Eberhard Arnold

Correspondence, March 1925

[Arnold, Eberhard and Emmy papers - L]

[Draft Translations by Bruderhof Historical Archive]

[from Dresden, YMCA, March 3, 1925, not translated]

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Heini to his father

Sannerz, February 3, [1925]

Dear Papa,

I just want to pour my heart out to you. I had just now given up on the Sun Troop, but I am going to build it up again! I gave up on it because Hardi and I had a quarrel. Trudi had told me to look after the children during the midday hour and to see to it that all the children would come along, and they had all promised her to do that, also Hardi. After lunch I asked him to come along, but he told me I had said it in a quarrelsome tone. And Lotte Henze said, “Ha! Look at the Sun Troup quarreling!” That really pierced my heart! Hardi and I soon made it up, but the Sun Troup was all in pieces; they had all given up on it—except me!

But I don’t want to write to you just about the Sun Troop. Daddy, the dear heavenly father has let me know that I am going to follow Him all through my life, and that has made me very happy. I had once asked Him in prayer if I was to become a Christian man. I think the way I wrote to you about it was not quite as God had put it—I am not really sure just how he said it to me.

Now I want to write down for you a poem I have made:

Love and peace are ev’rywhere,

and men will soon be brothers.

Their hearts are glad, they long that God

will come and dwell within them.

They want to be God’s messengers;

to work for love—love only.

O brothers all, come quickly—come!

Together spread this joy now!

God will make the whole world bright,

and peace will come to all men.

It’s now about an hour and a half after supper, and I am getting tired.

A picture: the Sun Troop.

Please excuse my mistakes; I’ll let nobody read the letter. The picture card with the dogs has made me very happy; thanks a lot for it!

Greeting and kissing you

Your Johann Heinrich

Peterle

Papa, I need you! Come soon! I love you very much!

Your Hardy

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Sannerz

March 3, 1925

Dear Suse Hungar,

In recent days you wrote us such loving letters, bringing to expression your inner relationship with our household and our witness so faithfully that it is all the more difficult to answer and speak of your doubts about the way shown to us at Sannerz. You see, during the Christmas time we all tried to avoid every difficult talk and every difference in order to give you complete joy in your spiritual home at Sannerz during the days of your visit here. It is necessary that without all rousing provocations of Christian . . . ? [hole in paper] we see clearly the way which is shown to us out of love for the cause. Independence, in the sense of freedom of conscience and responsibility alone before God, thus in the sense of being urged and guided by the Holy Spirit, is the most decisive keynote of this way. In that connection you see it altogether rightly. Now everything depends on whether we believe in the Holy Spirit. If we believe in him, there can be no worry, if this or that person, filled and led by the Spirit, could be determined by a direction and decision differing from others. The faith in the leading of the Holy Spirit will in this way become faith in the unity and unanimity of the Church. Then the emphasis from one will never become compulsion for the other, but rather the freedom of all will lead to unity in everything through this Spirit. In this we can recognize quite clearly the difference between freedom which is bound to Christ and the heathen freedom of personal self will, which naturally can never lead to community. If our leading to community of goods and to propertylessness were heathen self will or human fanaticism, our way would be wrong. It would then be a law which could only torment people without being able to help them.

However, we are certain that is not the case. We are clear that it is not the fact that we have recognized this way as right, as a standard for Sannerz, but much more the fact that God speaks to us in this way, and that the Holy Spirit leads us to it. Belonging completely to this way are: readiness for service, compassion for the masses in their suffering, unity with the world need, and personal love to Jesus. You can see this from the themes which we brought to the people in the Sterbfritz evangelistic meetings; but this social compassion which certainly belongs to the cause, is still not the cause itself. The cause itself is much more the honoring of God, the greatness of his name, the justice of his nature, and that which above all belongs to his greatness, the love of his heart.

The social driving force of sympathy and its work, that is, practical love, has its ultimate meaning when it belongs to this confession of faith. And that is right: the affirmation of this faith can find the most varying forms of expression, in the churches and outside the churches. With disciplined, strict program forms and in the most free organic building up, there should never be a belittling or a despising of the direction of others. In the present confusion of our chaotic world all ways are actually feasible which lead to the people's hearts and really bring God himself to them and not their own human nature. But this necessity of varying ways can never mean that our feet tread on all the ways at the same time, as though we had a thousand feet which in one moment could go all ways at once. That is really impossible.

Just as there is certainty of the forgiveness of sins, of eternal blessedness and of indwelling grace, there is also a certainty about the special way of service to which Jesus calls us. For this reason we have never made a distinction between first and second class Christians. We shall never be able to do that even in the most hidden corners of our thoughts. This judging between believers is impossible for anyone who has experienced what grace is. You certainly know that grace is nothing else but receiving an undeserved gift. The special way of voluntary poverty and community of goods, which we are so certain of, coming from the freedom of the Spirit from which we do not wish to diverge in the smallest degree, is also such a grace. This does not mean a better Christianity, but rather a calling to a symbolic representation of the kingdom of God. It is in relation to a certain point, whereas other people witness to and represent the same kingdom of God with the same strength and intensity, perhaps with greater strength and intensity, with emphasis, however, on some other color in the wealth of the coming light. We little human beings are simply too small, too insignificant and too inadequate for one group of believers to be able to make a comprehensive presentation of the whole light. Only Jesus himself can do that, only the whole body of Christ, not even the largest group in the Church or the most important member of the Body. We human beings and we groups of human beings can never be more than a member among an inseparable host of members, but to be a decided member, a clearly recognizable member with a quite distinct service and a quite clear character is the highest which can be given to us on this earth. And just to this belongs the knowledge of being only a member and belonging to the whole Body of dissimilar members. However, unclarity and indecisiveness bring about a false fight, a weak way of fighting. When a person at one time solemnly confesses that they wish to strip themselves naked and keep nothing, absolutely nothing for themselves, and when such a one after a short time comes again in doubt wondering if the education for a will for property and to a feeling for personal possessions is not, after all the better education: Certainty! Certainty! Certainty! is what must be given to us! This certainty must come over us also in the area of justice and morality, without love and humility becoming lost. The word about the children of prostitution comes from the prophet Hosea, which we read among us many times in recent weeks in its tremendous power of the Holy Spirit. For us the greatness of the biblical prophets is that they combine complete clarity in moral certainty with complete love towards immoral people; that they name black as black, adultery as adultery, children of prostitution as children of prostitution. In this they are resolute in the certainty that the light of God's love, because it judges the darkness as darkness, overcomes the darkness; that light redeems as light.

Thus I believe that I do not need to defend myself that, at that time with Friedel Günther, I had to keep before my eyes the reality of life, the great life (not as you might think, my stronger will, but the great life) which quite apart from my will is always there. Today I am still of the opinion that for Friedel's child, in the last resort it is a matter of a decision, either to give the child over to education in the church community or to abandon her to the welfare department and the worst calamity welfare education. I believe that Friedel cannot be spared this clear either or decision, even if it means she will never again meet with Sannerz or with me personally.

Now to turn to your personal leading and once again to speak of the main thing: May the Holy Spirit lead us to the freedom which alone can bring us to unity and purity. As long as we believe that a particular group of Christians, however honest they want to be, hinders this freedom in us . . * . . we should avoid this group; whether it is now the Salvation Army or the Sannerz community . . . naturally will not trouble us. We must only have the faith . . * . . divine freedom, in which we are completely bound to the leading . . . of the Spirit, the way to the unity of the Church, . . . such groups as the Salvation Army and Sannerz community . . . Quite practically said, I would advise you not to go to the Salvation Army as long as you have the feeling that your free responsibility to the sole leading of the Holy Spirit will be hindered there. In the same way, I would advise you not to visit Sannerz just for a few days, as long as you have the feeling that in Sannerz there is an unbiblical, unfree, human demand of a human law, a bowing down under something that others believe is right, but which you do not, or cannot see as right. It is not good to put yourself under such pressure, even for a few days. Only if your inner freedom has come to such clarification that the unity of the way results in this freedom, would it be possible and advisable to come together in such a definite life form as shown by the two examples, Salvation Army and Sannerz. Not under any circumstances for instance if you were led back to the Salvation Army should you have the feeling that we Sannerzers would somehow look down on a different direction. That will certainly not be the case. Only one thing is necessary for your leading: the absolute certainty of the way which leads forward without deviation. Such a certainty can only be given if we put ourselves completely into the hands of the Holy Spirit in full trust. In this sense we can say: No one will be crowned except a true fighter, and then it will have no importance whether one has a brass head band from Sannerz or a Salvation Army bonnet.

Therefore please understand us rightly that we love you very much, and that we want to stand by you in this love, so that you find the way and the work which God has shown you. In the faith that this life direction . . . . that obedience toward this leading gives you the unity of the Church . . .

We greet you, united with the deepest in you,

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Sannerz

March 3, 1925

My dear Kurt Breitfeld,

We think of you every day, but so rarely do we manage to write to you! As you see from the enclosed cards, we are presently giving lectures in Sterbfritz, which are attended by close to 200 persons and are finding interest among Jews and workers, but also among some farming folk. Keep thinking of us and that we be granted the power that no one is able to resist.

It’s now such a long time, Kurt, that we have not been together with you, that it’s hard for us here to give you the right advice and to talk over with you everything that is moving you; that is why my encouraging you to take the tuberculin has not had a good effect. Therefore we also do not know what we should advise you to do during the last part of this winter. You know that we have always represented that you might go to the friends of Maria Moojen in southern Switzerland. Our feeling is that the transition from rest cure to quiet and cautious work and also the change from your present circle of hosts might be an opportune preparation for your renewed work start in Sannerz. Especially from the health point of view I would regard such a transition as necessary. As far as the climate is concerned, here in our rough Rhön area nothing earlier than May would come into question for you. Quite generally I cannot imagine at all your coming directly from Fidaz to us in Sannerz. To begin with, you must so strengthen your health that you are able to endure the daily small frictions at the edges and corners of our communal life and that you can bear without harm to your health the burdens of [TN: one erased word, possibly “total dedication”?] and of the work efficiency resulting therefrom. I find it hard to imagine how the passage from convalescent home (to Sannerz) could take place without an intermediate stage.

But Kurt, you must never think that we might somehow lose faith in you! The letter from Miss Arbenz, speaking about you in a kind and loving way, has but served to increase our concern about your health. The fact that some traits of your character such as touchiness and over-esteem of yourself have here and there allied themselves with your sickliness is really nothing new. You know them well, and the world-wise folk in Sannerz who cannot easily be made to gasp at human foibles and who will not let these human foibles, however serious they do take them, hinder or stymie their faith in the ultimate within those puny and all too human people. Therefore take courage, Kurti! Overcome all touchiness through faith! And let this faith purify you from all self-confidence, the most disturbing antidote to true faith. Then it will be given to you ever anew to meet your hosts with love and friendship and to convey your thoughts to them only with the restraint so often required in human intercourse.

Eberhard Arnold.

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Lichtenstein (Saxony)

March 4, 1925

Eberhard,

Today I come to you with a very special request. We are presently facing a housing shortage. By court order the Baptist building society has asked me to vacate by February 28 the job-related apartment we have been occupying. On February 24 the competent court for housing questions arrived at the compromise that this date, as of rather short notice, be postponed to April 15, thus granting us a respite of 6 weeks from today. But then there is not a lot that could still be changed. For according to German laws somebody giving notice on an apartment tied to his job—i.e. by giving notice on his job itself-- must vacate his apartment by the time the contract runs out.

