Eberhard Arnold

Correspondence, August 1925

[Arnold, Eberhard and Emmy papers - L]

[Draft Translations by Bruderhof Historical Archive]

[Erich Teichert to Eberhard Arnold]

Nostitz, August 2, 1925

Esteemed Mr. Arnold,

On July 12 I mailed you a letter with various questions resp. suggestions as regards my eventual cooperation in your undertaking. Seeing that unfortunately I have until today not received a reply to that letter and that I am extremely interested in sooner or later working together with you, I today take the liberty to inquire if my letter of July 12 has possibly not reached you at all. If, in fact, the points which I touched upon in that letter are quite out of the question, I would nevertheless request at least a brief answer. This would give me the possibility of casting about for other possibilities, or at any rate of looking for an in-between position until taking charge of the leasehold you plan to acquire.

I don’t want to remain any longer at my present place, for I find the conditions very hard to bear. Maybe you will understand me a bit better if I let you know that my boss and the other administrator, are Stahlhelm comrades [“Steel helmet”—a nationalist front soldiers’ association], who, being fanatical, pigheaded egoists, will not tolerate any other opinion or world view. Any persons thinking differently have no standing whatever with them and are treated like inferior creatures.

For two years I have managed to get along with them, as my job here had some new things to offer vocationally, and as I set value on obtaining a vocational testimony covering several years. That I shall doubtless get, for on a purely vocational level there is friendly agreement among us all. However, I simply must get away from here, even though the inspector will not like it; inwardly I just have to I hope you will understand me without me having to say a great deal about it.

In the hope and with the heartfelt request that you might spend a few moments on letting me have a short answer, I send you my best regards.

Your,

Erich Teichert

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Hans Kupfer

Leipzig, Anger Kröner Str.

August 3, 1926

Dear Sannerz folk,

For quite some time already I owe you a letter. But during the semester I simply lacked time and inward quiet for writing. One paper after another had to be written and other small tasks required time and effort. Now we have for a few weeks said goodbye to city asphalt and are living in a small village in the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge). The blue mountains in the far distance beckon with a promising gleam, and it feels as though at any moment the bright radiance of the blue flower might emerge from the unfathomable dark of the forest.

With tremendous joy I already look forward to the big hike we are planning for the autumn. We, meaning a fellow student and me, starting at Eisenach, want to hike the Thuringian Forest, the upper Main valley, and the Franconian Switzerland (Fränkische Schweiz), via Nuremberg, Rothenburg, through the Tauber Valley and the Oden Forest (Odenwald) to the Rhine valley at Koblenz. Then I plan to still spend two to three weeks with you at Sannerz and join you in harvesting your hopefully very numerous and big potatoes (in October).

I still wanted to share with you Sannerz folk some impressions from the two Whitsun conferences. Above the difference of opinion between the two Klassens and the two Free-Germans (which was seen as more important than it actually was) there surfaced the much deeper tension between Buddensieg and Ulrich (and, as I assume and hope, also between Buddensieg and Sannerz). After everything I heard from Buddensieg in Sannerz—and it was hard to hear anything—and what I read in “Call for a Turn-around” [Rufer zur Wende, Buddensieg’s magazine] I don’t believe that, apart from the Free-German life style, we are bound to him by that which unites us so closely with Ulrich for example. Of course, we are talking about the Free-German lifestyle seen in its full depth as the abysmal need of unfulfilled yearning and struggling for the discipleship of Him whom the New Testament bears witness to. A lecturer at the Pedagogic Institute, whom I asked to read the issue on Goethe from the “Call to a turn-around,” (because he is interested in the philosophy of history and culture,) handed it back to me with the comment that he regarded it as an attempt to provide civilization with a religious trimming, and I can only agree with him in that assessment and have to reject Buddensieg’s tendency.

What is still alive and getting stronger and stronger in me as a result of the Sannerz conference is Ulrich’s personality and the witness borne by Kierkegaard. The latter must, of course, raise a radical protest against the manner in which a genius bears religious testimony, such as Buddensieg claims for Goethe. One thing I had to reproach Ulrich for is that he read out his translations at a high speed train rate, seeing that Kierkegaard himself demands that he be read loudly, slowly and repeatedly.

So what I received in Sannerz was not much more than a stimulation to concern myself intensely with Kierkegaard. It was with deep joy that I read his “On Learning to Practice Christianity”. I believe that the Christ he sees is the one He actually was. It is Kierkegaard’s calling, with outrageous earnestness, to confront man with the absolute demands, to use them to take the measure of Christianity, and to arrive at the recognition that we are not Christians. But instead of just standing there, he ever again calls us to dare to fulfill the demands and in so doing to ever again suffer shipwreck. But all this is not in order to advocate works-righteousness but rather a daily awareness of grace. It would be presumption and titanism to want to fulfill the commandments in one’s own strength! All we can do is grow and ripen like fruit on a branch and grapes on a vine. Only in an ultimate union with, and membership in, Christ’s body can we bear good fruit. But we truly shall and must bear good fruit! There is no such thing as inwardness and a hidden inward Christianity, which does not express itself. What is within is like what is without! What is within has to be so powerful that it shapes what is without.

A pastor, who has a lot of contact with Elmau Manor, told me that the Sermon on the Mount has to be understood inwardly; that we must not seek to outwardly fulfill the commandments. However, if this inwardness does not have an outward-directed push and drive but remains so well hidden that it has its realm in just a narrow, confined area and remains indifferent to any other expressions of human life, one may well have a justified doubt whether that inwardness does exist at all. If our total human being with its manifold relationships to reality is to be transformed from this one center of Christ’s living, then we have to become new creatures. And that in turn means self-denial and -crucifixion. But as long as we are concerned with our own selves and lovingly reflect about our own little ego, even though it is about our own needs, weaknesses and sins (and how we love to do that; especially we Neuwerk people) we have not yet died to ourselves. And that is to be brought up also against Kierkegaard!

True, we are being challenged, the word being the mirror, but we are challenged to do something in response, and what matters now is that we have our eyes fixed on that. We have to take upon ourselves this one concern, and are permitted to do that in the confidence that everything else will be given to us, including the blessedness of our souls. It will surely be but small steps and lowly services that we are allowed to undertake. What is all-important is precisely that the steps are being taken and the services get carried out. Und haben wir einem nur geblüht… (“And though we blossomed but for one single day…,) [”the well-known German verse in praise of blossoming and flowering, if only for one day and for but one person.]

In comparison with the Sannerz tempests, what we experienced at the Rothenburg conference was but a gentle rustle. It’s horrifying to see how strongly the Neuwerk movement has taken on an academic character. The addresses were more like college lectures, with trampling and shuffling of feet as signs of approval and disapproval. The individual groups stuck together as though cemented by cobbler’s wax, so it was difficult for an individual to feel really accepted. Through Max Weber I did have some contact with those from Marburg.

By the way, I officially passed on greetings from you folks and expressed your ties to the Neuwerk.

What made the strongest impression on me was a lecture by Emil Blum about socialism and the Gospel. He emphasized that the existence of the proletariat and of the socialist movement is a judgment on Christianity. On the one hand, many lines lead from the Gospel to socialism, but on the other hand, in the New Testament the social question is strangely left untouched. There is no solution to the question of slavery in early Christianity; on the contrary the old situation is to remain. At any rate socialism is also being judged by God and the Gospel.

Frick spoke about the Church, the religious movement, and the Gospel. He simplified the problems and in the end recommended the solution: neither spirit without form nor form without spirit, but rather spirit and ancient form. According to him the spirit of the religious movements has to flow into the form of the Church. Otherwise there was a lot of talk about the question of the Jungenbund (‘‘Young Confederates”) and the “Schlüchtern Youth”. The Jungenbund was rejected; the “Schlüchtern Youth” on the other hand was accepted as a collective designation for Neuwerkers engaged in a particularly responsible way in the Youth Movement.

What‘s still left to be done is to report briefly about life in our circle. As a motto for the first time of the semester one might well take Morgenstern’s verse:

One mile, it would seem, we all walk as one choir

till at last, we discern; each got lost in the brier.

Everyone is running out of time. Two of us have their exam in the fall, but the others were also fully occupied. We already were about to give up our circle—at least for a time, but after Whitsun two members came to us from Leipzig whom I had gotten to know in Rothenburg, as well as two from Neusonnefeld, so that new life sprang up. We had at first tried to read together Paul’s epistle to the Romans. However that gave our theologians an opportunity to rationally interpret what must be believed in the Spirit, so it became impossible for us to continue. So we are now reading together “About purity of heart” by Kierkegaard (from the Christian Kaiser Publishing House). We did have a fine evening when [Karl] Aé paid us a visit while passing through. Karlfried Fröhlich was also with us one evening and told us about Marialaach and the Benedictine monks.

By the way we are going to have a Neuwerk wedding this month: Karlfried Hering and Lore Friedrich.

Will one of you come to the autumn fair in Leipzig? I am going to be in the business office in the Trugern House to earn the money for my trip to Sannerz! Otherwise we shall see each other again in October. Of course I am especially looking forward to that.

If you write to me again it would make me very happy, but I do know that your time is very precious and that we are closely united whether we write to each other or not.

I greet you all with my whole heart as your lowly brother,

Hans K[upfer]

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[Hanna Kupfer to Trudi Dalgas]

Lauterbach, August 4, 1925

Dear Trudi,

I have been very happy to receive a letter from you. Whatever I am able to do, I will gladly do in order to help you a little bit. I only know of three people of whom I am going to send you a list when the holidays are over.

