär,

With other tasks very much claiming our attention, all we could do for the time being and after giving thorough consideration to the matter, was to send you a wire message: In agreement as far as we are concerned. We are very happy about your making such active efforts to facilitate the purchase of that house and plot of land. In the meantime Erich (Mohr) has already filed an application for the purchase. I am writing Erich that we on our part are very much in agreement with school classes of deaf-mutes coming here and that we shall gladly share the work with the head teacher. At the moment, of course, all we have at our disposal is ten simple cots with straw mattresses. We ought to get ten more cots and if possible better bedding for all twenty cots. We would urgently advise against trying to accommodate more than twenty children. It had been our plan even before to set the barn up as a dining room; it will not present great difficulties.

As regards the children’s board, we shall be able to measure up to the kind and quantities of provisions you have outlined. We shall be happy to take on that work. In Monika von Hollander we have an experienced person who has been in charge of things not only in our house here but also before that in homes for soldiers’ or for children. We, too, think that 1.40 marks would have to be the amount to be charged for board and room per day and child. We cannot make the price any lower, especially this year where the previous harvest is completely used up and we still have to wait a long time for this year’s harvest, which also cannot be determined in advance. If Erich (Mohr) and you, and Guido succeed in bringing the negotiations to a quick conclusion, for which I shall be happy to be at your disposal at the right moment, I think there is a good possibility of us having the house ready for occupation by June 1, or, at the latest, by July 1. In Halle we still have furniture we can bring here so that we can suitably furnish the new little house in line with our Free-German style.

We are all very happy that with that little house and plot of land the Free-German Work Confederation can be provided with a basis on which, by means of real communal work, we at long last come a little closer to the true meaning of its name.

I shall be back in Hamburg on May 7; on May 9 I am going to be in Fleestedt with my friend Friedrich Cordes, who has just paid us a visit here in Sannerz, This time I look forward to a more thorough togetherness with you and your folks, Alfred, than last time. How would it be on Saturday? Greet all our Hamburg friends! We in Sannerz feel very strongly linked with the life and development of the Free-German Work Confederation!:

April 27

A postcard from Erich Mohr informs us that Mr. Raab, the owner of that little house, is asking 6000 marks, half of which he wants in cash. I have right away made inquiries and ascertained that this is an attempt to find out how high we can, or want to, go on the purchase price. The value of the house and plot of land is high enough to let us safely go up to 5000 marks. So consequently we have today wired Erich Mohr: “Advise offering 5000 marks; Alfred Schär raising part. First payment 2500 marks soon as house is empty. Ready for personal talks Darmstadt. Eberhard.’”

Our neighbor Mr. Lotzenius advises us that I or one of you should travel to Darmstadt as by word-of-mouth talks we surely would soon arrive at an agreement and closure. That will also be the easiest way to find out when the present tenant can be expected to move out and how the conditions of payment can be eased for us. Maybe we (Sannerzers) too, can come up with a small contribution to the amount required but we cannot promise it.

With warm greetings

Eberhard

- - - -

Sannerz, April 25,1925

Dear Erich Mohr,

We are very happy that you have already written to the house owner in connection with the purchase, and from Alfred Schär we hear that he is making efforts to accommodate (with us) school classes of deaf-mute children and to also possibly obtain a prepayment. We on our part are very much in agreement and would be glad to share the work with the respective head teacher.

There is just the question what seasons of the year would be most suitable for the Work Confederation to cede the main part of the available rooms to deaf-mute children for rest and recreation. I can manage to get insight into the land register even without obtaining legal authority, and I can also get information about the legal expenses (of the purchase). But I can’t do anything for the purchase negotiations without obtaining legal authority for it from the Confederation, and I actually consider it better that to begin with those matters are dealt with from outside. For you people can press for the house to be vacated right away; for example you are in a position to exert pressure on the offices of the mayor and the district administration that in order to provide recuperation for deaf-mutes (this being part of their youth welfare responsibilities) the present occupant of the house is found other accommodation. Please see to it that the negotiations go forward quickly, so that we can start cultivating our fields this very spring and that friends of the Confederation can live here real soon.