In my case the emergency has arisen through my failing to obtain a new job-related apartment, simply because of not getting a job in a corporation that has such a job-related apartment available. And in a case like this the housing authority is not obligated to find me an apartment; here the town’s social services have to spring into action, meaning that I will have to make do with an emergency dwelling of some kind. Well, we are of course not people who make great demands nor do we want to insist on a right. However, the service we are doing here does make it necessary for us to have a place we can call home. Alter all a number of strands do come together with us here.

Now what we would really like to do is to get moving and build ourselves a home! Mr. Weiß, too, has very much encouraged us to do that. He has also advised us to approach the Prince [TN: i.e. Eberhard’s friend Prince Schönburg-Waldenburg, with a residence in Lichtenstein] about a piece of land—a building plot. Now you know, (Eberhard,) how awkward I am with things like that. Would you actually give me the same advice? I would like it so much better if you could put in a good word for us. I surely would not request this if I knew of another way. Of course, I do recognize that eventually I would myself have to take certain steps with the Prince. Please, if at all possible answer me right away!

Of course, we shall also need money for the building of such a family home. There I hope that some American friends of mine I have written to will help me. And there is also a great readiness for self-help in our circle here.

But maybe you will yet take a different view of the situation. At any rate, alter much pondering and struggling we have arrived at the point where we must reckon with having to give form and shape to our communal life..

Please be our counselor in this present hour of need! I have just been to the housing office (in town), where I spoke with the secretary about the result of the hearing. It truly looks “hopeless” for us (as these gentlemen choose to word it). But you must not think that we, too, feel devoid of hope—not at all! But we now have to make full use of the time left!

Next Sunday a .new preacher will be installed in the chapel here. Mr. Braun, the father, will also be here. There will be a whole week of evangelization.

On March 15 I am expected in Berlin and by March 22 in Hamburg. So from March 13 on I shall be absent from here for about 10 days. But before it comes to that I would like to have a clearer view of the situation. My wife Berta is more seriously affected by the housing problem than I am myself. She keeps thinking of the pleasant apartment we have been in for seven years and now will have to exchange for an emergency dwelling. But just imagine: Karl Friedrich [TN: Hering] told us that if our need gets too great altogether, Berta with the children could for a time be his guests in Glauchau. He would be able to make do without two rooms of his three-room apartment. I don’t consider that as simple as it was said, but I do appreciate Karlfried’s sincere friendship!

Whatever else I have on my heart I cannot now put down on paper because of so many other urgent matters. But please, let us have your reply soon!

Your Peter [Klassen]

I greet with “Hail!” all of you at Sannerz, especially [Adolf] Braun!

I enclose 10 marks for books sold.

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Frankfurt on Main, March 4, 1925

Dear Emmy Arnold,

Quite a while has gone by since we corresponded last. In the mean time a lot of water has run over the mill, and various things have changed. As regards m work in Talheim, after several vain and disappointing efforts over a long time I have finally managed to land on an upward pointing branch. As I already let you folks know quite a while ago, I can no longer afford to surround myself with persons that have a merely theoretical knowledge of work and in practice let others to it for them. So I also had to ask Fritz Schwalbe to practice his manner of working in an ambience different from ours. He left us already in June of last year. Since then he has once more vanished into the vastness of Berlin. For legal reasons I have to find out his whereabouts, and for this purpose I have to once again ascertain his particulars. For this purpose I am sending you enclosed a letter to the burgomaster there and would like to ask you to have it filled out. I find myself compelled to ask you or someone else in the community to see to that, as I am pressed for time and this is the quickest way to get the burgomaster to comply with my request. I would be very grateful to you for then immediately returning the letter to me.

I would also let you know that for some months now I have been married to master potter Fritz Schroeder. With my parents’ and brother’s help both of us are carrying on with the work we had set out to do.

With warm greetings to all of you and many thanks in advance

Charlotte Schroeder née Scriba

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Address until March 20: Bethany House, Bethel, Bielefeld

March 6, 1925

Dear Trudi,

You couldn’t possibly have imagined the redeeming effect your letter and the children’s letters have had! I had come home downright pining for them! In the week before, the work for the parcel had served to divert me. The empty side of the postcard Else had sent kept staring at me—no news about how everybody is doing, no greeting, just a matter-of-fact receipt! It just about made my stupid heart fail; the lines you are now about to read will show you in what way.

Dear little Trudi, what is there so contradictory and so involved (in my letter) that you can’t see through it? It’s all so simple and transparent: on the one hand the yearning for you folks and for the children just about makes me swoon, and yet I know it’s a purely human and natural inclination and no sin, as long as I daily bring it before God and place it into his hands so that He preserve it from anything unsound and uphold and sanctify it for me. On the other hand I know that I must not for the sake of this love simply give in to the temptation to slavishly submit to you people and your opinions, unless persuaded by God that you are entitled to make membership in the church community and a close working together in Sannerz dependent on complete agreement in “supra-biblical questions”.

By letting me take a distance extending for months, you people had to reckon with two possibilities: either I am going to be granted, as a gift, a God-wrought conviction, or else a look backward will serve to confirm my assurance that the inner development I have experienced must demand of you people that you bear with this my conviction. This is something you Sannerz folk must at some point take a definite stand to; then we can stop bringing up the past. Does that make it clear now?

I keep on asking and begging: please do not deny me the contact with Sannerz, given that I have been sent here for the purpose of awakening my conscience—something that you, (Trudi,) call for as necessary in your letter.

Next Sunday, March 15, they are sending me to Münster, where homosexuality as well as abortion are getting so rife that everything must be done to bring warning and enlightenment to girls and women there.. A woman doctor is going to speak to the mothers, I to a group of between 150 and 200 adolescent girls. Do you understand how urgently I want to have all of you standing behind me? May I not rightfully request such a support, just as Eberhard needs you/us behind him when he faces the hostile powers in the big cities?

What I meant to say in my letter was that Rühle’s book “The Proletarian Child” had made no appearance in my Sannerz children’s room. You see, Trudi, General Booth writes, “When the FIRE in your soul goes out and you cease to worry about the drowning ones, then go out to them and become an eye witness of their need”. That is what I wanted to express. During the first years in Sannerz I was still so full of the experiences in Berlin; there were so many new things I had to learn, and there was the close contact with the publishing house, first through working together, then through my sharing small mealtimes, where Eberhard and Else would always discuss business matters. Later there was no need for me to disturb Else. Eva would keep me informed, and when necessary I would even go to Otto Salomon.

Then followed my isolation in the children’s room and, with that, little by little my ego-centrism and my ruminating about religious problems. This was recognized, and what was said was this, “By rights you ought to be upstairs more often [TN: i.e. in the publishing department], but while Else [von Hollander] is having so much on her plate, she must not be disturbed”. You write, “All these for you difficult questions could be talked about; they can all find a solution”. Yes, Trudi; however, the solution was always there in letters and promises, but failed to materialize.

Why don’t you people let me do outside service in towns for a month or a quarter of a year, just as you let Eberhard do it, and without then reproaching me because of all the inside work left undone (due to my absence), as was the case in the winter 1923/24? There will always be work that’s left lying! By the way, doing outside service would also take care of the entire yearly cash contributions for my mother, whom I feel obliged to support by personal work. While enlightenment about alcohol use is not something to be carried out indefinitely, there definitely is an ongoing demand for capable teaching personnel, so that might be a possibility for the next years. Whether the quarter year from Christmas to Easter is the most suitable one (for such outside work) or maybe some other quarter of a year—well, that’s going to become clear—until we are finally granted the certainty where the entire Suse Hungar with all her edges and corners can find a suitable place and is used to the full as a children’s’ mother and house mother.

Certainly, Trudi, everything was fine at Christmas as long as I was allowed as formerly to simply serve the children in my own way. The unhappy talking began when at the end of the Jakob Böhme evening Eberhard asked me the personal question,” Huggi, what do you think of this?” You see, from what happened last year I just have to learn that this kind of spiritual food is no diet for me. If Else can’t eat legumes you do not let her starve but let her have something lighter. But as regards religiosity, Sannerz has a bit the direction of, “Eat, bird, or die!” I have still not attained full health in that respect; I seldom attend church, and (if I do) I either pay no attention to the sermon and just enjoy whatever goes with it. And if it does grip me in a religious sort of way, I am still liable to succumb to that miserable blubbing of mine, which otherwise I have overcome.

The solution you have come to with Sigrid is a great comfort to me. [TN: cf. correspondence about Sigrid Vogel.] Thanks to you all for having so faithfully carried her all through this year! But when will the boys from Hanau arrive?

Your letter is a big help to me—I can’t tell you that enough! I know that the Sannerz circumstances make letter-writing difficult; still, every four weeks or so one simply does need a bit of Sannerz love--one is after all just a human being!

Mother is ever so loving and caring now—it‘s really touching. She is as well as she has never been since before the war; the better food in Bethesda and salt-water baths have served to stir her up mentally. I jokingly call her my “office girl”, for she does all the ancillary work for me: writing letters, reading newspapers and clipping what is of use for my lectures. In the teachers’ association I listened this week to a good lecture about Spranger’s Psychology of Youth. The same subject will be dealt with at the big Whitsun convention in Dresden, which I hope to attend. I find there the confirmation of everything Sannerz tried to teach me—of great value for me in continuation classes and youth groups!

This is my schedule for the days March 22-28 at Nied (district of Höchst on Main): Sunday meeting of parents of the newly confirmed; Monday young men’s evening; Tuesday women’s association; Wednesday teenage girls’ association; Thursday Lenten service, Friday men’s association—all arranged by Pastor Gelisser! In the mornings work in schools. Then on April 20 I have to carry on with my work here. (Trudi,) if you would be glad to have me replace you with the children during the time in between those two dates, please let me soon know just when, or, respectively, which week you would like to be completely free. Please do it soon, as I still have to make arrangements for separate lectures in Hersfeld and Offenbach. If you have no use for me now, I can recuperate in the Taunus mountains. Please read out Martha Male’s report about itinerant instruction (Wanderunterricht). It’s in the Abstinent Educator (periodical), which I am going to send you

Greetings to all, big and small, and thanks!

Your Huggi.

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Frankfurt, March 8, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

Many thanks for the greetings conveyed to me by Otto Liebau. In this letter I come to you with a request. Klaus Britz is with me and tomorrow will travel on to you. He has but little money for traveling. Not having a lot of that myself at the moment, I cannot let him have much right now. Please be so kind as to let him have money for the journey! I am going to pay you back by way of weekly instalments.

How are you all doing? Is Lotte still there? [TN: See reference to Lotte Wilmers in Emmy’s report to Eberhard of February 5, 1925.] And what are Monika, Else, and Emmi doing? Greet them and all others from me!

And do not forget Ludwig [TN: Wedel]!

My address: H. Lauer, Frankfurt on Main, 132a Heide Street.

In conclusion I beg you again to support Klaus Britz with traveling money and to give him a friendly welcome.

God be with you and with us all!