Martin Böhmer (who now has a job as a librarian) Fritz Kunze and a woman colleague, who is inwardly close to you people, and would like to get to know you personally.

I definitely hope to be able to send you the money at the beginning of next month. The circle of acquaintances at my place of employment consists of several families of miners and young people from the workers youth who are either in factory or mining occupations. The mining wages are at present so low-at the average 18 marks a week (for piece work)-that people are scarcely able to earn their daily bread.

Our Neuwerk circle in Leipzig consists for the main part of students who also struggle for their livelihood. Unfortunately I cannot take part in the weekly gatherings of the circle because it is only on Sundays that I am at home. I would have liked very much to hear about Kierkegaard and the respective discussions.

Alongside my vocational work and the preparation for the voting right test next year, I have but very little time left for intensive concern with “religious” personal needs. Spiritual hunger and loneliness want to paralyze the will to dare living in accordance with the unconditional commands of discipleship and give way to sorrow about abandoning the thought of [coming to] Sannerz. But this is a good thing! How great is the danger of measuring, and reflecting on, one’s own inadequacy or successes which, as though with magnetic power, draw one’s gaze backwards instead of directing it towards the one thing for which we ought to yearn. Without wanting it, during moments of leisure in the evening as we ponder the days work, there rise up these questions: have you acted and spoken rightly as befits your task? Have you conducted yourself and made decisions as demanded by the laws of the coming kingdom? Then we are overcome by uncertainty and wavering which like fetters make us stumble when we want to stride forward untrammeled and unhesitating. What then matters is to again and again ask for the divine will to plunge into our powerlessness. Then we are also granted to find the right attitude in life. It surely does not matter which place we have to fill in life. Always and everywhere we have to represent a parable and a testimony.

Ultimately, you in Sannerz and we in our vocational life suffer under the same need. When it’s a question of our complete readiness to build the cathedral, we all find ourselves in the grip of this mysterious rhythm of being broken and then newly uplifted. All of us are workmen engaged in constructing thee, thou lofty central nave!

Dear Trudi, I still have one great request: could you occasionally let me know how you handle religious instruction in school.

Faithfully united with all of you,

Hanna Kupfer

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-Postcard-

“Hans in Sorrow”

Author Johs. Fiehler

Presently Frankfurt/M

General Delivery

August 5, 1925

All you dear ones,

Just imagine my dear but truly very delicate Helli-child has become so sick overnight that I had to get a doctor and a car (already on Friday). Now she lies here in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen in the city hospital (Med. Uni. Poly-Clinic, Section 19b), where I am going to visit her again today. The hardships of last year have once again become too much for her, so now she will be confined to bed for some weeks. Following that we want to seriously settle down in Sannerz and to travel now and then.

With hearty greetings,

Your Hans

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Young Men’s Christian Association

Meeting House, Amonstr. 6

Dresden August 8 1925

My dear Eberhard,

To supplement my last letter of April 21 or 22, 1925, which was a reply to yours of March 6, 1925, I would, while also enclosing some letter addresses, like to corroborate by some practical examples what I wrote to you on March 3. Please do not regard this as a polemical action, but rather as what it actually is. That is to say, simply a continuation of our written exchange of views.

Still a few preliminary observations. Again and again I get attacked, either openly or from behind my back, by political as well as Christian camps on the right. This is because I am earnestly concerned to recognize social need, to assess it justly and to do what is possible (within the framework of our movement) to overcome it. I see my main task in the awakening of consciences on all sides and especially in pointing out to those in charge of Christian undertakings where they are acting without understanding and mercy, and that they must free their thinking and feeling from being tied to conceptions, traditions, and practical conditions that are offensive to social justice. I am convinced that socialism and communism represent in essence, though not exclusively, phenomena of reaction against the Christians’ preaching of love without corresponding deeds, which has gone on for thousands of years. But I also see demonic powers at work among the socialists and communists, and will not let myself or the work I am directing here in Dresden get drawn into the errors and the feverish hatred such as I find among those leftists. I am convinced on the one hand that we Christians are responsible for any injustice taking place within our personal sphere of power and that we must take action against it. On the other hand it is not within our power to change the whole world, because this can only be done by God. Indeed, I am convinced that God has no need of us at all in order to change the world, although he does at times make use of us out of sheer grace.

In the last months I have again and again observed that the young people we have been talking about in our correspondence feel called to undertake great things but fail in small matters. They speak out against others with tremendously big words while in their personal lives lacking any of the greatness that ought to be there in order to justify such words. With deep sorrow I see among these young people, who had once been standing here in our midst under the word of God, have raised themselves above God’s word, and in many cases no longer have any prayer life at all. They have allowed their revolutionary ideas to become a downright idol which they serve.

There is nothing we need more than prophetic men with a message, like for instance Isaiah 58, and with an entire life of deeds in profound fear of God, without any fear of men, and who are truly detached from themselves.

Eberhard, you will surely not expect me (as someone no longer naïve due to experience and the study of youth psychology) to commit the serious mistake of requiring all the young people I am talking about to already have developed character. I know from many experiences that Eduard Spranger is absolutely right in saying that the whole nature of adolescence actually consists in not yet having character. It is because of serious and conscientious educational and pastoral consideration that I wrote to you in March and April and am again writing to you today. I am sending the enclosed copies to you to show you that I cannot agree with your way of working and why.

On August 26 we had a visit of a marvelous young French pastor, Henri Rosier. To begin with we were just informally together with the young people here, who met him with warm love from the very first moment, which he appreciated greatly as something he had not yet encountered on any of his previous journeys through Germany. He is a conscientious objector, travels on behalf of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and stands very close to that downright apostolic socialist Christian, Henry Nick. I had invited to this meeting the Dresden Neuwerk group--all the youths (Jungens) are former members of ours--and they could have learned a great deal from this young Frenchman who is truly living a life of dedicated love. Just before the concluding words to be spoken by our French friend the whole gang got up and left the room. I shouted after them in an actually not unfriendly manner to get them to stay. We had just been talking about the peculiar character of the different nations and had stated that the German frequently lacks tactfulness, and I added jokingly that it was also impolite to leave the room immediately before the concluding words of the guest speaker having, of course, not individuals in mind but the present instance of a whole group filing out. The correspondence resulting from this event, by itself unimportant, appears to me significant because it urged Fritz Beichler to write what I am enclosing for you.

Another fact that pains me greatly is that Rudi Scharf, whom I am especially fond of, and to whom I had just given a strong proof of my trust (premature as the case shows) by asking him to take charge of the young boys’ group, has left us. The grounds he gave for leaving were the same as Fritz Beichler’s, but, as I have reason to assume after two lengthy discussions, was not the actual motive. He has joined Fritz Beicher’s group, which however no longer calls itself a “Neuwerk” group. The reasons for this are not yet sufficiently known to me. Rudi Scharf, in part due to my support, has been spending three months at the Habertshof, where at the moment Fritz Neumann is too, whom I am also somewhat concerned about. Günther Krause, at present also at the Habertshof, has just given notice of leaving the “White Cross” without giving any reasons, but it points in the same direction. In all these cases it is a question of either persons who have not yet stood wholly on the firm ground of Christ or, without being aware of this taking place, (as still so easily happens at this age) have actually moved away from this basis. In all these cases the sense of belonging together with the church of believers has become ever weaker. What has become more important to them than the believer’s church is the solidarity of either the class or the movement--the latter most likely only short-lived one. We must then simply wait, intercede for them and always be at their disposal with warm love.

Please give my hearty greetings to those with you. We are expecting our second child one of these days and ask for your prayers.

With your reply to this letter please return to me the copies of the letters I sent to you, and of course all this is to be treated as personal and confidential.

In faithful brotherly union,

Your, Karl [von Prosch]

Dear Eberhard Arnold, I am using this opportunity to add a greeting to you. You had written to me. The reason for my not replying was that you gave me prospects of sending to me some further lectures you had been preparing. That’s why some time has now gone by without us keeping in touch.

With faithful greetings and best wishes to you and yours,

Paul Herzog

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Sannerz, August 11, 1925

Mrs. El. Kleemann

Feuerbach near Stuttgart

31 Lessengstr.

Dear Mrs. Kleemann,

Please forgive me for being so tardy in responding to your postcard of July 20. I first had to make a new copy of the report and presentation of our task in Sannerz, as we see it which Eberhard Arnold recently put together. There was also writing work of many other kinds to be done as well as a convention which demanded our full attention. So unfortunately it was only yesterday and today that I managed the copying. But I am very happy indeed to be able to send you these things now, and would ask you, if you have a chance, to let also Maria Ziegler read them. She, too, has never yet received such a thorough and detailed description of what we do here. A short while ago we also started again to issue a periodical, and I shall take the liberty of sending you a few sample numbers. Please let us know if you enjoy them.

Today I also include for you a list of the writings of the Eberhard Arnold Publishing House. Maybe the one or the other will find your interest, in particular from among those written by Eberhard Arnold himself. I am very happy that was put into contact with you by Maria Ziegler, with whom I feel closely bonded together.

I send you very cordial greetings,

- - - - -

Mrs. Blumental

Halle on the Saale R.

5a Dessau Street

Dear Sister Blumental,

We warmly thank you for your letter. Today I am sending you, by postal money order, the 3.80 marks that we owe you for fetching the books and for the postage. Thanks to you and your husband for your efforts!