So you have remained in Jüterbog alter all, Erich, and as you told me this had actually been your wish. Greet Walter Groothoff and all the friends we have in common in Berlin. Through our living and struggling together at the Eisenach convention we know ourselves linked even more strongly and firmly than before with the Confederation and all its members . We are already now a small community of shared destiny and want to become a community of shared faith. And that is what we shall in fact come to be if that which we ourselves cannot achieve speaks to us with a strong enough voice. Our firm hope is that the little house with its plot of land can now become the practical foundation for our developing more and more into a “‘work confederation” such as our name calls us to be.

A short while ago I received your postcard with the information that Mr. Raab, the house owner, is asking 6000 marks, half of which he wants to get in cash. I have right away made inquiries and ascertained that this represents an attempt to find out how high we can, or want to, go with the purchase price. The value of the land and house is sufficient to let us safely go as high as 5000 marks. That is why we wired you today: “Advise offering 5000 marks; Alfred Schär will raise part. First payment 2500 marks soon as house is empty. Ready for personal talks Darmstadt. Eberhard.’”

Our neighbor Mr. Lotzenius advises that one of us ought to travel to Darmstadt since by oral negotiations we would surely arrive soon at an agreement and closure. That will also be the easiest way to find out when the present tenant can be expected to move out and how the conditions of payment can be eased for us. Maybe we (Sannerzers) too, can make a small contribution to the amount required; but we cannot promise it. We hope we can soon fulfill your request for the circular letter.

At Whitsun—June 3-7—at the initiative of Siegmund-Schulze’s Social Work Community, there will be at the Lauenstein Castle a conference about socio-ethical questions, for which personal invitations are going out. We put your name on the list so that you get invited.

- - - - -

Sannerz, April 25, 1925

Dear Waller Groothoff,

It was a great pity that you were not present in Eisenach! Now I would like to let you participate in a practical result of the Eisenach convention. A little house in the neighborhood of ours here with a bit more than 4 acres of land is for sale for no more than 3500 marks, of which most likely only 1000 marks are required for a down payment. With our Sannerz life community as a basis, we would like to use this nearby cozy little old house as a place to stay and work for members of our Free-German Work Confederation. Any other details you will gather from the enclosed copies of my letters to Erich Mohr and Alfred Schär. I ask you to please also stand up with rest zest for this proposed work basis! As soon as I am again in your area I am going to visit you and yours—please greet your dear wife from me!

(by Eberhard, with copy of his letter to Erich Mohr)

- - - - -

Dear Peter Bultmann,

For me and Else it was a great joy to visit you and your family; we just wish we could have had more time to develop the contact in a more intensive as well as extensive way. So, dear Peter, that is why I am approaching you today with a big request and a practical question.

Since Christmas (1924) we have employed in our publishing house a forty years old former high school teacher (Studienassessor), who, after participating in the war, gave up his educational career and for some years has been trying to find a satisfying activity in the book trade. He s the son of a Saxon pastor, belongs to the fellowship (Gemeinschafts) Christians and came to us in response to an ad we had put into a register of jobs. It has not been possible to draw him into our community of life and faith; his way of rejecting it simply renders that practically impossible. In spite of a certain crankiness he is a capable and conscientious worker and a lovable person and has rendered us very essential help by putting my library in order and by assisting in starting a card index, and we believe that it is in a library or in an antiquariat—a job he already had earlier on-- that he would be most likely to find the occupation he is looking for. He needs definite work hours and a clearly circumscribed area in which he can then work independently. He has a great deal of interest and also knowledge in the area of his former studies and is a true schoolmaster: thorough, punctual, and neat, but not very mobile.

Could you possibly get him a job in your library? If yes, please reply to me right away, possibly by telegram (charged to our account). I would be happy to pass Ferdinand Scholl on to people we are acquainted and familiar with, for I do appreciate him as an individual and a worker; I also believe he will make an effort to still progress, inwardly and outwardly.

- - - - -

Bilthoven, April 26, 1925

To Eberhard Arnold and the whole Sannerz family:

Dear friends,

In the context of our annual public Quaker meeting our thoughts have gone out to our friends who in former years were together with us. We greet you warmly in memory of hours of heartfelt friendship in the past.