With many greetings your

Hermann Lauer

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POSTCARD

Work Fellowship “Neu Sonnefeld’

Youth settlement, country home for children, youth hostel

Forest Mill (Waldmühle) Breitewitz near Gräfenhainichen

District of Halle on Saale

March 7, 1925

We greet you people in Sannerz! Dear Else,

please send us another 5 copies of the Friedrich Haas booklet as well as 15 Legends. Hans [TN: Klassen] is on a journey in Thuringia; if by any chance he has already placed the same order from there, just ignore this postcard.

Adolf, we are still waiting for a reply to our last letter. [TN: see Hans Klassen’s letter to Adolf Braun of February 9.] We did hear bits of news from Peter [TN: Klassen—cf. Peter’s letter to Eberhard of March 5.] Here with us struggle is still taking turns with joy. We are of good comfort, for we face our opponents with clean hands. We gladly want to bear together whatever may come. They are now legally proceeding against Peter on account of his housing problem. Maria Adler wrote us a very nice letter. Since Eberhard’s stay with them her father has come a step closer to us. We do not doubt: truth is bound to become revealed again and again!

Else, are you doing better now?

In the next days we let you have some money for books sold.

A hearty “Hail!” to all of you from us in Neu-Sonnefeld!

Lotte Niss

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Fidaz, March 8, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

I have not been spared the catastrophe you predicted for me one evening up in the publishing house. I have been thoroughly cured, even if according to Dr. Eisenbart’s method, so that whenever I think of Fidaz I am going to feel like being broken on the wheel. It hurts me to think that Maria had to suffer so, and that on account of me. In spite of all the solutions my intellect obtrudes on me, it remains for me a riddle how I could be like that. You folks must have been right by always having afterwards a good laugh whenever I had once again been using overly big words (as you have also let Maria know). But believe me: It entailed boundless suffering also for me! However, this is never, never to be brought up again!

Maria and I have just been talking, and she told me that when inviting me to “remain until spring”, she meant until the end of March--not of April. She has now asked me to leave at the end of March—not of April! As spring is very early this year, it would actually do me no harm to go to Sannerz right now!

I mainly want to ask you folks not to let our relationship be soured by what happened—at least not from your side, for I am going to be a different person and a joy to you, as I hope and believe.

If at all possible, please send me a bit of traveling money, and that the sooner the better, given that for Maria it’s a matter of “the earlier the better” (as I can unmistakably read on her face}.

Should you find traces of presumption in this letter, please believe me that they are not intended. However, I no longer trust myself, given that in spite of most stringent self-examination I was not clearly aware of suchlike things, hence was helpless in facing them. But instead of still laughing at them, point them out to me! I would be very, very grateful to you for doing that!

Therefore, if you still want to regard this scapegoat as one of yours, please help him come to you, for undertaking that journey on foot would most likely undo everything I have had given to me here health wise. I am simultaneously writing to my parents with a request to let me have money for the journey—hopefully with success.

Please do reply straight away! It makes me ever so happy to receive even a few lines!

Many greetings to the children, especially to Mö. I so look forward to again seeing them and really everybody!

You, Eberhard, are bound to think, “That big old donkey—he gives us so much trouble!” I fully understand! My best greetings to you personally and to all in the household, in particular to the house community!

Your Curt

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Sannerz. PO Sterbfritz

Kassel District

March 10, 1925

Adele Kaufmann, Box 506

Haverford, PA

Dear Adele Kaufmann,

We are sorry that some of our letters have not reached you but are happy to once more confirm that two parcels, a manuscript, and a registered letter with 5 dollars have actually reached us. And you say you have received our children’s letters. We would have felt specially sorry if they had got lost. But we grown-ups, too, had written to you! All of us were really happy about the gifts, and the 5 dollars, too, came in very handy indeed.

We are now coming into the summer season with our 15 children, only some of whom are able to pay toward their upkeep. As long as our harvest supplies hold out, it is quite possible to also feed those that do not pay. But we are now getting into the time where the previous harvest is coming to an end and where the cows no longer yield so much milk, and there we are of course very grateful for our friends’ helping us out with victuals such as rice, semolina, and similar foods until the new harvest. It would be wonderful if you could again collect something for us among your friends in America.

With warm greetings from the community in our house

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Sannerz

March 6, 1925

Dear Peter Klassen,

Warm thanks for your loving letter! We have often thought of you and wished so much we could help you. Unfortunately though, we cannot turn to the prince, since I had already discussed the question of housing with him earlier. He clearly explained then why he could not do more regarding housing questions in Liechtenstein than what had been granted in the donation of the building site for the cooperative settlement. In connection with the cooperative settlement and Director Weiss it ought to be possible to reach a goal gradually which will also offer accommodation and work possibilities suited to the individual and which could provide a basis for the very small life community.

That you are being placed into humbler conditions for the time being ought not to be taken as a misfortune by your dear Berta, but as a privilege in your discipleship to Christ. To us it is a great and uplifting memory that at the time of our beginning here in Sannerz we could start out with one living room and two bedrooms, and that gradually one room after another was given to us. Just at that time we were able to take in many hikers as guests. It was because we took in these people that, bit by bit, one room after the other was given to us. That was such a wonderful time of dependence and receiving, an experience which we would not have liked our community life to miss. We were mighty happy about Karl Fred Hering. Please give him our very special greeting.

In faithful solidarity, we greet you all,

- - - - -

Work Fellowship of the YMCA in Germany

Office: Dresden, 6 Ammon Street

Dresden, March 10, 1925

Dear Eberhard Arnold,

First of all many thanks for sending me your manuscript! Forgive me for not writing any earlier with respect to it, but I needed time to become quite sure of having calculated the price correctly. That done, it unfortunately turns out that I am not in a position to bring out your writing as it will not be remunerative. The printing will cost about 270 marks, and at a sales price of 50 pennies--with 23 pages of text I cannot very well ask for more—and an additional 50% discount, what is left in the end is just the figure you mentioned to me as your honorarium (author’s fee), or possibly, if we succeed in selling all 3000 copies, a tiny surplus, so small as to not worth mentioning. So it would seem more practical if side by side with the projected booklet you would yourself try to bring out individual paperbacks. As I had already suspected, it simply is a fact that when it comes to such little paperbacks and small editions there is in the end scarcely anything left as a remuneration for the author.

Maybe, too, the time has not yet come for paperbacks, such as they are, to be retailed in our circles. I am afraid there is but a small band that truly so digests the contents that these become a blessing, for the individual and for that section of work for God’s kingdom that has been assigned to us. I hope you will understand the above reasoning and be in agreement. You know well how close I feel to you personally and how much I would treasure being joined with you in a community of work.

With faithful, cordial greetings

Your Paul Herzog (YMCA)

[Translator’s note: Reply to Eberhard’s letter of February 17 to Paul Herzog.]

- - - - -

Sannerz, March 11, 1925

Dear Lotte Schroeder,

We thank you for your letter of March 4. Unfortunately we cannot accede to your request, seeing that we had already earlier on asked the burgomaster in Sannerz for a notice of departure for Fritz Schwalbe and were informed that Fritz Schwalbe had never been registered in Sannerz. But he must surely have been registered in Talheim, where he stayed much longer than here with us, and there you should be able to speedily obtain all particulars about him.

With friendly greetings from us all

- - - - -

March 12, 1925

Dear Eberhard Arnold,

I have been wanting to write to you for quite some time. From the Berlin folk who were with you at Christmas and among whom I have the reputation of being a youthful hothead, and also from the last circular letter you will have learned that I have resigned from the Free-German Work Confederation. Not in lightness of mind, as it might seem to an outsider, but rather as a result of lengthy consideration.

The rather strange fact that Erich Mohr, without asking me, has put passages from my letters into print was merely the outward inducement for this decision. For I have always believed in a Free-German (freideutsche) task and continue to do so even today and have always associated the term freideutsch with a mental image of a clearly defined attitude. Hence I found it hard to cut myself off, but in the end I joined the Young Socialists. I have also joined the Social-Democratic Party, in order to be consistent in doing what I have always been demanding: the politicization—no, not politicization but rather: young people’s active involvement in politics.

You will have read the passages from my letters that Erich Mohr has printed and will also have read Ulrich Wolf’s reply. It called for a rebuttal, which I have written with all due sharpness. I don’t know if Erich Mohr is going to print it. I have asked him to do it, for I feel an inward justification for such a request, if for nothing else on account of this one sentence: ”If you are able to peddle worldly happiness at the price of your inward life, then do so!” That sentence has hurt me deeply. I do not defend myself against this sentence; it would be a pity to waste on it one single word of reply! I beg you to let Ulrich Wolf know this when you meet him. By this sentence he has torn up the last bonds still tying me to this Free-German circle. For this word breathes an arrogance such as I had not been aware of in those circles. Does Ulrich Wolf really claim to be in the know about ultimate salvation?

In my rejoinder to his reply I also attacked you. I found it hard to do so. Maybe you are yourself aware of my stance towards you and how I have always respected you as a person that like scarcely anybody else seeks to live out what he thinks and has recognized as the truth. My way into political life led me to see things differently, and I had to be made aware of other demands. What I had to recognize was not “this world’s happiness” but rather the actual reality of this world; I had to grasp that its laws differ from those governing the sphere of religious life in which you and yours are living. I don’t see your way as either easier or harder than mine. Who is able to decide that? Maybe it does make it easier that on the way I am going inwardness goes by the board--that might indeed be the case; however, one has to live out what one feels inwardly commanded to do. Your way is one of inward deepening, mine involves creating outward form and shape. Both these ways are nowadays needed. There have to be people who live passionately solely for the divine—people for whom in some way the ultimate goal is the saint, but there must also be folk who give form and shape to this world. But may we all become aware of this and stop transgressing these boundaries!

I have expressed the gist of this in the essay I sent to Mohr. If he is not going to print it, please have him send you the manuscript. It’s important for me to hear from you what you think about it all. I am writing you all this lest that which unites us and is not tied to the factual existence of a Free-German Work Confederation be totally ruined by this whole quarrel. For just because I put such emphasis on the opposing views, because I demand that we recognize our respective boundaries and live within them--just because of that I also believe that both these ways have to exist: the vita contemplativa and the vita activa. For the one conditions and supplements the other.

So looking beyond all this wrangling I greet you most warmly and in old friendship remain

Your Franz Hansen

At Easter I shall be at a nation-wide Young Socialist convention in Jena. Maybe one day we may see each other there

- - - - -

Erna Stracke, Gotha, 2ª, Kreuz Street

March 12, 1925

Dear Trudi,

I have lingered for quite a while with the letter I promised, haven’t I? Well, I first wanted to properly digest the Sannerz impressions; then, too, there was so much that claimed my attention after my return that I simply did not manage to write.

Sannerz has meant a decision for me. I came to you in order to see if life at a settlement in the service of the idea is, or is not, my way. Sannerz presented me with a challenge: if I recognized the way--your way--as the right one and as my way, it would be my duty to join you people. What I have seen is this: the life style of your community--of how you endeavor to live--would have been the right one for me: precisely as it is with you—both mental and physical work—that’s what I need! And what is for me the principal value in life—the human being, human life—that I would have found quite sufficiently with you. I also know that fitting into the community would definitely have cost me inner struggles.