The shipping of Ruthi’s furniture is not such an easy matter for us since as you know we are always short of cash. Nevertheless, we would like to try to have the furniture sent here. Please let us know, by return of mail, what the freight and removal costs would come to; we enclose for you the list of pieces involved. Please write us if the transport to our local rail station would cost more than 100 marks. If this is not the case Roland [Keiderling] and Hugga would arrive at your house on August 20, and see to the packing and the transport to the rail station. Maybe your husband would have the kindness to assist Roland in obtaining the required laths as well as the wagon; this is something we would be very grateful for.

We warmly greet you and your husband and would be very happy to see you once again among us here in Sannerz.

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Sannerz, August 12, 1925

Dear Huggi,

Today we still have a big request for you. Could you please at midday on August 20 meet with Roland at the Blumentals in Halle, 5a Dessau Street and jointly with him see to the shipping to Sannerz of Ruthi’s furniture? The Blumentals will surely give you active assistance, as they can no longer store the furniture. We are asking them to first give us an estimate of the transport costs, and if the removal does not prove too expensive we would be happy to have that furniture here. You, Huggi, are the one who knows the most about it as it was you who at that time took the furniture there. Should the removal be too expensive for the present state of our cashbox, we would just have to once more postpone the whole thing, but we would like to ask you in any case to be in Halle on August 20.

We have sent the list of furniture pieces directly to the Blumentals. You will surely find sleeping quarters with them or with Anna Rundspaden. Please let us know how much money you will need for the Halle trip so that we can send the amount needed to you there. After August 20 Roland, Irmgard and little Roland [Keiderling] will come back to Sannerz. If you have time you could pay a visit to Aunt Madsen; she lives at 14a Bismarck Street. When she was here she told us that a certain Sister Halke, who in the past would often donate, for Eberhard’s health, meat from her brother’s butcher shop, would also now be ready to supply us. Maybe you could visit Sister Halke together with Aunt Madsen and jointly with her see to the loading of the sausages. Give our greetings to Anna Rundspaden, Aunt Madsen and Sister Halke.

Above all greet your own sister, brother in law and little Adelheid. We shall be so happy to get to know the little girl next summer in Sannerz. You will at long last also receive the [Sannerz] “Report” which I enclosed.

Greeting you faithfully,

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Sannerz August 12, 1925

Dear Roland [Keiderling]

Since you will soon come to Sannerz we would like to ask you to meet at midday on August 20 at the Blumentals, 5a Dessau Street, Halle with Hugga in order to there pack Ruthi’s furniture and take it to the railway station. The freight is going to be paid here in Sannerz. We are asking the Blumentals to give us an estimate of the cost, and if the transport does not prove too expensive, we would like to have the furniture come to Sannerz. We will still get in touch with you before August 20 possibly by telegraph.

The Blumentals have a list of the furniture. Hugga knows exactly where all the pieces are, because she took them from Olga [von Hollander]’s apartment to the Blumentals two years ago.

Irmgard [Keiderling] will most likely either come directly to Sannerz before all that or, what we regard as still better, you will get everything ready here for her so that, if possible, she will find the furnished room ready for her and the child.

See you later then Roland!

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Sannerz, August 13, 1925

“Hans in Sorrow”

Presently Frankfurt/M

General Delivery

Dear Hans and dear Helle [Fiehler],

We are very sorry indeed that Helle has again fallen sick. Let’s hope that she will quickly recover.

In regards to your plans to settle down here in Sannerz, we don’t see any possibility for that. We already must rent a room in the village for Roland and Irmgard Keiderling, and unfortunately have not yet managed it. Our house is totally overcrowded; we are still able to invite guests here for a stay of eight to fourteen days, people who are in friendship united with us and represent another witness. We cannot do that for a longer time, particularly now as autumn is approaching. So please look around elsewhere for accommodation during the winter.

In view of the crowded situation in the house here, Moni [v. Hollander-Barth] would be unable to see to a delivery here; besides the house with its fifteen children would be much too noisy. We let you know all this so that you get a clear picture and can make arrangements for the winter. You cannot possibly live all winter in that wagon of yours! Where do you want to do your cooking? In winter the dining room here is fully used even by the children. Please don’t take it amiss that we speak to you so openly, but it will be better for you to get a clear picture.

With hearty greetings,

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Bayreuth, September 14, 1924

Dear brother,

Enclosed I am sending you at long last the promised little writing “The Association for Apostolic Life—What Does it Want.” It is the German branch of this “chapel within the church.” I myself do not belong to this association. Fellow alumnus Sauer in Aschbach near Bamberg once sent me this brochure at my request. He also sent me a copy meant for you. However, I left the letter behind in our mountain home in Busbach. That’s why I am asking you to kindly accept my copy instead. After having perused the brochure once again, I recognize that the association’s loving work has, after all, not yet extended as far as I had thought. But that is not the main point. On the whole I find that I am getting a positive general impression of this work. But I would also be very glad to find out what position you are taking to this undertaking so friendly to the churches [? Kirchenfreundliche Arbeit]. I would also be very glad to get into closer contact with this association for apostolic life. Until now what I have been able to find out about it is extremely scanty. But I think you will, after all, also find many points of contact with your own work in this brochure.

I have many times still been thinking of my brief stay in Sannerz and have often in my mind blessed the work of the brothers and sisters there. From the fact that I have not yet caught sight of the essay “Why we live in community,” I conclude that maybe you have after all refrained from publishing it. And much as I would like to have this essay myself, I would nevertheless welcome this decision of yours since the general public will not understand either the essay itself or the “humor” at the end of it. In my opinion it would be very good, though, if, thanks to this essay, you could get into ever closer inward contact with other similar communities.

Four medical friends of mine had intended to visit you in Sannerz at the beginning of August and hopefully have met you. In the next winter semester it is still quite uncertain whether my way will lead me to Würzburg—maybe to Leipzig instead. But whether your own way may once lead you either there or to our mountain home in Buscach, PO Obernsees near Bayreuth, you should know that you are heartily welcome at any time. In the periodical “The New Work,” 1921 No. 21, there is an essay “On the Sunday mountain” (near Vienna) by Carl Berck. Do you still have contact with that? Do you still know anything about the further development of this excellent cause?

I heartily greet you and the community in your house.

Your F. M. Knote

Retired Pastor

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Sannerz

August 15, 1925

My dear Karl von Prosch,

I am responding at once to your letter and its enclosure which are a proof to me of your friendship and your trust.

I have a great deal of work on my hands, and for that reason can only write what at the moment is inwardly living for me, without making an attempt to go into every single point. In the enclosed leaflet "Why we live in community", you will find the most thorough answer to your question to me and, lying behind your words, my view of my work. Please take the trouble to read this in quietness. It would be a great joy to me if you could tell me that you and Paul Herzog had devoted a quiet half hour to reading this confession of ours together. You could responsibly take some of your very occupied time for the sake of a concentrated yet comprehensive witness of the life task of one of your best friends, who is still convinced of being your co worker.

You know, you can see it afresh from the enclosed letter to Fritz Beichler that I do not share the condemnation of your work association, as Fritz Beichler and Herbert Klemmer express it in their letter. I also enclose a copy of Fritz Beichler's last letter which from first to last was connected with his request to come into religious social work, as owing to increasing blindness, he cannot remain much longer in factory work. I think in these lines of Fritz Beichler's, you will get an insight into the inner life of this boy which is certainly not new to you, as it is an essential supplement to his letter to you. I take it you do not want to blame me for the attitude of this circle, as could almost be concluded from the first sentence of your letter. You even write to me at the top of page two that through these copies you want to show me that you cannot approve of my way of life, and why. This way of proving does not hold true for me. The same way of proving could lead your opponents from the right and from the old method of working to say the same about you. I have certainly had a much smaller and more limited influence on Fritz Beichler and his circle. The difference between the three branches of work is actually only relative.

Because of the great need of today and at the same time through the personal inner immaturity of these excited boys, you have brought more patience and forbearance towards them than the brothers of the old methods of working. Because of my task for the gospel of the kingdom of God, I have been obliged in certain things to testify more forcefully to the demands on their consciences. But just as the old ones must not forget what you stand for, so you must just as little forget my stand that I fight for the boys and stand against them where they do not go with Christ, and where they draw back from the church of believers. Our weakness is a general one, that our surrender and our service have too little power, too little reality to bring the solution which Christ and his kingdom actually brings to these boys in their tremendous need. I am not deceiving myself, that in some ways our Sannerz work together with yours in Dresden, would be not only a mutual complement but also an increase in strength from the Spirit of Christ, which would mean in fact the mission of Jesus. Therefore I think it would be the worst thing we could do, to withdraw from one another and terminate the practical community of work.

Also in Sannerz we know very well: that the lack of property, the community of goods, the educational community with a handful of children, the penniless hospitality to a few wandering young people, our standing together, as for instance at the moment with 160 suspended brick workers with whom it is a matter of tension about either 0.50 or 0.69 marks per hour; all this means relatively little in face of the immensity of present day need. But I believe that out of the boys' cry of need and also from our Sannerz witness you should detect more of that which Johannes Kleinspehn, the Quaker Christian democrat member of one "Land" parliament said to me a few days ago:

"We must refer back to before 1848, to about 1846, to find a historical German parallel with the present day suppression and exploitation of the workers who actually in millions have fallen individually among thieves, as Jesus laid on our hearts in the parable of the merciful Samaritan. As Christians we all take sides with Jesus Christ and his way. Therefore we must take sides with those he takes sides with, as he does in the other parable about the rich man and Lazarus, the poor man."