In the past year our Quaker meeting has often been small and weak, maybe due to the fact that we were hardly strong enough to do without our Utrecht friends, seeing that Utrecht has now a Quaker meeting of its own. But we long and pray for a growing sense of responsibility for our meeting in all who come together there, for only then will the meeting be sure to grow in spiritual strength.

Our business meeting, on the other hand, was a very active one. But we do wish more and more that the hours of quiet devotion become the source of strength from which all outward activity will spring. We rejoice as we feel the fellowship uniting us with you, our friends, scattered over all parts of the world. We are sending you heartfelt greetings.

Willie Bosman, Betty Boeke, Stella Giesberts, Greet Mulder, Kees Boeke, Nelvantoen

- - - - -

Dr. Hemann Buddensieg

Editorial office of the

“Challenger to Change”

Binau, April 27, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

I have now moved back to the stillness of Binau, to the glory of Binau blossoms, but again and again my thoughts wander back to the experiences of Eisenach and to the people that fate led us together with. That is why ever again the thought comes to me: What is to happen now? On the Ludwigstein the ones gathered there were led to the Ludwigstein confession of faith and thereby lifted up to a height from which they decidedly climbed back down again in the course of the year; nevertheless the work done at that time was not in vain. Is this to happen all over again now? Is someone like Erich Mohr to take over the spiritual leadership—doubtless a man of a good disposition and full of the best intentions but lacking in any kind of drive and decisiveness and in that rock-hard inner certainty that in times of change is needed to safely steer a confederation through the dangers lurking all around.

[TN: Led by ‘Erich Mohr, at Easter 1924 the more radical wing of the Free-German Fellowship (refounded in August 1923 at a youth conference on the Hohe Meissner) had convened at the Ludwigstein “youth castle” separately from the conservative wing and had there founded the Free-German Work Confederation. Fifteen years later, in Premysl Pitter’s life story Unter dem Rad der Geschichte, “Professor Erich Mohr”, while in 1940 visiting his friend Pitter in Prague, will share with him his utter dismay at Hitler’s policy.]

It is clear to me even now that it will come to a sharp set-to between the Eisenach direction and those who, for reasons not hard to unravel, absented themselves from that convention. I simply cannot put out of my mind the Christian concept of the Last Judgment, where in a terrible struggle the unrighteous are condemned and expelled and the realm of peace can begin. Such a spirit must also break into our confederation, and woe to those who seek to hinder it out of an indulgent love that is hypocritical. But “hail” to those that make men’s hearts firm and put to wield the swords of faith when it comes to holding out in the struggle. The more ballast is cast off the better!

So what is now to be done if one does not indulge in any illusions about what is to come?. Should we not continue to strengthen and steel the ones we were able to win for our cause in Eisenach? My intention is to get into contact with these through a circular letter that is to be confidential and whose circle of recipients can be steadily enlarged. Every participant can then add to this longer letter one of his own. That is how one gains a fighting troop! The secret alliance can be firmed up by rallies, written notes, letters, and joint festivals. Doubts and misgivings can thus be cleared up, and there is to be vigorous encouragement for whatever is to be done.

I had thought of sending this circular letter to you and those in Sannerz, to Hermann Kölln, Karl Sachse, Erika Beck, Lotte Lange, Lene Schulz, Eva Sachs, and also to Erich Mohr..[TN: Lene Schulz would later join the Bruderhof!] I would then let you, Eberhard, and Hermann Köln decide, who else might be a “challenger to change”. I know that when once the womanish-amatory character gets out of the Confederation, it’s going to be joined by also other, newer elements. [TN: Last sentences incomplete in the German original, with meaning just guessed at in the translation.] For that to happen, an unequivocal beacon has to be erected!

Well, stop and consider all this, dear friend! Could we possibly let things just take their own course? Do write to me about all this! I myself have received so many expressions of gratitude following the convention that it makes me feel ever so glad and tells me that my stay in Eisenach was not in vain. Now when shall we see each other, Eberhard? A pity that we live so far away from each other. Do come to us soon! Dr. Mucher, too, is looking forward to meeting you, dear friend! Could you possibly write for the “Summoner” a report about the convention, with some basic and searching comments? Please be a good fellow and do that! After all, there the whole situation of grievously struggling human beings did become clearly revealed as though symbolically.