What impressed me most deeply in Sannerz was the natter-of-course way in which every individual serves the whole. I came to you people with my dear ego; I was seeking clarity for myself. I would have had a chance for talks with individual persons among you. But how unimportant did my own affairs appear to me in comparison with what you all serve! And yet I would not be able to come to you; I could never be part of you. You people call yourselves the nascent (werdende) church community. You become one in God. Well, I don’t share this religious outlook. What am I: atheist, pantheist? I don’t share this way of classifying the various concepts of God, which are merely the expression of a certain manner of being. So that is what separates me from you people.

There is a lot I have taken with me from Sannerz. Above all, your children were a real experience for me. There I saw what children can be like—must be like. All the more do I now see the misery of the children I am with, living as they do in an environment replete with compulsion and totally unnatural regulations. But I have gained new courage. With my educational methods—better: with my views about the goal of education and the essence of childlikeness I often disagree with my colleagues and superiors. But I want the same as you people, and it is only because compelled by existing circumstances that I cannot do everything in the way I would like to. But at least I know that I am on the right way.

Trudi, I could have written differently, but what I have written has for me been the essential part, and I always want to be honest. It was a joy for me to be allowed to help you Sannerzers, even if it was was just for eight days. When I have a chance I shall surely come to you again for a few weeks.

I greet all the members of the house- and children’s’ community Please let Adolf Braun know that I did not manage to see the Großmanns. And to still convey greetings now, four weeks later, strikes me as a bit funny. Cordial thanks for sending my shoes after me! I really had to leave head over heels! And now a lot of joy and “hail” to Sannerz! And warmest greetings to you, dear Trudi!

Erna Stracke

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Sannerz, March 12, 1925

Highly esteemed Miss Arbenz,

We warmly thank you for your friendly letter of February 28 and for all the love you have shown to our Kurt. The letter we sent to Kurt [TN: Probably Eberhard’s letter to Kurt of March 3.] lets you see how we think about him. It will be a great joy for us to have our Kurt back with us in Sannerz at the beginning of May and in good health. He has to make a real effort to get well, though, and must not harm his body by brooding. Before the beginning of May it is totally out of the question for him to return to the Rhön climate here! We thank you for your willingness to keep him in Fidaz until then. But we consider it better for him to still go to Ascona for a time. As soon as we have the money for that journey, we are going to send it to him.

It would be good for Kurti to again do some work at the settlement near Ascona. It would surely help him to regain his former cheerfulness. In the long run, brooding and just lying still is not good for so young a person

With very cordial greetings and renewed thanks for all the kindness and patience you have shown our Kurt

- - - - -

Sannerz,

Post Sterbfritz,

March 13, 1925

Professor Ragaz

Zurich

Dear Professor,

At one time you most kindly said that you would be willing to do something for our friend and co-worker, Kurt Breitfeld. Through the kindness of friends, Kurt has up to the present been able to convalesce in Graubünden, in Switzerland. The question is, whether before his return to Germany, which because of our climate could not be before May, he could spend some extra time in Switzerland, and gradually begin to work again there? He has an invitation from friends in a settlement near Ascona to stay there for a few months. At the moment it is very difficult for us to find the journey money for him, as our harvest is over and we have to pay cash for nearly all supplies for our household and the children we have taken in. We would be extremely thankful if you were to find it possible to send Kurt Breitfeld the 50 francs for the journey. His address is Fidaz near Flims Haldenhaus, c/o Miss Maria Arbenz. We would be grateful to hear from you soon.

In the last days your article on "What is our attitude to property" has arrived with Oliver Dryer. After several among us felt deeply challenged by your understanding of the question of voluntary poverty, we read it in the circle of our household and work community, and everyone was really excited about it. You put into clear-cut words what we here in our small Sannerz circle understand and want. We right away had the strong wish to share your article with others, and to send it out to those young people and to those Christ-oriented communities with whom we have recently had much exchange on the questions of force and the spirit of Mammon. We want therefore to ask if we could publish your article as a pamphlet?--to the joy of those who long and hope for "a new awakening of the Spirit of Christ in the world" and who are preparing to take this on themselves.

With warm greetings from our whole community to you and Pierre Ceresole.

- - - - -

Hohenlychen, March 14, 1925

Dear Eberhard Arnold,

Through Heinz Lanwehr and Kläre Kühn you will already have heard about me and my wish to obtain a suitable position at your settlement in Sannerz.

[Footnote (in English): See Hans Lanwehr’s letter of March 11, 1924 (probably misdated). Elisabeth Biemann was at Sannerz April/May 1925.]

I presently work as manageress at a home for war orphans at Hohenlychen, UM [TN: Uckermark?] I shall quit this post on April 1, as I do not agree with their inner approach to the children. I have not yet found suitable work elsewhere.

Before this my present job I worked for five years as housekeeper at an urban kindergarten in Frankfurt on Main. I had to leave that post because the whole cooking facility was transferred to a central kitchen.

From my 15/16th year of life I have been learning about the care and education of children of ages 3-6. I took a course at a crèche in Frankfurt on Main run by the People’s Association of Fröbel Kindergartens. After my time of apprenticeship I worked in families with children until I got married. After my husband’s death in the war I once again took up work at a kindergarten in Frankfurt on Main—the position as manageress (housekeeper) already referred to.

I would be happy if by May 1 or earlier I could find a suitable sphere of activity among equally-minded people. For these reasons I request and await your kind advice if I might hope to be accepted at Sannerz. Of course my nine-years old daughter would have to be received as well.

With friendly greetings

- - - - -

Sannerz, March 17, 1925

Dear Jakob Klöckes,

We are bearing in mind the whole time that you would like to come back to us, and there would definitely be enough work for you. And yet, having in hand your last letter to Lotte, we would like to let you know that since at present you do have work, we consider it better for you to wait a little before coming here and that for the moment you keep on caring for yourself. Ever since Emy-Ma’s birthday, i.e. since March 10, winter has really set in here in Sannerz. It’s cold in the barn and in the young people’s shelter, and the already started spring work on the farm has had to come to a halt again. You could of course help us with work in the woods and in the carpentry shop and with repair jobs, of which there are ever so many, requiring all kinds of skills, but, as already said, when you do come, we would like to offer you a place to sleep that would be sufficiently good and warm also for us, as well as the fare you need. Here we are now entering the lean weeks, for our harvest supplies are all used up; the garden and field are still empty, and the cows, too, are not yielding a lot of milk now.

We hope you will inquire again at a more favorable time, and we shall rejoice when you then come to us once again. For now warm greetings and good wishes to you from the whole community in our house!

Eberhard

- - - - -

Sannerz, March 17, 1925

Dear Hans and all of you there at the “Mill” [i.e. the Forest Mill (Waldmühle) Breitewitz],

What I am here writing down about the court case, for which I had been summoned as a witness is for me non-committal in the sense that you can make no “official” use of it. Besides, the matter somewhat concerns us or the Habertshof, seeing that the judge hearing the case is a deutschnationaler [i.e. member of the “German National” Party] agitator and has for years been keeping both Sannerz and the Habertshof under observation; he considers your Mill a related enterprise and is therefore drawing, rightly or wrongly, from the voluminous material available to him in the files various conclusions with respect to us.

The files have been seen by the district judges (and surely been perused by them with exceptional interest) of the following towns: Gräfenhainichen, Rossla, Nordhausen, Schwarzenfels, and Schlüchtern. In the “marriage law case’ Niss I had read out to me the formulation “abduction of a minor”. Seeing that proceedings had already been started before Lotte [TN: Niss] had completed her 21st year and, worded like this, the matter has a highly punishable reek, it did give me quite an ominous impression.

I was questioned about the following points: 1. whether the people at the “Mill” live in a “blurred sexual community” and 2. whether the community can be entrusted with children to be brought up there. I tried to testify as unambiguously as possible and do hope that because of the examples I cited to prove the case my testimony may not be without effect. I do not know how the case went on.

If on a past occasion I regarded an oral consultation [with you] as urgent, that was in reference to those parts of the files that I was not asked to comment on but which in the course of the two-hour-long discussion (I cannot call it a “hearing” in the official sense) I was made acquainted with and in large part had read out to me. These points, which I did not mention to you at that time are such as I do not want to put into writing even now; they simply have to be talked about orally, partly because they are of a personal nature, partly because they basically touch upon the very core of our life witness.

Let us hope that such a discussion and sharing will after all be possible soon. You people can imagine that references to the “Kingdom of God”, the “ dear Savior” and similar things in court files give one the impression one is reading records from the times time of the inquisition. The fact that especially the pious authorities, but also the nationalist ones do not have a good opinion of you folks is bound to be expected. Woe to us if everyone speaks well about us!

I have shared these few things with you trusting that you will in no way use it outside the circle. Only then will mutual help be possible.

Here we have plenty of work to do. At Easter we hope to receive four new children; several other people may also come. Questions of faith, of room and board—they are waiting to be overcome by the community’s inner strength.

We greet all of you in faithfulness.

Eberhard.

- - - - -

At present Münster, Westphalia

March 17, 1925

Dear Eberhard Arnold,

Your last letter, dated March 3 and reaching me on March 11, impressed me just like the earlier ones. It is only gradually, day by day, that rereading them brings me more and more to a proper understanding. I think I must be particularly ungifted and slow to grasp things; maybe that has generally also been a principal reason for some of the difficulties I had in Sannerz.

A first reading of your letter left me disconsolate; I just felt I was finally getting pushed out and the open door closed to me; the barrier let down--we are here inside; you are outside. Then I attempted to willingly say “yes” to the loss of what had been my home and to bravely set out once more upon the path of readiness for everything, just as I did five years ago at Steglitz, and at that point I made a discovery. Was perhaps that the snag that, as you mentioned, caused my “readiness to take off all my clothes, to stand naked and not wanting to keep anything for myself” to fail so miserably at that time? Was it because that readiness only extended to material things and was understood to safeguard for me the home place without which life was no longer imaginable for me?

But you must have misunderstood me! I never wanted to present an education to develop a will to possess and a sense of property to be the better one! It simply strikes me as the normal way and to be also in accordance with the words of Jesus that one should first strive to develop in the child the housekeeper’s sense of responsibility for goods entrusted to him by God or by his parents: Freddy is to guard his pocket handkerchief as a legacy from his parents, to be used by him to help and serve others as opportunity offers; his handkerchief should not simply vanish into the institution’s rummage as long as Freddy is still too small to grasp that the institution is but a channel through which God allows help to stream out to others. [TN: A reference to Suse Hungar’s argument in her letter of February 13 to Emmy.]

Looking back at our working together, I can see all along the line that my way is bound to be a little bit different (from yours), that I have to lay the stress on another note in order to remain faithful to myself or to my inner task. My sin has been that I was willing to let myself be squashed and that I was not plucky enough to clearly pursue my own way. Jesus does say, “ If you are not faithful with earthly things, who will entrust you with the true ones?” And while a community, instead of using and administering with special care and loyalty the treasure bequeathed to it— as “ sacred to the Lord” like the ancient Jewish temple utensils—is careless with them and lets them deteriorate, we find ourselves at the stage where education to become a faithful householder is required. That presupposes my own poverty; the treasure entrusted to me is a gift of grace. God is the owner!