On the other hand, the witness of your evangelical Bible study hours, although they do not meet the great responsibility for the present day need of the masses, speak in the most decisive way to us, and above all to such youths as Fritz Beichler and Herbert Klemmer. Fritz Beichler writes in a letter to us that he realizes that the present day workers do not have the strength, the inner conviction for loving, in the way of communal work, to come to victory over the evil powers which suppress them. Contrary to this they should hear and accept with reverence your witness which will also be our witness as the inner renewal, the one thing necessary. You will see from Fritz Beichler's letter that he is quite aware of acting in opposition to our witness at Sannerz and in opposition to the witness of the Y.M.C.A., if he leaves the way of Jesus and goes over to the military power of the German Communist party, which after all can only increase the evil without helping in the least. It will again cost a time of seeking and struggle before he sees the error he has momentarily fallen into, that this organized military preparation for the workers' struggle for justice is no achievement, but rather a crime.

You know that I have never felt identity with Fritz Beichler's circle, least of all in the period of the German Communist party. You know also in relation to the Lebenschule [Adult school] on the Habertshof that I stress essential differences and considerable disparities. Fritz Neumann does not feel at all at home there, and yet I am afraid there is a certain influence at work on him, although certainly not to the same degree as with Fritz Beichler or with weak Günther, who had torn up his Christian books under the influence of a monistic Lebenschul comrade and had renounced faith in the God of the Bible and in Jesus Christ. For Fritz Neumann we have the joy that after the course at Habertshof, he will stay for a short time at our community house. Last Sunday also we had fellowship with him in the Spirit of the early Christians.

So as to indicate once more what is the point of all these things, I ask you to understand these small concerns connected with the name Habertshof, your name and my name, Fritz Beichler's, Herbert Klemmer's, and other names, in the context of the tremendously serious state of affairs: that the Christian church today stands in a very sad state of weakness and in a lack of authority, whereas just now the emotional and physical need of the masses, the social injustice of the present crisis of civilization urges towards a decision of tremendous significance. All these much too personal experiences occupying us are really only a storm in a teacup compared with the terrific world upheaval pressing on to the decisive struggle of the last time.

In face of this we must all become small, or rather have the courage to recognize the fact of our smallness and inadequacy, and ask for the strength and authority from God for his Church, so that in a new martyrdom of the last time, a practical witness and a witness in deed of the way of Christ becomes established together with a clear proclamation of the Word.

We also had the joy of seeing Herr Roser and the other French friends here with us. We stood together with you and your service as we at Sannerz and on the Habertshof spent some days together in dedicated fellowship, communal work and deep friendship. The witness I gave as an introductory lecture in this circle, I will send in a few days to you and to Paul Herzog. Roser spoke with me in detail about this. We understood one another very well, in that he was clear that he represented the church gospel less eschatologically and less apocalyptically than I.

After this letter you will certainly understand out of the depth of the matter, when I say that I find in your letter and in the letter from the Dresdner youths, elements of witnessing to Christ and purely human and therefore erring standpoints. I especially regret that in the sentence about honesty and their outward avoidance of your task as long as they hold to this attitude you have withdrawn from the fight together with the youths and the struggle within them and therefore also, to an underestimated extent, the service to them. I am of the opinion that, without shrinking from the hardest struggles we should keep open not only our hearts, which you certainly do but also continually our doors; that again and again we should find the appropriate practical attitude, the appropriate action which our feeling and our words would demand.

It will be a great joy in March to meet with you and the other friends at our dear Prince Schönburg's [castle], for all these questions; to stand under the theme of the attitude to the pacifistic currents of our time, in which the socialistic, the free German, the Catholic and the Anglo Saxon Youth Movement, each in their own way are becoming worthy to fight it through.

With faithful greetings to your dear wife, to your relatives, and to Paul Herzog.

In heartfelt love,

- - - - -

August 18, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

I am sending you just a few lines to go with von Oppenheimer’s book. If you have a lot of time read the whole book but if you have little time read only pages 417 ff. in particular page 433 ff.

Yes, the time spent with you folks has set off strong oscillations within me, and I have to let them die down somewhat in order to be able to write about them. Thanks and gratitude represent the general tone which out rings all else.

[Let me share with you the following] anticipated joy; receive it with all due precaution! In the Lüneburg area, ready to be taken possession of, are two houses with twenty rooms ready for occupancy and twenty-five rooms waiting to be finished as well as 7 ½ acres of fruit and vegetables. As soon as I know more you will hear about it. If this turned out to be the right thing for you, you would be quite near to us!

With a heartfelt greeting to you,

Your Alfred [Schär]

Dear Eberhard, our life would give you joy. All the heaviness has dropped off! We have made a new beginning! There is happiness in our house! Thanks be to you, you dear one, for what you have brought about in us, for how you opened our hearts and let them find a firm foothold in God. The spirit of Sannerz has moved along with us.

With heartfelt greetings,

Toni Schär

- - - - -

[Letter to Eberhard by Walter Scharwenka]

Steglitz

7 Berlinecke St.

Telephone 1887

August 18, 1925

Greatly esteemed Dr. Arnold,

I have received your address from Mr. Schneider and I do not know if and to what extent Mr. Schneider has talked to you about my case. At any rate I ask you to allow me to get as quickly as possible to the core of my situation. It is as follows—I have to be quite open about it—that I find myself in a very unhappy marriage, and this unhappiness is mostly due to the fact that my wife has allowed the house, and above all the children, to decay in a way scarcely to be described. This has landed me in the first place in a very difficult financial situation so that at the moment I still have to pay back more than 4000 marks of debt. In the second place my personal and artistic reputation has been considerably undermined. Through all these things, which I cannot possibly describe to you in detail, as well as through the manner that my wife has adopted towards me, I had inwardly come into such a broken and decrepit state that I was absolutely unable to any longer find the strength needed to master all these difficulties. In the course of a long and painful stretch lasting sixteen years, the love to my wife, which had been very considerable to begin with, was slowly strangled until it was finally choked to death, and I ended up brooding in a state of dumb despair. The love I feel toward an excellent girl, who managed to grasp my inner and outer need without my having to say a word about it, which has meanwhile flared up in me has reawakened me from my dull lethargy and given me new courage for life.

First I set about bringing a new order to my completely broken-down personality. I submitted to psychoanalytic treatment and after more than a year of daily treatment I was discharged a month ago as cured. Now I know there is only one way for me: that I separate from my wife, but I neither can nor will do this before having set everything in order and above all having taken suitable care of my children.

I have now arrived at the point about which I would like to request your kindly advice. My oldest daughter (from my first marriage—my wife died when the child was born) is now nineteen years old and in part already independent; so I am not worried about her. All the more desolate is the picture presented by the other children. My second daughter (fifteen years old) has been a complete failure in school. She has only gotten as far as sixth grade, and, apart from a great love for music, she evinces no pronounced inclination of any kind; she is very apathetic but from time to time will flare up violently. Yet she is actually a very dear and good girl. She is not at all stupid but terribly inhibited. Her mother is completely unable to cope with her. I had sent her out into the countryside in the hope that she might find a suitable activity in agriculture. After a quarter of a year, though, she ran away. Now she simply helps in our house, and I just don’t know what to do with her.

The next child, a son now fourteen years old, has failed completely, and in the end could not even keep up in the special school for backward children. Now I have taken him to a private home for education in Quedlinburg where he seems to get along more or less, but in a year he will be through there and must then settle down to something. It is very difficult with him. Though he is in no way mentally inferior, he is still much more inhibited than the girl.

The two smallest children, a girl of twelve and a boy of ten, are normal in school and also otherwise, but in view of the difficult conditions at home, it would be urgently desirable for them to find good accommodation elsewhere. Now I come to you with the heartfelt request for advice in my needy situation. I hear that you have an institute in which children could be accommodated. Might that possibly be a place where my children could find shelter?

The very greatest difficulty for me is my desperately bad financial situation, which however, is going to slowly improve since I am now finding myself once again in full possession of my working strength. It is mainly the heavy debts which I am constantly engaged in paying off that make the situation so unfavorable.

With that, I think I’ve supplied you enough information to give you an adequate picture of my situation. I am of course very ready to let you have any further information if desired.

As I now come to the end, I would still like to ask for your friendly discretion, and in view of my wife’s peculiar attitude, would request that you refrain from addressing your answer to my apartment but rather make use of the enclosed stamped envelope without making on it any reference to my name.

In conclusion, allow me to express in advance my sincere and cordial thanks for all kindly advice and any efforts on my behalf.

Commending myself to you, I remain yours truly,

Walter Scharwenka

Organist and choir director at the Lukas Church, composer.

- - - - -

[Letter by H. Buddensieg to Eberhard]

Binau, August 19, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

Sad to say, you have disappeared without a trace since you were here; one no longer hears anything! I, too, have been deeply engrossed in work, for the essay I gave you to read has meanwhile grown into a booklet of about 125 pages. The manuscript is lying ready! It was [TN: Nikolaus] Ehlen who encouraged me to undertake that whole writing. The table of contents is enclosed here. Now, though, Dr. Muckle and I have misgivings about the booklet lying somewhat buried in Mann’s “Pedagogic Archives” and we thought it would perhaps be better if your publishing house would publish this writing. One would then be better able to promote it. I will send it to you pretty soon. Dear friend, be so kind as to ponder this whole matter and how it could be arranged to the best advantage. Perhaps one could find a place for it among your Innenschau (“inward gazing”) writings; it is quite positively Christian! This will be a great satisfaction and joy for many. I even had in mind to dedicate it to the “Nuewerk community Sannerz;” this honor is to be given to Ehlen. This may be pure music to you [?].

It is highly probable that I come to you in Sannerz at the beginning of September so we can discuss the whole manuscript. I regard it as important to first do this together with you, dear friend. I am also enclosing comments about the “Challenger (for a Turnabout).” By the way, to what extent has this whole matter moved forward? It is bound to come to some fruition![TN: As regards closer cooperation between the two magazines.] Do write to me about it, dear friend!