Do write to me soon, Eberhard! And pass on my greetings to all the friends from Sannerz I got to know—above all Monika von Hollander, Trudi Dalgas, and last not least to dear Emi-Ma, who was a real comfort to me during the convention--an antidote to Talmi. [TN: Cf. Buddensieg’s scathing reference to Tansi Oehlfken in his letter to Eberhard of March 30] Everything good to her and to you all—to the whole lot of you, and specially to you, Eberhard,

From your faithful

Hermann Buddensieg

regarding the fall conference you mentioned, I cannot yet give you an answer.

- - - - -

Sannerz, PO Sterbfritz

April 28, 1925

Dear Jakob Klockes,

Now that it’s getting nice and warm outside, we would like to come to you with the question if you would enjoy coming to us as our guest, and to wholly live and work with us for a few weeks, at any rate for a fortnight. True, the youth hostel is not yet open, but we can surely get a nice place ready for you in the barn. At any rate there is now room. We understand that you are intending to go to Austria, so it’s perhaps on your way down there that you could most easily come and stay with us. Of course you should not because of us break off whatever job you presently have. Please let us know soon if we may reckon with you being here within the next few weeks and what would be the earliest date for your arrival.

All of us greet you and will be happy to have you once again among us for a while.

- - - - -

Miltenberg, with Mr. August Fertig

Miltenerg on Main

18 Bürstadter St.

April 28, 1925

Dear Eberhard Arnold,

Since a meeting with you did not work out at Easter [TN: See previous letters by Edgar Weiß] , I intend to come to you at Whitsun and could probably get there already on Friday or Saturday before Whitsun. How is it with board and lodging?

There is by now another reason for my coming, because I would also like to have a look at our prospective country home and youth hostel. Erich Mohr has very much aroused my curiosity! The prospects seem to be very favorable, as far as one is able to judge without a precise knowledge of the object. [TN: A reference to the “little old house” near the Sannerz house community that the Free-German Work Confederation wants to purchase.[ Let’s hope something good will come out of it, and also that I shan’t get a negative reply from you.

With cordial greetings

Edgar Weiß.

- - - - -

Hanau, April 29, 1925

Dear Miss Dalgas,

Today we received your kind letter and heartily thank you for it. Unfortunately you forgot to also send the paper with the guardian’s signature. Please be so kind as to send that, too, back to us. In your letter you wrote about Helmut’s certificate of departure’ I had actually sent you that green paper certifying his departure. Shouldn’t that be sufficient? If your time allows it, be so kind as to give us exact information about that. We would be very grateful to you. The report about Helmut has made us happy, and we hope he will grow with you there into a useful human being.

For today please accept my own and my parents’ cordial greetings!

Your Gretel Schwing.

Please greet the whole house community from us!

- - - - -

April 1925

Dear Mö,

I am sorry I did not know when is your birthday, but now I’m going to remember it. You have to show me your doll when I come. Just imagine—pretty soon now we can again tell and read things to each other! When I come through Munich I am going to get off the train and buy those fairy tales with the lovely pictures.

With many greetings

Your Kurt

Many thanks for the jolly picture!

- - - - -

April 1925

You dear ones,

As foreseen, I shall arrive on Saturday, May 2, at 7 o’clock PM in Sterbfritz.

The doctor’s report sounds very good; I am going to bring the medical certificate along with me.

Cordial greetings to all! So long!

Your Kurt

- - - - -

Easter 1925

Dear Eberhard,

I feel thankful to you because you love the sinner, because you love the poor and because you fight against the spirit of mammon, the spirit of cares and worries and because you provide an example for “having no care”, also because you dare and hope, because you love children and let them have a non-violent upbringing, because in the nature and life surrounding me here I could once more breathe deeply and gain fresh, new courage for life, because with you the seriousness of the demands of Jesus is being pointed to in every respect, also as regards reconciliation between the nations. Keep all these acknowledgments well in mind as you read what I have to say to you in what follows. I want you to remain my friend, but for that very reason I must definitely take issue with you.