Thus I do not recognize within me a falling away from what I represented in September but merely a deepened recognition of what is going on in the outside world and a refusal to be restricted to the small circle of the Sannerz community. What I was giving out does not belong to a circle of people but to the task. I think in this we are completely at one. For me personally the certainty of having a special service does not spring from sudden inspirations but from an inward leading. But about that I don’t like to speak rashly since I, too, am subject to error and because natural love had such a strong influence on me and was able to mislead me onto byways and wrong ways.

My present service agrees in everything with the goal I saw before me when I left the Salvation Army in order to live within a community a life of freedom bound only to Christ. As a direct consequence of that, the time when I was being driven and guided was a gift of grace, as you know, and a blessing to us all. Today I do not yet see clearly how it came about that Sannerz became for me the same danger as the Salvation Army had been.

But I have now cut loose and for a time must be cast out into the stream of the world; totally unknown and surrounded by strangers. I must come to the point of swimming freely and on my own! I am now certain of my service and task. You see, there is no shouting for Suse Hungar, on account of her reputation; rather, somewhere somebody knows of a service waiting to be done, and God puts it into somebody’s heart to call me. I keep being placed in front of people—at times a very small number of perhaps only 10-15, but last Sunday I found myself in a hall in front of 300 teenage girls; only half as many had been expected and another fifty were standing in the vestibule. I tried to speak simply just as God gives it to me. It is not as it used to be in the Salvation Army, where I felt: this preaching, aiming at conversion, does not suit me; it is not my task. No, now I can in a very practical way alert people to dangers, warn of false ways and point to possibilities of help. I try to do so with the same faithfulness and in the firm belief that it is done on behalf of God and at present is my task—a partial one. At the same time, whenever God lets me receive a call to some town, I can no longer look for people such as I was able to get in touch with locally through Sannerz. So I daily experience a very direct dependence on Him, and that is the best healing for all my confusions.

Hence it is now no longer with heartache and torment that I read your setter, as had been the case on the first day. I am finding the way to look forward! And yet the hope of reunion, of becoming once more united is finding a strong expression in me. And if I have to serve outside for seven years and must plead for reacceptance the way Jacob had to sue for Rachel, it will be possible, for I am allowed to let my strong love be preserved by Him as a divine gift. So I thank you for the service of friendship you render me through your letter. I deeply feel the greatness of the prophet Hosea because of his readiness to obediently take on himself the very closest union with that “prostitute wife”. That expression, though, may well be seen as just part of Luther’s peculiar language the crudities of which we do not usually go along with also otherwise.

When it comes to the “either-or” in Suschen Günther’s case, as soon as you put “the Church of God” instead of “Sannerz”, I can agree with you also there. As a member of the church community of God I am in a position to at any time also follow Friedel on his way if God urges me; however, under, and dominated by, the ban of the Sannerz community as I was, I was unable and forbidden to do so. [TN: Reference to points Suse brought up in her letter of February 7 to Eberhard.] That was untenable, but it may well have been my own guilt, even though until now I cannot yet recognize that in greater detail.

So I think the day is no longer far away when we, though sorrowfully and bent down by the guilt of the past, we shall through grace rejoice together as people called to render service to the glory of God.

Until then I greet you, (Eberhard) , and all others there as your

Suse Hungar,

who loves you all.

- - - - -

Sannerz, P.O. Sterbfritz

District of Cassel

March 18, 1925

Dear Antón Hoytink,

I warmly thank you for your friendly letter of February 25. You are quite right: our letter to Albrecht Bosman was indeed about the 20 guilders you still owe to us from the “Schaden” (“Schadow”?) brochure. I gladly comply with your request and shall no longer write to Albrecht Bosman about that. We feel very sorry indeed about your folks’ total severance from Bilthoven. We continue to believe in the great brotherhood of the church. We would be very glad indeed if we could see, and speak with, you once again and if you could visit us in Sannerz.

We definitely don’t want to put pressure on you to send us the money right away. Naturally, we would be grateful to you for sending us even part of it whenever you can manage; here in Germany we, too, find ourselves in a hard economic struggle, but of course we shall never put on you people a burden you cannot bear.

In cordial togetherness we greet you in the name of our whole house community.

- - - - -

Fidaz, March 19, 1925.

Dear Eberhard,

I have just been to the doctor. He says that my lung is still affected and that I shall have to still be here for four of five weeks, but will be allowed to work in the garden for half an hour both mornings and afternoons. Maria [TN: Arbenz] says I should stay here until the end of April and that I can help her a little in the garden, for in the Ascona community they would probably expect me to be able to work more. That she changed her mind came to me as a big surprise. I think it will be best for me to agree to it and to delay my departure from here until maybe April 20 or 21. I have to then stay in Zurich for some days as I have been invited by the Peters, and I am going to visit Förster, Ragaz, Ceresole, and Saitschik. Then I am going to travel home via Munich and shall spend a few days in Münchberg. But then off to Sannerz, where I hope to arrive about May 1 or 2. I am ever so much looking forward to that, and I believe I can then once again join in the work and to a significantly higher degree.

You Sannerz folk need have no misgivings as regards both my health and my finding my way back into things there. I am still so much imagining myself right there n the Sannerz life that it often seems to me I had left only the day before.

I really don’t feel very comfortable at having everything revolve around me the whole time. How do you people feel about what I have brought to expression above? I think I would get well even if I were to travel now, for what serves to heal me better than anything else is joy! If you people think I should nevertheless go to Ascona now, please let me know if I should write to Mr. Senn or if you want to do it (G. Senn, Ronso sopra Ascona). The mere travel expenses for going there would come to at least 50 Swiss francs—an amount I could very well use for my journey home (to Sannerz).. Then...

[Curt Breitfeld] . .

- - - - -

GERMAN TELEGRAPH SERVICE

Neuwerk, Sannerz, Sterbfritz

March 20, 1925

Arriving tonight.

Suse Hungar

- - - - -

Kühn, Berlin NW

March 20, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

When you were here, I once briefly brought up the question whether, seeing that in your house community you need another person to attend to child care, housekeeping and things like that, you might possibly want to accept a young war widow, Mrs. Biemann. At the time you expressed misgivings about burdening yourselves with a person liable to unload her problems on to you people, and that you would rather take in a young girl.

I would now like to come back to this matter and enclose for your attention Mrs. Biemann’s curriculum vitae as well as two testimonials, and request that you Sannerz people might reconsider if you could not after all offer this woman and her little daughter a new home..

I am well aware that all kinds of people bear such a wish in their hearts; nevertheless it seems you have until now failed to find somebody who, besides sharing your attitude and outlook would also cope with the practical requirements of the job. As regards both these requisites, I could recommend Mrs. Biemann.

In addition she is so quiet and reserved that even if she were more burdened with problems than a young girl she would not easily unload them on somebody else. I also think she is in no way as complicated as many younger folk from the youth movement. By the way, Heinz Lahnwehr has applied for Mrs. Biemann to become a member of the FBW. [TN: FWB stands for Freideutscher Werkbund], and that requires a very high standard.

Unfortunately I am not able to find for you a suitable teacher for your house community. Nowadays pretty well all academics find a job with the state. Your request has been passed on to the circular letter.

Please let us have your decision as soon as possible, either by writing directly to Mrs. Biemann in Lychen (envelope and postage are enclosed) or to me. Testimonials also back to me, please.

Warm greetings to you and all fellow dwellers in your house!

Kläre Kühn

- - - - -

Oberhohndorf, March 21, 1925

Dear Sannerzers,

To begin with, I still have to warmly thank you, Emmy, for your dear letter and for sending me the lectures Eberhard gave at the Rudersdorf conference. I regard those lectures, also that by Schafft, as very essential and significant. In answer to your question I like to inform you that our Easter rally will definitely take place. I am still enclosing an invitation with this letter. We shall be very happy for some of you Sannerzers to come along. At any rate we definitely expect Eberhard. You (Eberhard) did promise Karl Friedrich Hering you would take on the paper entitled “Proclamation in Word and Work”.

What concerns me personally is this great need and discord: as Christians we all have the calling to proclaim the joyful message; however, can we really do that? Do we not give the lie to ourselves by the way we act and speak? The word and our life—they contradict each other! What we do sets no example; we present no parable. Our impure lips are to proclaim the pure truth! And then the anxiety: is it truly from God that we speak, or from ourselves? Do we proclaim the will of God or our own quest? Do we perhaps spout phrases learned by rote, which at one time may really have been alive in us but are now spoken without an inner glow? I know that precisely you, dear Eberhard, can tell us something about that, given that the task spelled out by the theme is also the core of the commission given to Sannerz.

The invitation provides information about the other subjects and speakers. The place for the rally, the Rochs Castle (Rochsburg), is surely one of the most beautiful castles in Saxony. It is, of all groups, the German Officers’ League (¡) we have turned to for the rooms heeded; the Rochsburg itself belongs to a cousin of the Lichtenstein prince--a staunch Catholic! Thus [the rebellious peasants’] Bundschuh ( “laced shoe”) in our pennant, which we shall hopefully have available by then, is going to flutter victoriously--in defiance of the military, high aristocracy, and the Catholic Church! The pennant displays a red--bright red!—laced shoe on a black background. Jokers may be inclined to comment that only the white is still missing to complete the black, white, and red of the German imperial colors of old! Anyway, the rooms we have at our disposal are very nice. And if the weather is favorable, we shall be able to perform our play (about the “prodigal son”) in the castle courtyard. There is still a lot to be considered and borne in mind. That is also why I could not come to you in Sannerz right now. I don’t want to make any promises but do hope to definitely be with you folks at potato harvest time. That is if we do not already meet before that at Whitsun. Will you then have another get-together in Sannerz? The general Neuwerk rally has been planned for somewhere near Kassel.

By the way, Neuwerk seems to get concentrated in Saxony. You most likely know that Roland [Keiderling] is in Lichtenstein. Paul Hummel, who was here in Leipzig for the trade fair, is learning to drive a motor car in Chemnitz. So the plan of the firm Schneider and Klein [TN: i.e. the firm of booksellers also selling the books of the E.A. Publishing House.] has become reality after all, and in future also the Sannerz books are going to be whisked about on the noble benzene horse! At the Leipzg fair I also got to know Hans Köster, who has now a job in Leipzig. Don’t you people also feel the urge to settle in our red [IN: i.e. socialist-minded], highly auspicious Saxony? And the many glad positive replies from there—45 so far-- to our invitation to the Easter rally also prove that there is a lot going on among us .here in Saxony.

But may we be preserved from mere industriousness and from wanting to “make” something! It is with fear and trembling that we look forward to Easter, and yet full of faith and confidence and in expectation of grace. . . You know, in this semester the Tannhäuser song in the Zupfgeigenhansl has really come to life for those of us here in Leipzig. It’s also a genuine Sonnenlied! This song with the accompanying scissor cut make up my favorite page in the “Zupf”. In particular the scissor cut is for me a real expression of my present outlook.

Linked with you in faithful brotherliness,

Your Hans Kupfer\

I am to pass on warm greetings, specially also from Karl Friedrich Hering, Walter Schumann, Max Weber, Fritz Kunze (who is tremendously enthralled by Austria), and from my parents and sisters.

Stop! I nearly forgot to thank for Hansemann’s letter; it made me very happy. If you folks want to come to the Rochsburg, you have to go via Leipzig, take there a train to Wurzen and again change trains at Wurzen. Arrival on the Saturday before Easter! Food (breakfast, lunch, and supper) will be taken care of, as well as sleeping quarters and the speaker’s expenses.