What is the Frei-Deutsche Werkbund (“Free-German Work Confederation”) doing? Have you written to Mohr? I recently attended the Catholic Church conference—most interesting especially on account of the gratifying sense of helplessness in evidence there. This is how I have now also seen Ehlen: indeed a true man; has an artistic sense and a fighting spirit.

I’ve let myself be invited to the Eucken conference in Jena, but we will surely still see each other before that.

Receive all my good greetings! Write to me soon at my Binau community! Such a lot of pressing publishing work!!!

Greet all the friends! May God protect you all!

Yours sincerely,

Hermann Buddensieg

P.S. I wonder if I might sometime get back some of the money I gave you. We are so very short of cash and any unusual expenditure is liable to get me into trouble. I love you very much, Eberhard, and would much rather let you folks have the whole lot. Ah well, there may be other times in the offing.

- - - - -

[Letter by Alfred and Toni Schär to the Sannerz community]

Hamburg, August 19, 1925

Dear Sannerz community—old and young,

Very happy greetings from the Schär family. We have arrived here most happily after a pretty hot railway journey. Erika slept in the luggage rack most of the time. “Uncle Eberhard always sleeps in the luggage rack.” In the face of such an established fact all Erika’s misgivings about the appropriateness of it had to give way. Dieter was also very well behaved.

Great was our joy when in Harburg all of a sudden Alfred appeared in the corridor of the D Zug (fast-train). It first had to be ascertained if this appearance of the father was a reality or a dream. It was wonderful how we were received at home—the living room full of flowers, and on the laid table the glorious sight of a bowl full of wonderful fruit—something we had been without for so long. The prices here are much too high in view of the copious harvest, though they do not come up to the prices charged in Schlüchtern.

We are now in the middle of a “deliberate” food reform. Elsbeth, our household help, has helped for years in the kitchen of a diet sanatorium. Her plentiful experience is of great benefit to us. She is a nice but very shy girl and has known nothing but work from childhood on without ever finding recognition. I am happy to be able to waken her self-confidence and let her have a home in our house. The trust shown to her by the children makes her happy.

Erica and Dieter have very quickly settled down again. The first day they celebrated a happy reunion with all their toys. The toy box got emptied out to the very bottom so that one no longer dared to set foot in the room. Dieter thought that his little horse looked very scruffy and he started to work on it as though it was the Sannerz “Fox,” with hair flying all over the place. Erika felt like a very bad mother for having left her doll Harold all by himself for two full months. To make up for that he was given a good wash that morning and was carefully put to bed. Up from our “lilac path” in the garden come the strains of Hans-in-Luck’s [Hans Fiehler] “Zeppelin” song; the two children are busy advertising “75 before 2000.” It is in screaming that it comes to expression.

On Friday evening we attended the Free-German evening. The group consisted only of Käthe Prien and Martha Pape. Martha told about the recent conference in Paris— about 120 people, mostly Germans, but also from all kinds of countries. She described it as a very fine Youth Movement experience: sleeping in tents, an international mixture, communal cook outs, hiking, and evening celebrations around the fire. What she missed was depth. As regards practical attempts, it was the same experience as at the Habertshof conference. I told about Sannerz; we presented your wishes with respect to a child. It is very hard at present to do something there. The very small Hamburg circle is caring for the Langenhorn family who, struck by lightning during a terrible storm on August 11, has lost everything except their bare lives. The children attend the school of Martha Pape and Alwin Nels. The immediate need made them take action, and as far as we ourselves are concerned we are having a pretty rough time at the moment until the doctor’s bills have been paid.

In order to thank you and to give you joy, I am sending you the dress I wove myself. In rainy weather Alfred’s suit may still be of service to one or the other of you. It is not much but it comes from our hearts.

We send all of you cordial greetings.

Erika, Dieter, and Toni Schär

- - - - -

Sannerz, August 21, 1925

To Irmgard and Roland Keiderling

Lichtenstein-Callenberg in Saxony

Am Schlossberg

Dear Roland and Irmgard

Since the furniture is not to be picked up now and it can only be done later, we would like to ask the two of you to come immediately.

With a heartfelt greeting,

All [at Sannerz]

- - - - -

[Letter by Heinrich Schlier to Eberhard]

Address after August 27 again Marburg on Lahn

Universittsstr 31, II

Nebel auf Amrum

August 22, 1925

Highly esteemed Mr. Arnold,

On July 29, sad to say, I waited in vain for your visit, and am now finding myself in uncertainty whether it might perhaps have been prevented by my not answering your postcard.¬¬¬¬ Apparently, because addressed merely to “Marburg,” your card reached me so late that my reply failed to reach you in time. As a result, unfortunately the indispensible dialogue about Tertullian did not take place either. It was necessary above all because I wanted to explain to you that it was impossible for me to hold to the previously agreed-on deadline (October 15). The reasons for this are as follows:

1)As I came to see clearly after beginning the translation, Tertullian, as regards his language and especially the right understanding of his concepts, presents difficulties requiring such thorough and repeated examination as is impossible during the short time available. One does not understand Tertullian if one translates him as was done, for example, in the Kemptner K. V. edition, even though that too represents a good translation.

2)Because the selection to be made calls for an almost complete knowledge of his writings, such as I am not able to acquire during the time allotted. It is so that large areas of his writings are completely unfruitful for the purpose you have in mind. But on the other hand, precisely these are so closely interwoven with statements that are comprehensible and ought to be translated. It is very difficult to make the precisely right cut for the selection if one does not want to make it arbitrarily. In the case of a beginner like me you will surely excuse this late insight.

As a third reason I have to state a personal one, namely, by taking on a job, I am now rather limited on the time I have available, which has also compelled me to delay work on my thesis for my licentiate’s degree; the completion of which I cannot visualize before October 1.

Please do not consider my request to have the deadline considerably postponed (say, till March 1926) as a sign of unreliability. If such a delay is not acceptable to you—something I could well understand—I ask you for this time to completely forego my cooperation.

As regards the selection itself, I still have the question which point of view is to dominate it: an objective one, which, for example, would present Tertullian’s Christian ethics, in particular his view that Christian life should find a non-dialectic expression in a definite attitude; or should a personal point of view predominate, that is to say the presentation of Tertullian’s Christian conviction in all Its significantly different aspects? This could succeed in a historically reliable way and thereby as a truthful witness only by the quoting of some of his many writings, given that Tertullian’s witness is so strangely muddled in its content. I would regard the first possibility as more suitable for your book series, since at bottom it also represents most clearly his real concern. One would, of course, have to point to the selection’s one-sidedness.

I would be very obliged to you for a reply.

With sincere greetings and in the hope of not having caused you too great an inconvenience,

Yours truly, Heinrich Schlier

- - - - -

Sannerz

August 23, 1925

Dear Ilse (von Seckendorf),

I was very glad about your letter of August 18. I am happy that you have increasing joy in life, and that more and more you gain a positive certainty for the personal attitude to life shown to you. That the will for community is just the point where the one way is at the same time the way for the other, as you express it, is a special confirmation for me, for I have always felt this certainty for you and for your life.

It is a good sign that you see your place in life ever more definitely and distinctly and that it has become quite clear to you in the sense of asserting your position, that to a certain extent you must adjust yourself against us; that for you the inner necessity of standing against our special character within the will for community is clear. It already means something that with complete clarity about what is given to us together, you know that our task will not become yours. In the deepest sense the question of diversity affects our attitude to the coming kingdom of God; for here there arises each militant task of the herald in relation to which you are painfully aware of the opposite in daily life; and equally painful is the problem of spiritual freedom and kindness in the leading of people, big and small. You will understand that for me these three things signify the same concern: the coming kingdom as communal fight for freedom, as community revival of inner disquietude and leading.

Only one thing I miss painfully in your letter: that you cannot yet express what is the particular character of your practical way with all those who have goodwill within the comprehensive will to community. The house or hof in which your richly given abilities and gifts will be taken in and gathered must come before your inner eye quite clearly, so that you can pitch in straight away. For it is now clear that we must prepare for leave-taking in faithful friendship. I believe that we need just such true friends as yourself, who clearly differ from our way of life, and just because of this remain true to us as we , in the same way, remain true to them. Only then, just as with the leave taking of a child from the parental home, the moment must be grasped in which the practical demands of life press for a setting out here and now. I believe that your statement has stepped forward so far that this moment has come. You in the quietness, and we together, must consider all the possibilities with which the happiest, the most freeing and fruitful task will result for you. Also we are quite ready to join you in this.

We will be very glad when you arrive here again, and we want, during the last weeks which are left for being together, to use the time in joyful and serious hours of deep encounter and friendship together. Please be sure to write to us as soon as you feel inwardly free and strong enough once again to help out in our work task, this time for a short period.

- - - - -

Sannerz

August 23, 1925

Dear Roland and dear Irmgard,

We have received your letters, and they made us very joyful, this time especially yours, Irmgard. This time we felt particularly the difficulty of being so far apart, for from here it was difficult to share with you the extremely wavering and conflicting impressions and experiences. On the other side it was certainly just as difficult for you to feel with us in these times of waiting until our circle could come together again with you on the basis of your impressions. The postponement of the mailing of our last letter was also because, although there was truly unanimity about the main impressions, for this decisive step it was necessary for all to agree to represent every detail in the letter. Just now we are working very hard and the tasks are so pressing that one concern must wait for another all the time.