On a certain open evening you and those with you decided to embark on the “New Work” (Neuwerk). [TN: The writer probably refers to the Sannerz community’s decision to continue as part of the Neuwerk movement, started by Otto Herpel and Eberhard and since the 1922 crisis headed by Hermann Schafft as the Neuwerk magazine’s editor. The Sannerz community, officially registered as the Sannerz Neuwerk cooperative, was a very active one among the movement’s numerous local groups.] You were being urged by idealism and optimism, which is certainly more fruitful than the opposite. But wasn’t there also ambition? Optimism is apt to flare up in a straw fire blaze if the fire gets suitably stirred—maybe by a hand that was itself hoping to play a role. Women, especially when in love, present a danger for a man’s ambition, for they mislead him into false self assessment.

A straw fire! That’s the spirit embodied by “Hans in luck’ (Hans Fiehler} and by Roland (Keiderling), and a fruit of the same spirit is the poem made by your little daughter, however adroit it may be. Think of your rental adventure (?Pachtgeschichte),:Eberhard! Ambition! Your blood-red cardigan, your beret! I also regard as egocentric the inclusion of your own poems in the Sonnenliederbuch.

And as before I still have the impression that you are inclined to present matters and arrange them the right way by using sophisticated dialectics. In a public lecture Wilamowitz once declared that rhetoric (which you, in combination with your physical resilience, are skilled at) is of the devil and has its dangers. I don’t want to accuse you of insincerity but merely of an inclination to first of all fend off with deft weaponry whatever unwelcome force may be assaulting you. That’s what an optimist does!

You are a prophet [TN: should obviously be “ein Prophet”--not “kein Prophet” in German.] and a leader of the youth movement but in either case in a not too exuberant way. What you really lead with is the writing pen, comparable to the encyclopedists of the French enlightenment, who prepared the way for the great revolution.

It struck me as grotesque and ridiculous when you, raising your voice, read out to that poor tramp passages from Weitling [TN: or Wuttling, (?) a book by Hermann Buddensieg mentioned in his letter of March 30 to Eberhard]. The man hit the nail on the head by calling that method impractical, implying that you, too, were not the right man to put it into practice. Where somebody does not regard such a manner of proclamation as impractical or grotesque, all that still remains in his soul is just the prick of revolutionary defiance. That’s what I told you already on the occasion of your lectures in Sterbfritz! You are impractical in the way Pestalozzi was, some of whose qualities are also yours, above all faith and patience.

Revolutionary lectures should be addressed not to the poor but to the rich until their ears start tingling! For the poor are bound to feel hurt by your way. Injustices must not be driven out by injustice! Why don’t you turn to the right persons? Weigh your spoken words! Or become an evangelist, or be both—at the right place!

You can’t be a radical Christian, (Eberhard.) neither by total activism nor by rejecting any compromise! You are forced to make compromises and as regards propaganda you are restricted to opportunities. You have to rely on being aided by the rich, and it is from abroad that you look for help.

By their fruits it can be recognized whether men are false prophets. But there are still other distinctive marks. Surely my little sister is not far off the mark when she passes on the following observation: “Not those are standing right who assume everything to be in fine shape when the world comes to an end, but those who view earth’s history as ending with great terror for the children of the world”. [TN: Ferdinand’s “little sister” is identical with “Miss Scholl”, the recipient of one of Eberhard’s letters dated April 25.] You, (Eberhard,) though, steer a course towards a realm of peace on earth where everything will be just and perfect and full of joy and where the poor will have the Gospel preached to them. This means in the first place being with God, being blessed in Him; however, from this evaluation of man it follows as a matter of course that his earthly (to, too, is to be bettered. But applying Christ’s directions entirely to social justice (as you seem to do) amounts to a crude materialization of his words and leads away from the way of salvation.

The Lord’s Supper is not first of all a symbol of community of goods. Ananias and his wife did not have to die because of having offended against community of goods, as you appear to maintain, but because of their personal behavior towards God. In your “quiet hours” I miss, as said before, an expression of the struggle against darkness that engulfs every human being, of earnest repentance, of the joy of redemption—in short, of the prayer spirit. I myself am still having difficulties with communal prayer, but I know from my sister and others how it is possible for hearts to be swept away by it.