“Hail!” to you all!

- - - - -

Sannerz, P.O. Sterbfritz

District of Kassel

March 21, 1925

Dear Elisabeth Biemann,

We have been very happy about the letter from Heinz Lannehr in which he points us to you and speaks of you with such respect and unconditional trust. This is for us a matter of great importance, as we are seeking more and more urgently for a true coworker (not just a helper), seeing that we look forward to an enlargement of our work after Easter and especially to an increase of our children’s community. Since receiving your letter, we have come to feel more and more strongly that you with your training and work experience may be the right person to fill the gap here, which is making itself felt more and more. This might be done by your either taking on more of the work with the children or more of the kitchen and housekeeping work. Your abilities and inclinations ought to make it clear where you would more joyfully find your task.

We would like to ask you to come to us in April, as soon as you are free and ready for new activity, and to get to know our work here by taking on some definite job for the several weeks of your visit. Because of the special character of our community of work and life, which is also a community of faith, we cannot bind new people to us without a mutual getting to know each other. All newcomers have to arrive at a completely free decision, and that is only possible through participating in the work. Hence our custom of letting new people have a shorter or longer time of testing by sharing in our work.

We are very happy that you have your child! For the children’s community represents one of the main practical tasks of our house and gives us daily a lot of joy. Therefore the fact that you would like to have a secure and permanent place together with your child fully agrees with the task of our life here. It is only because of certain practical difficulties that we would like to ask you: could you possibly spend your first visiting time with us (3-4 weeks in April) without your child? Could you accommodate your little girl for a few weeks of vacation somewhere where you can have full trust that she is well cared for? At the moment it is difficult for us to take in the two of you because we have to first complete the building work in a certain room, and there is little time for that at present. However, even that is something we could find a way through if you let us know right away.

We are happy to greet in you a confederate sister of our Free-German cause and hope we can joyfully work together on behalf or that cause—a small one and yet so great.

Please write to us soon what you think and let us know when we may expect you—the sooner the better!

We greet you and your little daughter from the whole community in our house!

- - - - -

Lichtenstein, March 23, 1925.

Warm greetings to the two of you!

Yes, I can’t stand it any longer! Trudel, it was wrong and very inconsiderate of me to abruptly send your letter back to you. At that time my inner being was not rightly focused on God, otherwise I would have seen it all differently and would also have acted differently. That I was obstinate at the time, also when you, Eberhard, talked with me, is actually something I have already recognized for a long time, but I was not yet ready to ask your forgiveness.

But now I want to do it! And you will no longer be cross with me, will you? I find it terrible to no longer hear anything from you all. My heart is ever so full right now. Irmgard (Keiderling) and I do talk a great deal about things and then do find ourselves together before God. But I have no male person I could speak with! It’s always very quiet where we are, and that is good, for in this stillness we come closer to God and become open to His word.

So let us now once again hold together, okay?

Greeting you,

Roland (Keiderling)

- - - - -

Dr. Hermann Buddensieg

Editorial office of the “Call to Change” (Rufer zur Wende)

Binau on Neckar, March 23, 1925

Dear Eberhard Arnold,

In the latest number of the Streusandbüchse (“Sand-Box”) I read the announcements of the Freideutsche Werkbund (“Free-German Work Confederation”} regarding their forthcoming rally, from which I gather that, being the first to speak on Saturday, you are going to “deliver a conclusive comment ” (that’s what it says!) on what I would have brought to expression on the preceding Friday. Now I have to confess that I know little about you except something in connection with Sannerz , whereas you know quite a bit about me. So I would be obliged to you for letting me have at least something you have written, i.e. a few theological writings, which would tell me something about your sphere of thoughts. Specially relevant to me would be “Zinzendorf: His Faith and Life”, “Inner Land”, and in particular “The Religiosity of Today’s Youth”—the latter being of special importance to me; so I would like to ask you to at least lend it to me in case it is sold out. Perhaps you are kind enough to let me have all that, so that I become familiar with your thoughts. I am gladly ready to also send you my literary works.

Many thanks to you in advance; I look forward to getting to know you in Fulda.

With cordial greetings

Your Hermann Buddensieg

- - - - -

POSTCARD

With reply card Suse Hungar

At present Nied, District of Höchst on Neckar

March 24, 1925

Dear Trudi,

I forgot or failed to hear how much you want to have of that red material. Please let me know right away! The work here is going well, the pastor tremendously keen. The evening meetings well attended, and the schoolchildren and teachers right in it.

Please don’t forget to write how Mölein {Monika Arnold] is getting on

Whenever the day’s work here comes to an end, I feel a great longing, because Sannerz has once again been brought so much closer to me. I could in no way imagine carrying out the work I do without your life and your brave holding out; it provides the deepest meaning, which also makes this little bit of outside service possible. The outward situation is terribly funny. There is just one wall between me and the pastor. He is the brother serving me, keeps the stove going, sets the table and cooks the small meals with zest and zeal, while I let myself be spoiled, seeing that I am fully occupied by the work program. Today the pastor has invited the Catholic priest and the little Catholic woman teacher to supper and right now is busy setting the table. I sleep in his bedroom and he in his kitchen. In all my travels I have never yet experienced anything like that! Anybody knowing me from earlier times—how he would laugh if he could now peep in here! On Sunday I am to be with Dr. Amelung (Quaker) on the Königstein.

I am not forgetting little Luise! Friedel has been brave and kept himself pure, for which I am very happy and grateful. Suschen is well and has developed nicely. [TN: References to persons mentioned in Suse’s letters to Eberhard of February 7 and March 17.]

With greetings to everybody

Your Hugga.

- - - - -

Flensburg-Weich, March 26, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

I have received your letter of October 16 [1924]. It has demolished all my trust in you. Hence I withdrew the “contribution to a critique of the Sonnenlieder” I had already sent to the Neuwerk editors.

I cannot believe that you people are honest and truthful toward yourselves. I have to write this to you, Eberhard, even though I know that such an avowal means for you the rupture of our friendship.

Lack of trust is what makes us resign our membership in the Neuwerk-Verein e.V, Remembering the past and in hopes of a new future

Your Hermann Thoböll

Flensburg-Weiche, March 26, 1925

We herewith declare our secession from the Neuwerk-Verein e.V. in Saneas.

Hermann Thoböll, Dr. med.

Gertrud Thoböll née Cordes

- - - - -

Sannerz, March 26, 1925

Dear Hans Kupfer,

Faithful greetings to you, to Walter Schumann and all our friends in Leipzig, to Max Weber, Otto Kircheisen, and to your dear parents and Hanna!

Many thanks for your letter! So the Rochs Castle (Rochsburg) is going to be conquered! You probably know that our prince has voiced misgivings to Pastor Ende, Karl Fried Hering, and myself about using the castle; I assume that these misgivings have been satisfactorily disposed of. I shall come with great joy. From my store of Neuwerk addresses in Saxony I am sending you whatever I regard as suitable for an invitation to this conference. You will already have many of these addresses and will have used them, but there will surely also be some you have not had access to so far.

Now I have a big request to you all—a request I also address to Karl Fried Hering: Would it be possible for you folks to rustle up sufficient money for a small group from Sannerz to travel to the Rochsburg—about 100-150 marks? It’s after all out of consideration for this our Saxon rally that we have dropped our own Easter gathering! I therefore regard it as urgent that the responsible circle at our Sannerz outpost, which has been waging a hard struggle for years and years is brought into a firm and close togetherness with your Saxon circle. That is why I would be happy if besides me Emmy –[Arnold], Else [von Hollander], Trudi [Dalgas Hüssy], Mimi [Monika von Hollander Barth], Adolf [Braun], and Emi-Margret [Arnold Zumpe] could travel to this rally in Saxony. However, as befits the nature of our cause, we have no money for such a journey nor do we have a right to extract such an amount from our current receipts. I am aware that this is quite a request; however, by a big united effort you folks might yet find a way to respond to it. And I am convinced that as regards the success of the rally and in particular the gain we Sannerzers would garner from it, the effort will not be in vain.

We Sannerzers have a good contact with Chemnitz and Lichtenstein, so that we are well informed about how Paul Hummel and Roland are getting on, given that on the occasion of our last visit to Lichtenstein we were able to obtain for Roland and Irmgard [Keiderling] their present fine dwelling and that their full return to our work in Sannerz is now just a question of time.

We feel so moved by everything you write, Hans! Soon we shall have an opportunity to talk about it all. We are ever so grateful for what you say about the Tannhäuser song in the Zupfgeigenhansl. We here are going to sing it together as soon as we have fully overcome the little lingering flu epidemic besetting our house at present.

We hope you, Hans, will come to us quite soon—at Whitsun! It will take much too long until the potato harvest! You probably mean you want to come for the potato planting!

In faithful friendship and brotherhood

- - - - -

Hohenlychen, March 25, 1925

Dear Eberhard Arnold,

Your letter and everything it tells about your children’s and work community has given me great joy.

I am in full agreement with the suggested time of testing, and it is quite clear to me that in a community of life and work such as yours it is not possible to take on a post with you without such a testing time.

How wonderful to hear at long last that the child is not seen as a disturbance, and for the proposed time of testing I can indeed find a good place for the child--with my trusty siblings in Frankfurt on Main.

You may expect me there on April 15. I can’t come any earlier. I joyfully look forward to a glad working together.

As from April 1 my address is: Frankfurt on Main, 18/III Nidda Street, with Hörle.

My child and I are happy to return the house community/s greetings.

Elisabeth Biemann

- - - - -

NEU-SONNEFELD YOUTH

Settlement—youth hostel

Rural home for children

“NEU-SONNEFELD”

near Gräfenhainichen

District of Halle on Saale

WALDMÜHLE BREITEWIZ

near Gräfenhainichen

March 26, 1925

Holiday home for children

“MUTTER NASS”

Sonnefeld near Coburg

All you dear ones in Sannerz! Hail to you ad joy!

We have received your card, Else [v. Hollander] , your greetings, Eberhard, and Adolf [Braun]’s letter, as well as the book consignment from Wallmann. Thanks for everything!.

You will surely be quite cross with us for having not yet come to you. On his last journey to Thuringia Hans [TN: Klassen]would gladly have gone on to Würzburg and to you, but on the way the root of one of his teeth got inflamed and very painful, so that he had to have the tooth extracted and came back here feeling quite poorly and earlier than he had intended. As soon as possible we would very much like to pay you a visit; there are so many things to talk about! What all we have experienced in this last time!

While the struggle is going on, we often find it hard. Later, when all this lies behind us, we shall perhaps regard this time of struggle as the best and most instructive time of our life.

We now hear nothing at all any more about the court case. We would so much have liked to know exactly who it was that brought the charges. Lotte [Niss[‘s mother wrote us that it wasn’t her, and in her letters she now takes her stand with us. The two children are here with us, and she is happy and satisfied with that.

The inoculation question, too, seems to have been shelved. For quite a while now we have had no further fines slapped on us, and those already issued are not being collected.

As regards our exclusion from the congregation, the [Baptist] federation is said not to be in agreement without further inquiries and is now about to investigate the matter.