On the whole I see what you have experienced in Liechtenstein in the same way as Pastor Ende, who wrote us a very kind letter about it. He thinks like you Roland, that it is better for you to become quiet for a while now, as the danger for you is now beginning that you start to make too much of yourself and your commission. I am very glad that Pastor Ende has trust in God's Spirit. He is convinced that your coming to the fore was not intentional and did not do any harm, although the pious of the land see only Satan at work. "Naturally there was much that was human, too crude, with some immature and false things in it. It was speaking in imitation of the Anabaptists and not from grace." Above all Pastor Ende is glad to say it is far from him not to make allowances for the distorted, ungenuine and human in your speeches.

I rejoice to call upon God with you that all of us here may be ever more clearly and strongly commissioned, urged forward, and filled. All the many small individual attempts at the new life mean a weakening of the common cause. The time must ultimately come when a gathered group reaches maturity in the strict, hard work and discipline of communal life, so that when the moment arrives they go through the land in smaller or larger numbers and proclaim the truth. Jesus sent out his disciples in twos and tens because the Church is mobilized against the power of the world through this community of mission.

Now that you have found some friends of the cause, the farewell from Liechtenstein will be difficult for you, and certainly what I said still holds good about a too early break with a developing community work; but you must tell me in more detail how far these individuals are gripped by the main thing. At my meeting in the heather with Arthur Vogt, whom I really liked, I found almost nothing essentially more than a reformed Christianity. I would like now and then to do a service for this circle, but I do not want to approach them with a request to help with your move. I would much rather ask Pastor Ende. You know our own circumstances quite well. At any moment we could have some money and would then send something to you at once. But at the moment we have nothing. I also do not like to ask Prince Schönburg, but in answering an invitation to Waldenburg which I received in these days, I will thank him for giving you accommodation. Wouldn't it be right to leave the furniture there which he put at your disposal? The property conditions of mediatized territory houses are complicated; and I know that the Prince takes trouble about furniture right up to the attics. Also we will soon have plenty of furniture here, as Emmy and I want to fetch the Halle furniture at the end of September. You do not need to go to Halle this time, Roland, as we already wrote. Unfortunately we cannot get at part of the furniture. We are hoping that you will get a small apartment in Krak's house, opposite Heil. Find out in Liechtenstein what it costs now to rent two small unfurnished rooms.

We hope very much to have you with us soon. Next Sunday, August 30, we have to be at a youth conference on the Ronneburg near Gelnhausen. We want to hike there with our little horse on Saturday the 29th. It would be good, Roland, if just after your return, you would fill Adolf's and Alfred's places in the stable and on the hof on Saturday and Sunday. You, Irmgard will surely have to stay with your little child.

There is very much work of different kinds in the house. The general atmosphere of the household has been harmonious and hopeful for quite a long time. In such gathered times, three times as much work is managed as in times of conflict and discussion. I trust that you for your part will be with us in the firmest, deepest holding together as we go forward.

We have just received the prospect of a new dwelling place with twenty finished rooms and twenty five which can be converted into habitable rooms, with temporarily only about five acres of land.

You are coming home to Sannerz and are already looking forward to the new setting out into something greater.

- - - - -

POSTCARD

Wiesbaden, “medicinal spa for Autumn/Winter treatments”

August 24, 1925

To Dr. E. Arnold

Sannerz, PO Schlüchtern

Sterbfritz, Hessen

Dear Eberhard,

Having recovered from my illness I confirm the receipt of the letter from you Sannerz folk. You don’t have to fear that we might become a burden for you; that was never our intention. Hans is going to come to you one of these days to put our things in order and to inform you about other matters. My sickness has unfortunately put an end to our previous work. Now new ways are opening up before us. Keep thinking of us in the hopes that it will click this time. I don’t know if I shall once more come with Hans. He is going to let you know. Otherwise I am doing quite well.

For today hearty greetings to the whole house community,

From your Helli and Hans

- - - - -

WERBE-SPIEL-SCHAR (“Propaganda Band of Roving Players”)

“NEW TIME”

Vanguard of THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS Theater

Home Settlement Sannerz/Hesse

WHO WILL JOIN IN?

Come, let us be like children,

And peacefully, hand in hand,

Go toward the radiant light

toward the land of future and of hope!

Then we shall see the realm of Heaven,

From gloomy vale go seek the grail.

Though we not find it instantly,

Join with us— “one day it will be!”

PEACE ON EARTH!

(Hans Fiehler)

- - - - -

Sannerz

August 24, 1925

My dear father Cordes,

How much I want to thank you for your cordial wishes and for the great joy you made for my birthday by your participation in our propaganda and mission wagon. You were quite right, we have decided to purchase the wagon and harness and have already undertaken a few profitable journeys which have shown that in this way we can advance our cause. For example in one small village the sales amounted to fifty marks.

Now we would gladly have your advice and help with the books and pamphlets we have, both to give away and for sale. We once thought of spreading the gospel, made as clear as possible, also with Bible quotations, in books and pamphlets; but we also thought of bringing the social and economic need to people, and for this reason would gladly represent the main thoughts of the "Freiland" idea [The idea of free land].

Furthermore, owing to the circumstances of high lease charges and rents locally, a new dwelling possibility, not too far distant from you, has been found by our friends for us: two houses near Lüneburg with many rooms, but only about six acres land on lease, for growing fruit and vegetables. It is not yet a certainty, but it would be wonderful if this became a reality, for then we would be able to see one another more often.

With faithful greetings from house to house,

- - - - -

[Letter to Bessie and Arnold Toller from Eberhard]

Sannerz, August 24, 1925

Dear Bessie Toller, dear Arnold Toller,

Dear Stanley and dear Harry Toller,

We have been so very happy to receive your greetings from Breslau and Hamburg. We have had such cordial ties with you, Elisabeth and Arnold Toller, that, for a long time already, we have had the wish to get to know you and to greet you in our house. You have written to us that you might perhaps, in two months, be with us. If you could possibly speed up the time of your coming to us, that would make us very happy indeed, for we impatiently await your coming here so that we can show you our entire small enterprise. From September 12-24, Emmy and I will be away at a booksellers’ and publishers’ convention, and I have been asked to give the main address there. I promised to do this a long time ago, so I cannot release myself from this obligation. Therefore please come to Sannerz either before September 12 or after September 24! Here with us you will meet our whole winter crew of thirty people, big and small, who will face the winter together with us.

Please write to us in good time when we may expect you, so that we can pick you up with our little horse at the railway station of Schlüchtern, Vollmerz, or Sterbfritz. We have a great deal we must tell you, and we also look forward to what you will have to tell about your life and your journey. To make sure that this letter will reach you, we are sending it so as to follow your footsteps via Breslau and Hamburg.

In hearty friendship and relationship,

[TN: cf. the reference to these American relatives’ forthcoming visit in the letter of July 24, 1925 that his parents sent for Eberhard’s birthday]

- - - - -

[Letter from Eberhard to Alfred Schär]

Sannerz, August 25, 1925

My dear Alfred Schär,

It has been a great joy to me and all those with me that you and Toni have sent us such good news. I also thank you very much for the Oppenheimer book [TN: reference to the mention of the book in Alfred’s letter of August 18]; I have had quite a bit to do with it for a long time already. When would you like to have it back? The Lüneburg project is of great interest to us in particular if it might prove possible to also lease some additional acres, maybe from nearby, for agriculture. Until now we have not received any further information as regards this matter. Could we possibly receive such news before long?

Our harvest is a real reason for joy. The wheat harvest from the Steinacker (stone field) which was brought home today is an absolute delight. The garden is also yielding very well so that now all thirty people here can continually eat from the produce and do not miss any meat foods. In winter I think we are going to make real progress as regards the children’s community and our leading them toward the practical work we are longing for. Our well-proven teacher, Suse Hungar, has now come home for good. Roland and his family will arrive this week still. He is going to take over especially the heavier work in the garden, with wood, and other kinds of heavier work. In mid-September Georg Barth is going to arrive. He is an educator for practical handwork; a very capable, quiet, and manly youth. I feel confident that he can make the secret of true leadership without coercion find a certain realization.

Our financial situation remains difficult. Your information about the probability of us obtaining in Hamburg the solicited sponsorship for a Sannerz child corresponds with what we hear also from other places where we have friends, so that this children’s work, which does give us so much joy, will more or less continue to be a burden that we must carry. But Alfred, you spoke once again of another possibility of providing financial support for our undertaking. I refer to the hope that now in the autumn one of your friends might invest 1,200 marks as a loan or share in our publishing house or in our Neuwerk-Verein Sannerz (New-Work Association Sannerz). We urgently ask you to please bring this matter to a decision as soon as possible so that, if at all possible, we may expect a hopefully positive message about this matter before September 1. You will understand it to be my duty that in the soliciting of funds for the existence and the progress of our small enterprise I must try to do my utmost at every opportunity.

Please write to us frequently how you are getting on. If I should come to the north of Germany—of which there is no prospect at the moment—it would be a joy for me to drop in on your family.

Forever your and your family’s friend,

- - - - -

Sannerz

August 24, 1925

Walter Jack

Hanau

Bienenstrasse 10

Dear Walter Jack,

On Saturday August 22 we sent the following telegram to you:

"In agreement we come.

Household community Sannerz Eberhard Arnold."

You have made us a great joy by your request that we should take part at the Ronneburg meeting with the Hanau Youth, and that I should be the speaker there. We Sannerzers have long had the desire to have a close relationship with the Hanau Youth Movement and other related circles, and have a mutual exchange of gifts, strength and work; our friendship with Fritz Lade has always been a hope or guarantee that it would come to this. Eight or ten of us will set off hiking from here early on Saturday so that, if all goes well, we will arrive on Saturday evening at the Ronneburg. Our whole household rejoices over this meeting with all of you.