For the above reasons I cannot perceive in you any “white-glowing core” nor can I see it in your having apparently foreseen currents of the times.

Yet another word with respect to the women’s question. It’s women that carry your banner, and I suspect it is they who strongly influence not only the spirit in which religion is here practiced, but also your whole attitude. I found it revealing that the 9 points I had identified at that time were by you right away brought before the female forum, even though I had intended them to be discussed only between the two of us. Still, it’s good for a female supplement to be there; however, the man must not deny or lose himself.

Eberhard, you pin your hope on the upcoming generation. True, your pedagogy has brought forth many successes that I feel happy about. The children do have a sympathetic heart for poor people. But one must guard against overvaluing that. “As the old birds sing, so do the young ones twitter”. But that is no sign yet of a strong character. To what extent, e.g., is there that true orderliness by which discipline is to be recognized? Three times have I leant something to the children, always with the strict injunction to return it promptly. Three times the children failed to do so. There has to be order, also at divine service or “quiet hour” as it’s called. On “quiet” Saturday before Easter things were particularly noisy and rowdy around the breakfast table. One word from Monika or Trudi could have restored quiet. The grown-ups, however, put me off by informing me that was “anticipated Easter joy”. However, what one anticipates will be missing at the right place; it is also exposed to arbitrary use.

Bear in mind, too, (Eberhard) that the ancient prophets did not have their cause backed up by the serried ranks of a communist party, and also that the leaders of he communist party and of Bolshevism are nearly all Jews and hard to be outdone in cynical meanness. This quality comes to the fore especially when oppressed people burst their fetters, when aliens become triumphant in other people’s homeland. The Jews are a moral danger and hostile to God—a race that also you and your people, do not find appealing..

From what I hear the followers of Karl Barth are out to deprive you, Eberhard, of even the last bit of “pietism”.

To bring this to an end, I have been considering how your enterprise might be rendered viable. Most of it will be counsel you will already have arrived at yourself. The literary stock of your publishing house has to be revamped and prices to be lowered. So important a subject as love and related topics should never be out of stock with you; it is essential, if for no other reason than that the world tries to puzzle out how the two sexes manage to live together in our house community.

That small loan of mine--I did not let you have it in order to become a member of your publishing company but rather because I was aware of your embarrassing situation and felt the call to help. If I have the honor of belonging to the society, I must also be in a position to represent it unreservedly before the general public and have to regard it as a viable outfit. You know that I am not in agreement with several of your issues; that is as long as Weg, Schacht, and Mitternacht remain part of it, as well as Goldstein and also the Bauhütte (“building shed”), which last-named work is of unsatisfactory quality with respect to both title and content. {TN: “Goldstein” refers to Julius Goldstein’s Race and Politics, a book on the roots and background of anti-Semitism]

The beggar who came the other day also noticed the many women around, and I think he had the impression that we live together with them without exacting work, just given to frugal living and pleasant conversation, while supported in this life style by moneyed people outside (“ohne Gunst keine Kunst” or “no art without favors from high-ups”). At any rate it is still more as workers that outside folk must perceive us. We ought to stage exhibitions showing, and marketing, products of domestic diligence, and as much as possible combine that with propaganda for our cause. It would be so good for us to start producing artistic pottery, for example plates with sayings imprinted on them, or also cards with such sayings, like the series produced by Lienhard and published by Greiner and Pfeiffer.

Toward the outside world we cannot strongly enough bear in mind the fact that the world looks at us with extremely critical eyes; so we must avoid any unfavorable appearance. Above anything else we must face the outside world in a reforming sort of way, i.e. with no pandering to hatred and violence, yet without reneging on our radical principles.

There is so much that is great and wonderful in your work, Eberhard! Would to God, I could range myself by your side with an undivided heart! There is no sacrifice within my power I would not make! For the time being, though, it must be my concern to provide for my own future an economic position in which I can be of help to myself and others. You, Eberhard, would rather have an enemy than a half-hearted friend. I have now told you the truth, almost like an enemy, and yet I mean it as sincerely as a true friend. Let’s keep this letter just between ourselves!

Ferdinand Scholl

- - - - -