In Sonnefeld the little house is to be somewhat enlarged in time for the coming summer season by upgrading the barn section. Hulda’s brother is an architect, wo wants to carry out the project at very favorable long-term conditions of payment. We want to assist him with the work, and Ewald is already there for doing pulling-down and other preparatory work. When that’s done, our girls can in the summer take in larger groups of holiday children from Berlin.

A Sonnefeld citizen acquainted with us has put his little pavilion by the mountain side at our disposal for use as a youth hostel. In addition, there in Sonnefeld we have the backing of some energetic and lively ]Baptist] brothers and sisters with the result that our work will more and more gravitate there, and we with it.

We find more joy in extending and building up there, as we find there a more promising future than here [at the Waldmühle Breitewitz?] , where we get more and more the feeling that father Rast is properly fed up with us. Werner [Rast?] was here for two months and has now managed to persuaded his parents to present us with all kinds of demands and to constantly find fault with us, making it hard for us.

So there is no sense in still making a beginning here with this or that, and there is a good possibility of our soon turning up quite close to you. That makes us happy. Though it pains us to have to break off the connections we have obtained here, there is no other way. We have learned a lot during the time we were here, have made many blunders and experienced a lot of struggle and of joy. ?The time here has certainly not been in vain.

We have no idea what the [Rast?] parents have in mind. They told us what they would like best is to sell the mill [Waldmühle]. Werner [Rast?] is now in Darmstadt, after informing us, in an insidious manner, of his enmity. We once asked him, quite ingenuously, why he is so mad at us, seeing that we had dome him nothing bad, but on the contrary had shown him hospitality and had offered his child a home. He became quite embarrassed and then said that he found our brutal openness unsympathetic. We could still tell you a lot more. We had to endure all sorts of malignities.

Have you heard of Alfred Wolf’s negotiations? Hans and Else were in Lichtenstein on Sunday. It’s crazy! Peter [Klassen]is to vacate his apartment without further ado! The Baptists want to get him out by court order. They will have to have there an emergency community of some kind. We are now just about the most hated people in Saxony!

Hans Harder is still in Berlin, doing preparative work for a children’s home in

Wernigerode. Fred has been called to E. Unruh in Struppen, in order to look after his garden there. Thus Gerhard is now our only young man here; however, with the weather being so mild, we were able to get quite a lot done in our field and garden; we have sown what is needed most and have prepared the area meant for potatoes. Now we have to cart wood and coal every day, and we girls sew and knit. The children do need a lot of clothing.

On Sundays we always have guests. Right now the Landsassen (a group of would-be settlers]; the arrived with torches on Saturday and on Sunday moved on into the Dübener Heide (Düben Heath). They are dear people.

Our youngest children have had the measles and have come through it well. We are so happy that it is all over now and that there have been no bad consequences.

All of us—big and small—are now enthusiastic vegetarians and for some time have not eaten any more meat. For some of us this is of course nothing new, and we hope we can see it through will all determination. Not long ago the local association for natural healing had arranged a fine evening with a lecture and film—about Mother Nature, hiking, air, sun, the youth movement etc.—very nice indeed. They asked us to be responsible for the musical part of it (piano and singing), and we were naturally glad to do that. It was a joy for us.

Ever again God does grant us bright hours and glints of light amid all the darkness, and we are joyful.

Do write to us again soon [you Sannerzers]!. Else, when are you coming to see us? We are glad that you are all well and greet you warmly.

Your Neu-Sonnefelders.

Lotte [Niss]

Hans [Klassen], Else, Gerhard, Wally, Frieda, Niss.

NEU-SONNEFELD YOUTH

We believe in God’s kingdom on earth! Our community of life and work came into being on the basis of Jesus, who proclaimed a new world order. We are pervaded by the certainty that men appertain to God; hence we recognize in every person a spark from God and want to meet all of them with love, trust, and truthfulness.

Urged by the terrible need of the present time, we are conscious of the duty to help one another and see our task in offering children a home and loving care in our rural children’s home, and in offering young people inner relaxation and true joy in life, to make them aware of what God’s love holds out to them.

We know that only a faith active in practical life is of everlasting significance. Our community of work is to be a living witness to love and peace, so as to waken the social conscience of other circles and to get them to shoulder the need of this time and overcome it through deed, so that God’s will be done on earth.

- - - - -

Sannerz, March 26, 1925

Dear Suse Hungar, good Hugga,

Your dear visit and your postcard to Trudi have made us very happy. I now have a good plan for also outwardly making it easier for you to have a joyful and refreshing holiday time here in Sannerz. In the Passion Week and during the Easter days there are two conferences or rallies at which I have to speak. In the week before Easter the Freideutsche Werkbund (Free-German Work Confederation) will have their meeting, probably at Jena. Buddensieg, the Free-German leader known to you through [his periodical Rufer zur Wende, i.e. “ger to Change”), and I are to be the main speakers.

During the Easter days there will be a rally in Saxony, at one of the Schönburgs’ castles in the Mulde Valley. Many friends of Sannerz will take part in it. The speakers are Günther Dehn, Carl Aé, Alfred Dedo Müller, and I. If we can scrape together the means for the journey—something I hope for through our Saxon friends—we want, if possible, go to Saxony with 5 or 6 of our core members of longest standing. It would be wonderful if we could for a little while entrust to you our small children’s group and its interaction with the house community. During that time you could go about things just as you please and could get used to doing that in exactly the same way also when we are there!

Accept our good and faithful greetings from all of us who all love you very much and will always stand with you.

I enclose Trudi’s pencil-written postcard for you to re-use in a similar way.

Greeting

- - - - -

Sannerz

March 27, 1925

Roland, you faithful one!

I was sure that you would also turn this corner , and I thank you for the brave letter you wrote to Trudi and to me. Meanwhile you will have received our birthday parcel. Else sent it to Peter Klassen's address; however, I think this address will reach you quicker. Please write to us the official address of your house. We will soon certainly hear from one another and even see each other personally, when the meeting at Easter takes place on the Rochsburg, at which Alfred Dedo Müller, Karl Ae, Günther Dehn, and I will speak. Surely Irmgard will not be coming to the Rochsburg? Whether we few Sannerzers who want to travel to Rochsburg will go via Liechtenstein is not yet fixed, but is certainly possible.

Just for this question I would like to know from you what your impression is of Peter Klassen and his small group. Without doubt this Lichtensteiner circle and the Neusonnefelder youth connected with Hans Klassen, Gotthold Schneider's friendship group in Chemnitz for whom Paul Hummel will be chauffeur, and Hans Kupfer's small Leipzig League are all especially near to us. But just because of this it is depressing to see how blunted everything still is, how little the Spirit breaks through amongst us, how little we achieve a holy break with the old, how little we fight the fight unto death; how little we dare to break with present things as a setting out towards that which is to come. I wish that you and also Irmgard, with the child God will give you, might dare to the uttermost. The uttermost begins with the free decision to fight against oneself, to surrender oneself, to apply oneself as a small part in the complete whole, for which it alone pays to live. May Christ be your Savior and leader for this! Then the hour will come when you will live with us in Sannerz once more, and then the greater hour will come in which all Sannerz sets out towards a greater future of which our small Sannerz is only a weak prelude. Therefore be certain: we hold firmly together and join up again completely with each other.

- - - - -

POSTCARD

Suse Hungar

Nied, March 27, 1925

You poor sick people,

Don’t get up too early! I am going to come to you to-morrow evening, Saturday, March 28, with the usual train (1/10). All three parcels have arrived Ok

Hail! Suse H.

May all the sick people get better!

It’s a pity I don’t know what to bring along for you.

If it should rain and somebody comes to meet me, please let my rain coat come along as well!

- - - - -

Sannerz, March 27, 1925

Karl Aé!

I, too, was surprised when I found I had lost you on the way to our meeting place! But I couldn’t possibly wait any longer, as I was late in any case. The meeting was quite difficult—about 400 people of whom one could only say: Here they praise, and there they rage . One party praised God for their wonderful rebirth and for Scientism’s healing of the sick, while the others declared that all man needs is the satisfaction of his hunger and of his urge for procreation and that he must therefore be supplied with the required accommodation and clothing. And interspersed were revelations about aesthetic nudism, about anarchistic elimination of state and status, plus a dash of churchy Christianity. So you can well imagine how after these discussions I had real trouble getting home at one o’clock at night.

Sad to say, I felt little of a carrying circle, which would let these discussions, which in fact mirror the actual situation everywhere, be exposed to the decisive light from above. Yes-- this is the poverty we see all around us!

And how is it going to be at the Rochsburg? Proclamation and the Church—those are the themes—or, better, the theme and its opposite--around which we are going to gather there. I joyfully look forward to spending, on this basis, those two days with you, with Alfred Dedo Müller, Günther Dehn, and with that small band of ours. We hope that our Sannerzers will be provided with the means needed for attendance.

- - - - -

Sannerz, March 27, 1925

Dear Erich,

I am sending you Buddensieg’s letter and his reply. You see in what way I learn about that announcement in the Streusandbüchse (“Sand-Box” periodical). Please send it to me together with any other announcements. It would be better if one could read all such formulations with respect to responsible tasks such as we are facing before they get printed. I thank you very much for letting me know about all positive and negative replies to the invitations. Please do write to me precisely how the work is to proceed: what tasks have been taken on by Dr. C.A. Werner, Käthe Feuerstock, and Professor Woltoreck, and whether Hellermann and Spira have replied. The location, too, is of great importance to us. Several of us here at Sannerz would like to take part in the conference; the only difficulty is the monetary problem, seeing that we actually have no right to dispose of the means we obtain by our very strenuous work. My fellowship with the Freideutsche Werkbund (Free-German Work Confederation) is very relevant to me, and this is also the thinking of the other Sannerzers who are members of it. I once again take up the cudgels on behalf of Adolf Braun’s being accepted as a member of the Werkbund, which would mean that we contribute the following members: Emmy [Arnold], Else [von Hollander], Trudi [Dalgas Hüssy], Monika [v. Hollander Barth], Adolf Braun, and myself. In order to prove myself a more active coworker than heretofore, I am going to send you, after a little while, some manuscripts resulting from the preparation of my book ‘The Now and the Future”. It might really be possible to work up and expand our circular letter in the direction of using it to consider ever more thoroughly that which matters most and the practical work task it presents us with.

Today we want to express especially to you our strongly felt fellowship with the Freideutsche Werkbund. We plead with you from now on to share more responsibly and actively in our calling into being a children’s and school community, and to make yourself available for that endeavor. We Intend to form a responsible circle of coworkers consisting of non-resident friends—in traditional terms an “advisory council” or, more to the point, a council of coworkers, for which we first of all have you in mind, as well as Fritz Lade in Han, who has repeatedly proved to be a faithful coworker; then too, Heidi Denzel in Stuttgart, who occupies a leading position in the youth movement and in the social work of the Protestant People’s Alliance (Protestantischer Volksbund) and is also closely allied to us, as well as the businessman Friedrich Wilhelm Cordes in Fleestedt, Pastor Alfred Dedo Müller (the general secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation), and finally also the retired district administrator (Landrat) in Gersfeld All of these stand close to us and would surely be glad to share in carrying the responsibility. To inform you about the present stand of our children’s work we enclose for you a section from a small circular letter.