I am thinking of speaking of the memorable happenings on the Ronneburg in olden times, about people like us. Then I will tackle the situation of how matters are now, and go on to speak of the spirit creating community out of the need and demands of the present day.

All of us here have been concerned about your accident at the carpenters' bench when you hurt yourself considerably. We hope that in the meantime you are better and can be with us on Sunday.

With our warm greetings and blessings,

- - - - -

Sannerz, August 25, 1925

Dear Toni Schär,

Many hearty greetings to you as well as to Erika and Dieter! I am so happy to hear that you had such a good return journey and that you are experiencing such a joyful and strong togetherness, but as that keeps growing I also wish for you that, jointly with that growth of strength, the task may also grow and become great, indeed come to be all-embracing! You have given us all special joy with that beautiful red dress—in particular to me and Emmy [Arnold] as well as Tata [Else von Hollander] who has such a special bond of friendship with Emmy. We shall also find good use for the suit Alfred has contributed.

In our house here there has been for a long time, without interruption or disturbance, a spirit of joyful togetherness and a glad readiness to work. Early at five o’clock next Saturday, ten of us, as a joyful troop, will set forth with “Fox” and the wagon in order to meet with the combined youth groups of all the bourgeois circles in Hanau at the Ronneburg. You probably know this tremendous castle not far from Gelnhausen and Büdingen. I am to speak there and am looking forward with great joy to this renewed contact with the Hanau youth in whose leaders we do have real friends, especially in Stassen and still more in Fritz Lade. If only all of us could thus barge into your little home in Hamburg! Well, just wait, from Luneburg it might sometime come to such a raid!

With many greetings to young and old,

- - - - -

Sannerz

August 25, 1925

Herr Dr. Paul Scheven

Dresden, Elgässchen 8

Much respected and dear doctor,

We thank you from our hearts for your friendly greetings addressed to "die Damen der Gemeinschaft" [the ladies of the community]. We all rejoiced very much while eating these nice things which are a rarity at Sannerz, and we thought especially of you. We hope very much to be allowed to welcome you soon in Sannerz and be permitted to spend some hours of contemplation and joy together with you.

With hearty greetings, especially from Eberhard Arnold,

in thankfulness and respect.

- - - - -

Sannerz

August 25, 1925

My dear Friedrich Kleemann,

You have made a great joy for our whole house, for our task of mission, and especially for me, by the loving good wishes you sent for my birthday together with the 130 marks as part payment for the wagon for our book sales and for village mission. We have taken the risk of buying the wagon although we are well aware that neither you nor others of our friends are in the immediate position to be able to say a definite or encouraging word for a future help for our small undertaking.

All the more certain are we that with you all, with the whole church of Christ, we are led forward in the work, which is even more urgent than ever today, the proclamation of the gospel, the educational community and the building up of the Church. It is very important to me to stay in frequent contact with you personally and with all our mutual brothers and friends in the experience of these tasks.

With this letter we want to ask you not to keep us waiting any longer, but at last to come to us to get to know our communal life and our whole task in the daily work first hand. I would also so much like to speak to you at length about the books we have for selling and giving away. We thought of spreading the gospel as clearly as possible in books and writings, also with extracts from the Bible.

Also this year you have given us a tremendous joy and a powerful help for the house with the crate of large "Rex" glass jars. A good beginning has already been made with the canning. The harvest this year is especially encouraging, this time with the vegetables as well as the fruit.

As previously, many people are passing through our house, and as always some of them we can help with a witness to the truth. So again recently a faithful brother from Berlin was with us, who had proved himself over many years as a Christian and a truly serious person. He asked me to pass on the request to you whether he could obtain a position as an accountant in your office. Fraaz, as he is called, has been employed for many years as an accountant. He is prepared to send his testimonials from the insurance business and the bank, when it comes into question that as a family father with five children he might find a position with you. Like so many others, through the reduction of staff at the bank, he has been given notice as from October 1.

With very warm thanks and in faithful friendship.

- - - - -

Sannerz, August 25, 1925

Dear Prince Schönburg,

It was a great joy for me to receive the new invitation from the round-table circle in which I could be with you for the first time—something I feel so thankful for. I’m going to keep free from everything else so that I will be free to be with you in March.

After we Sannerz people, together with Roland (Karl Keiderling), his wife (Irmgard), and little Roland have come to the decision that they—now three of them—should come back to us in Sannerz. We feel very much the need to express to you, dear Prince, once again our heartfelt thanks for helping the two and the child find for their time in Lichtenstein a home in which they could feel so contented. We are also very grateful to Pastor Obenpfarrer Ende for the very fine and deep understanding with which he met Roland’s inward urge and public zeal for work. For Roland, a more relaxed time of work will now begin. We, especially I, look forward with joy to his arrival. As regards furniture, we do have all we shall need for this family, also now that this third family is coming to us. Our house, counting thirty persons, is now with new strength looking forward to the autumn and the coming winter. We thank you for helping us come through the very difficult rent-and-lease crisis of this summer. We would like to ask you very much that the kindly promised 400 marks of the 1000 mark donation might come to us still in August since we have promised to pay that amount. In view of the excessively high rent that we have to pay, we are seriously planning our removal to some other area.

- - - - -

[von Kluge to Eberhard Arnold]

POSTCARD

Ramholz near Vollmerz

District of Castle

August 29, 1925

Dear Mr. Arnold,

Unfortunately it has after all not proven possible for us to be with you for a whole day, and you yourself advise against our just dropping in for just an hour or so.

My friends are going to visit you and I would like to ask that they are given a friendly reception.

With cordial greetings, your,

[Kluge]

- - - - -

POSTCARD

Blankenese, August 28, 1925

To Eberhard

Sannerz, PO Sterbfritz

Near Schlüchtern, Cassel dist.

Dear Eberhard,

Today I am finally sending off the shipment I promised. Please excuse the delay! I have so much to do and right at the beginning of the work I am already feeling run down and overburdened. I hope to get into a more pleasant work situation by October 1.

We are often thinking of you folks. What is the book-wagon doing? Today I received your writing about “Young People’s Religiosity.” It caused moods of past years, of the time when I first read this writing, to reawaken. How far away seems that time when we “saw the Heavens open!” “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall.”[TN: Isaiah 40:30] I often have to think of this Bible word and let it help me to stand straight again. But we must also bear in mind the subsequent verses!

I hope you are all doing well.

Heartfelt greetings to all of you,

Detlev Schumann (and of course Hildegard, too)

- - - - -

Sannerz, August 29, 1925

Dear Fritz Lade,

We hope very much to meet you at the Ronneburg! Today, though, we would like to ask you to please examine the lung condition of our friend and coworker. We are seriously concerned about his depleting state of health, which comes to expression in his overall state of physical languor. We have the heartfelt request that you write to us precisely how you asses his condition.

We really ought to have more contact with one another! You people ought to come more to us and we more to you!

The two children from Hanau, Sophie Schwing and Helmut Breitenstein, are doing well; they are healthy and joyful and learn a lot.

With faithful greetings,

- - - - -

Hanau, August 29, 1925

Dear Ms. Dalgas,

We have received your dear letter and very much thank you for it. We are sending you the twelve marks for Helmut. We are so happy that the children are doing so well, and we hope to see them before long. Sophie is to get boots for her birthday; we have not managed to get any sandals for her. The shopkeeper told us they no longer carry sandals at all. Mother wanted to ask to have sandals made there in Sannerz. As it will soon be autumn, that will probably no longer be necessary. Sophie can hopefully wait until her birthday for which event one of us will surely come.

I greet you,

Gretel Schwing

Cordial greetings from my parents.

- - - - -

[Letter from Gretel Schwing to Sophie]

Hanau, August 29, 1925

Dear Sophie,

Cordial thanks for your dear letter; it gave us real joy. Do you still want your Leo Tolstoy book before your birthday, or can we bring it with us when we come? Please let us know in writing if you really need it; we would save a bit of money that way.

That your eyes are so bad does not make us very happy, but we must take things as they come—everybody has to cope with this or that.

Please write to me if it’s Papa Arnold who will speak tomorrow (Sunday) at the Ronneburg; it would be of great interest to me.

It’s very nice of you people to make the old swineherd so happy with your Luchs [?]. You must surely have found it hard to take leave of him.

Dear Sophie, mother thinks it is now already a bit too late to still get you a swimsuit; the swimming will soon come to an end and you can get something really useful instead. I hope you can see that next summer you will then get a really nice swimsuit.

If I am still at home by September 15, I will come with father for your birthday. We are so happy that you are really getting bigger; you will surely be as big as I am.

For today, hearty greetings from your sister!

Hearty greetings from your parents!

Cordial greetings also to the house community!

- - - - -

[Letter by Erich Mohr to Eberhard]

[Free-German Work Confederation]

August 30, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

I still have not received an answer from you to my last letter, and yet I must already pass on to you further information. What follows here is the draft for the circular letter that I would like to send as soon as possible to all members on behalf of the Confederation’s board of directors. I would like to ask you to let me have previous to that your comments and if necessary to suggest changes.

The eighth circular letter has called forth a lively echo, some of which will be printed in the ninth circular letter. As a result there has to be stated even now that the individual confederates’ fixation, as regards their world view and their religious views, does not admit, without a violation of consciences, of a unification that goes beyond the Ludwigstein resolution of 1924. So we are standing before the decision to either, without hushing up objective contradictions, let the tensions exist and endure them with strict respect for the personal experience and confession of those of a different conviction, or that by joining up with whoever might prove to have the strongest personalities in our circle, to give precedence to a certain direction. Then it would be a matter of conscience for those of a different orientation to either consent, for the sake of the cause, to being sidelined, or to leave us.

The board of directors is united that the differences of opinions that have come to light do not touch the Confederation’s inmost disposition as they were expressed when the Confederation was founded. Here follows the Ludwigstein resolution:

In view of our foundation in mankind’s history, in the need of which we find ourselves, this confession expresses at the same time that our thinking as well as our doing can only lead to a setting of goals and solutions of a preliminary, one-sided, and limited character. Not the content of our convictions and actions but only the depth, purity and sincerity of our inner attitude can bind us together in a lasting and effective way.

If someone inquires about a symbol of this, our inmost disposition, we point him to Goethe’s “Pedagogic Province” the place of reverence before what is above us, what is beneath us and for what is like us (a copy of the flyer about Goethe’s “Pedagogic Province” is enclosed). May our Confederation become such a place; may it create such places!

This character of our Confederation, as a community that shares and is united by the same spirit or disposition, should at long last be stated clearly and unequivocally in order to reject the unceasing attacks on account of the Confederation’s lack of a direction and of action.

Only through constantly renewed contemplation and reflection (Besinnung) can a firm a basic attitude or disposition (Gesinnung) grow, also in our Confederation. But it is only by having corresponding effects in individual actions that this attitude or disposition remains alive. Not everyone is able to contribute to the deepening of the Confederation’s spiritual foundations; however, everyone is able to carry out into the world, and spread, the Confederation’s spirit by his life and actions.

Until now the Confederation has left it to the individual member to decide what he is to do and has declined to exert any tutelage, also on the part of the groups. The experiences of the old F. B. [Freiduetche bund?] had been too deplorable in this respect. However, it has now become obvious that this reticence on the part of those guiding the Confederation has misled the groups and individual members into inactivity.

The selection of new members and establishing the principle of their being vouched for by a member or members has reduced the reception of new members to an inadequate degree. We cannot deviate from the demand that besides being in agreement with the Confederation’s inner disposition, prospective members must also possess qualities of capability, reliability and faithfulness as fundamental requirements for being part of the Confederation; we also have to warn against the practice of selecting new members by letting one be guided by one’s feelings of personal sympathy. If our Confederation is to become powerfully effective, it will need several hundred active, capable and faithful members; our circle, as it has been so far, is too small.

Accordingly, personal recruiting must be the first duty of every active member. As a next communal task the creation of a home center for the Confederation is facing us. In the session of our board of directors on August 27, the draft statutes for a home savings bank serving the Confederation, printed in the eighth circular letter, was agreed to with slight redactional changes. We herewith present it to the Confederation to be voted on in writing by all members and request for comments to be sent to Erich Mohr until by…. If there is no objection, the statutes will be regarded as agreed to. For the execution of the plan we are hoping for cooperation from all sides.

For the practical work to be carried out in the sense and, where needed, and in the name of the confederation, we see above all the following possibilities:

1. Educational work: exchange of experiences, arranging for lectures, occasions for sightseeing, library, point to literature.

2. Social work: children’s groups, welfare work, fight against alcoholism.

3. Press and solicitation work: sharing in the work of the Junge Gemeinde (Young Church), distribution of flyers to the German youth (“Pedagogic Province”), publication of flyers of our own concerning contemporary problems.

4. Artistic work and gymnastics: “Way to the Work” (Klaus Kühn).

5. Work for peace: support for the World Youth League, cooperation with the Fellowship of Youth for Peace, correspondence with persons abroad, list of pacifist books for young people. (put together by Erich Mohr)

6. Publishing work: Community Publishing House Sannerz

We ask all members to do what they can for the above works and services and to make suggestions for further extension.

May I Ask you, Eberhard, to reply to me by return of mail so that, by the end of the week, I can discuss the suggestions with the Berlin members? We shall be together at the forthcoming congress of individual psychologists. If no detailed reply is possible I request a brief echo on a postcard.

Cordial greetings to all of you,

Your, Erich Mohr

- - - - -

Hanau, August 1925

Dear Eberhard Arnold,

The Jugendtag [day of youth] at the Ronneburg [Ronne Castle] has been our watchword for a long time. We are just three persons here who are attempting to bring about something communal and überbundig (i.e. superseding) the individual youth organizations or Bünde: the local committee for youth welfare work consisting Mr. Purgs, the district youth welfare officer and teacher, Mrs. Marta Hoffmann, town youth welfare officer and teacher, and I representing the youth of the Frei-Deutschen [Werk]bund.

We had no financial means at our disposal that is why we could not make any newspaper propaganda. Apart from hand painted placards and invitations sent out by the Bünde through the youth welfare office, nothing could be done, and yet many are going to come.

I assume that you, Eberhard, might still want to use the three enclosed inserts for classified ads to invite some more. We have invited Hans Urbach, Neuhof, Füller, and Marjoss.

Seeing that, not individuals, but almost exclusively associations will come, there might well be problems with the trains; we can only arrive at the Ronneburg at 7:00 early on Sunday (on the vanguard; the others will come with a midday train).

Greetings of “hail” to you and yours!

Your Walter Jack

PS: If you Sannerz people want to go up to the Ronneburg already on Sunday [TN: Eberhard’s letter to Toni Schar of August 25 makes it clear that Eberhard and others are to travel already on Saturday], you would have to find night lodgings [from Saturday to Sunday] in a village. In agreement with the content of the speech.

- - - - -

-POSTCARD-

August 31, 1925

To Ms. von Hollander

p. A. Mrs. Arnold

Sannerz near Schlüchtern

Respected Ms. von Hollander,

We have not yet had any news from you this week and hope that Hans is well and in good spirits. Hopefully we shall hear from you tomorrow dear Ms. von Hollander; we would be very grateful to you.

We want to pick up Hans on September 8 because the school in Paderborn will start on September 10th. I will still write to you more in detail about my arrival at your place.

Has my dear child been nice and well-behaved the whole time and has he always been obedient to you? I feel sure of it and am extremely thankful to you for all your trouble and great kindness.

I greet you very warmly and also your dear sister [Emmy],

Yours, Marg. Voigt

Many kisses to little Hans from father and mother.

- - - - -

[Trudi Dalgas to those in Sannerz]

Brake in Magdeburg

Wednesday, September 1925

You dear ones,

Today Else’s letter arrived with the children’s letters. Where was your quiet Sunday? Adolf (Braun) seems to have been the one who concerned himself the most with the Schultheiß family. I am quite happy I was not there to help with making conversation. Was this the way it had been in the kitchen at Schlüchtern or was it a bit more exciting? The letters from the children have made me very happy! Yes, Helle, you are going to get something: a whip; or a ship? And Mölein, [Monika Arnold] I wonder what antics you have been up to? I can well believe that Sophie’s birthday was very nice. How silly!-so you got two “Happy Families” (Quartet) games all about towns! But just wait: By the time I get back you have got to know all the towns in the atlas! Little Louisa, you are allowed to pick a big bunch of flowers for the dining room. The table must always look nice! You know how to make it pretty!

Warm greetings to all of you especially the little ones, from Lene Thimme. I am going to see her again next week. On Monday she attended a conference with her brother Wilhelm Gogarten who was to speak there. He goes about it the same way as Buddensieg. He proclaims his thesis that history is the yard stick to measure all things. It is in history that we see and recognize what is the will of God; so to its verdict we have to bow. He (Gogarten?) too, gives a catholicizing impression now. It looks as though ever more triumphs were to be celebrated.

Our (German) north is truly beautiful! I was at the sea coast where you see nothing but water! Down in the depths the waters are being moved without ceasing, ever in motion, even under the serenest summer sky. They can be calm but may turn uproarious, foaming, and splashing when the tempest is upon us¬¬--passionate, but never “still”, always inwardly churned up! Then we will be spared such a terrible end as that of the (Moravian) Brüdergemeinde during its supposedly “flourishing” period. Huggi (Susa Hungar), now you may have the book (evidently about the Brudergemeinde)—I am done with it. This is yet another example of the human beings’ craving for ease and tranquility in the course of Christian history [TN: reference to religious quietism of the Stillen Im Lande]. Well, I don’t want to be overly critical; I am presently experiencing the most tranquil, leisurely and nutritious life--for ten days, but forever? My goodness, I would rather have Sannerz conferences every single day!

I have it so unspeakably good here, surrounded by the care of my father and my siblings. The weather has been so glorious that we could even go for a swim today! I look joyfully to my return home and greet you from my siblings. Yours, Trudi

Have you heard from Emmy and Eberhard? Is the fruit stewing all done? Dear Huggi, do they get enough to eat? Are the children well behaved? Moni, did you bring home ninety-nine or one-hundred types of mushrooms.

Is Ilse (von Seckendorf) still visiting? What about the room question? Please send the letter to Mama Kupfer [Hans Kupfers mother?] with the address.

- - - - -

[End of August 1925]

Dear Hermann Buddensieg,

On behalf of Eberhard we thank you for your various letters which Eberhard had long intended to answer in detail. Recently he had so much to do with his book that he did not have time yet for a more lengthy reply.

Today he has traveled with a group from our house community to a gathering at the Ronneburg. He has to make a speech for which the Hanau youth movement will come together.

The following week he will have a bit more time available so he will write to you then. He has told us a lot about Binau and feels an especially close connection with you and Dr. Muckle.

With cordial greetings from the whole house community.