But now the main point: It is again and again my impression that you, Erich, might in our children’s community find a task for your life that could fully represent the fulfillment of your life’s aim. Jointly with Trudi Dalgas, who does outstanding work in her free and yet objectively clear style of instruction, you, Erich, could found and lead a school community such as does not exist anywhere in Germany—a children’s community based on autonomy of the conscience and of the awakening spiritual interests. Here with us, though, that awakening of the conscience and of the spiritual interests is already determined by that Spirit that does not stem from us human beings. Thus this school community wholly belongs among the ranks of all school reform and school communities and of the strivings to revolutionize the schools, and yet it most clearly differs from them. Here is a positive attempt showing the right balance between a most deep and comprehensive education of the human spirit and . . .

- - - - -

Sannerz

March 27, 1925

Dear Alfred Dedo,

I must begin today's letter with a double apology, since my attempt to visit you from Dresden, which you were informed of by word of mouth was unfortunately in vain, and in consequence I have also not answered your last letter. As a result of the halfhearted attitude of the Young Men's Christian Association and the stimulating but chaotic meetings of the combined youth groups (with 400 participants at the end), the task in Dresden was so difficult and strenuous that it was unfortunately not responsible, in face of this task, to make the detour to Ziegra. In Dresden a supporting circle was lacking that could carry this forward attack into the atheistic world. Consequently it must remain as a one time appeal, the result of which is questionable, but which I do not think was in vain. To my great joy we will come together and work together in your own area and near to you. I would be very grateful if, before then, we could come to an understanding, at least in writing, how we tackle our theme. I would start out from both poles: first from the need for our proclamation as it is found in the circles around Barth, and powerfully testified to, for example in "the times between". Secondly in the same way but more decisively, from the necessity that all who are called by Christ must represent his message and his way of life, even when again and again they see that they are not able to do this.

From reports which I have received, I reckon on about one hundred people in attendance on the Rochsburg. What you write about the evangelical social school, about Friedrich Brunstädt, and about the idealistic Nationalism, is equally meaningful as the article which Leonhard Ragaz wrote in 1924 in the "Neue Wege" about reaction. We thank you very much that you have forwarded from the Fellowship of Reconciliation the article by Leonard Ragaz, "What attitude do we take to possessions?" We greatly rejoice in the forcefully formed words which Ragaz finds for what we believe and wish for most deeply in our hearts, so that we have the burning wish that the article would be circulated in the wider circles of seeking youth and Christians of the day. We therefore are asking Leonhard Ragaz for his permission to publish it as a leaflet in our publishing house and ask you if you are in agreement with our plan. My conscience is struck by your reminder that I should write an article on "Eroticism" for the work which is very near my heart and which is entitled, "Friedrich Wilhelm Förster and the real World" and belongs to this book and would go well with it. That must be written, and I will not avoid writing it, unless in the meantime someone more suitable is found, but unfortunately, it is impossible for me to complete this task just now. At the moment I am too greatly occupied with other similar tasks which also lead to this purpose and to the preparation of a series of books about the living Christian witnesses of all centuries. For the sake of the cause, I sincerely ask you if it is possible to have a little more patience. How far are you with the remaining preparations and manuscripts? We are hoping to find the means that a small group from Sannerz can travel to Rochsburg, when we shall also be especially joyful to see you. It would be fine if then we could visit your dear home and your dear wife.

With very warm greetings,

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Sannerz

March 27, 1925

A letter to Hermann Buddensieg,

the first page of which cannot be found.

. . . feeling and may find the objective exchange. This has always been my wish since the conference of the Free German Work League at Ludwigstein and the establishing of the Rufer [Herald]. It is through Karl Sachse that I have especially got to know about you and your letters. At that time I asked Karl Sachse to obtain sample copies of the Rufer for us at Sannerz. We then acquired the first two numbers of the booklet dated April 1924 and June 1924, and worked through them together here very thoroughly. Since our hard earned means flow constantly for our daily social work, we are not able to afford the subscription for the magazine, much as we would like to. I must therefore ask you to send us immediately the Rufer, from the third number on. If there are no free copies available we ask you to send them on loan or charge them. In the same way I am asking for your book The Culture of the Working Class in the time of Early Capitalism. The subject matter of this book is of very special concern to me.

I am at present preparing a book that seeks to tackle the question of the religious social task. From my earlier work I am sending you my article for young people: Early Christian and Anti Christian elements in Friedrich Nietzsche's development, all the important points of which I still acknowledge today. Unfortunately this booklet, published in 1909, is now out of print so that I must beg you to return this copy. A new edition must lay emphasis on the task of the life form, the true culture and especially the attitude to the task of the community in life. The preparatory work for this, on each separate main problem of Friedrich Nietzsche, is to a large extent ready for printing. Bertram's well known book most strongly confirmed my interpretation when I was still feeling very much alone. This loneliness showed itself even more strongly in the decisive protest against our degenerate culture, against the social and economic injustice of our situation, above all in the spiritual area. Also from 1909 to 1911 I undertook public action to tackle these issues. Unfortunately at the moment I am unable to send you any of this. My book Inner Land, written in the Alps in 1914, shows the spiritual fruits of my first ten formative years following the subjective period.

Die Religiosität der heutigen Jugend [The religious nature of today's youth] written before the end of the [First] World War, contains my acknowledgement of the Youth Movement, for which I am very thankful, and also my own testimony to that which I must repeatedly put before them. From the time of the editorship of Das neue Werk [The new work], I am sending you a short article about Die bessere Gerechtigkeit [The better justice] which was passed on at one time by Rudolf Otto in Marburg. From my present work I can only send you a lecture which I gave to a Protestant group from the Rhineland, which represents in a quite definite direction the truth of the words of Goethe, "Everything transitory is only a parable."

From our publishing house which we are in charge of here in Sannerz, I am sending you the book you wished for about Zinzendorf, and include the very meaningful Deutsche Bauhütte [The Masonic Guild] by Florence Christian Rang, which together with other books by Herrigel found a thorough appreciation in the Christlichen Welt [Christian World] and in the Frankfurter Zeitung [Frankfort Newspaper]. The practical, political and economic consequence of the truth presses us as an urgent duty; but it requires harder, more persistent work before one may publicize it in this field. Rang also became white haired before he could write this book after a life of ever renewed daring.

We have so much to discuss and talk about together. Hopefully the opportunity for this will be given in Jena. I read for the first time in your letter that I should be the first to take a comprehensive attitude to your statements. With this announcement an obligation is laid on me from which I cannot very well withdraw. In a conversation, Erich Mohr had made a similar casual request or suggestion, so that I was not quite unprepared for this daring proposal. But now help me with this, that I may read your work in peace and ponder over it until the Saturday before Easter. I must say that Der Rufer brought afresh to us in Sannerz that which is truly great, and strengthened us in this, that the awakening of the youth between the years 1900 and 1920 demands a turning point which will come from no human being, and also will not lead to any human being. It concerns the eternal in temporal events, the unrestricted in the restricted form.

I reach out my hand to you as a fellow fighter for this call to change [note: “Call to Change” was the name of the periodical he published].

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Sannerz, P.O. Sterbfritz

March 28, 1925

Dear Karl Fried Hering,

In joyful expectation we look forward to the Neuwerk convention at the Castle in Saxony. I have the great wish to not only come by myself but to bring along a whole crowd of Sannerz folk., but this is precisely what today makes me approach you with a request. It is after all because of the Saxon convention that we have dropped our own Easter conference. I therefore regard it as urgent that our responsible circle, which for quite some years already has been fighting hard at our Neuwerk outpost here, gets into a very close and firm fellowship with those in Saxony, and I would wish that Emmy, Else, Trudi, (Moni), Adolf, and Emi-Margret could come along to the Rochsburg. However, as grounded in the nature of our cause, we have no money for the journey nor are we entitled to draw on on our current revenues for such a sum.

I have already written to Hans Kupfer about this and asked him to do what he can to bring together 100-150 marks for this purpose. But I world also like to ask you if you could not get together part of that traveling money for us. I know it is a big request, but by a united effort it might yet be possible to rise up to it, and I am convinced that it would mean a gain not only for us in Sannerz but for the cause as a whole. Will you manage it?

Our most hearty wishes accompany you to Glauchau. Hopefully you can be among us a fortnight from now!

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Pirna, March 28, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

Since March 1 (the Leipzig spring fair) I have been back in Saxony. I did not hear much about you in Marburg, where I am still going to spend the coming summer.. Professor Heiler’s wife told me about your visit in Marburg, and before that so did also Hans Kirchhoff and the Entebubi [?] from Sannerz. Here in Saxony the name “:Eberhard Arnold” is much better known than in the Hessian lands. Here in Pirna I happened to bump into two persons that had heard you speak in Dresden: a classmate of my sister and a working man. By the way, Karl Friedrich Hering sent me the text of the lectures you had earlier on given in Lichtenstein-Cellenberg.

Since last Easter several things have changed in my own life. For one thing I was able to stay for a year in Marburg, to study there and live within a circle of really fine people. As regards political economy; I am done with that; in the sense that this “science” has left me dissatisfied or else I have not got the hang of it. At any rate I am now a apprentice learning about paragraphs and thumbing law books.

At the end of last November my father died; my sister is now laboring in a bank, while my mother rents out several rooms of our apartment. As regards the conference at the Rochsburg I want to let you know that your paper on “Proclamation in Word and Work” has been scheduled for the first day, i.e. Easter Sunday. Hermann Schafft will most likely be the other speaker on this subject. It would be good if you could be with us already on Sunday and if you could bring somebody else from Sannerz with you—may be Emmy? We in Pirna will make our way up there already on Tuesday before Easter in order to get everything ready. I already know that “Rochs Castle” from a holiday excursion when I was an Unterprimaner (i.e. in the second highest class in high school) . It’s a real fairy tale castle! Would that all our days there turn out to be truly valuable! The number of participants is not going to be an obstacle. At the very most we figure on 60 persons.

Most likely Hans Kupfer will already have given you a report about everything. I hope he also wrote to you that the speakers will be reimbursed for the journey and other expenses. There has been constant correspondence between Pirna and Leipzig, as unforeseen difficulties have kept cropping up not just in connection with the preparation for the conference but in particular with respect to our play.

And now greetings to Sannerz! I am painfully aware of my laziness in writing to Sannerz; it represents gross ingratitude. My warmest greetings to all in Sannerz who know me, especially the children! Before long the Easter fires will flare!

In gratefulness

Your Max Weber

Please write to Hansli [TN: most likely Hans Kupfer] or to us, or, from Wednesday, April 8, to Castle Rochsburg.

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Fidaz, March 29, 1925

Dear Else.

Many thanks for what you wrote to me! The Zinzendorf word is a great one; however, fathoming and living it is still greater. First the whole nothingness of the ego has to be squashed to nothingness, to what one really is, bare of any illusions. That is possible only for someone bowed down by the tremendous burden of his guilt.

Before anything else, though, how are you doing? I hope you are really well again! Else, I am so looking forward to the publishing house! In four weeks we shall again be sitting and working together upstairs there! I would so like to know what you think of my financing schemes.

As regards that Zurich proposition, I have kept it in mind; but things will also work out all right without it. [TN: Probably a reference to the envisaged stay in Zurich mentioned in Curt’s letter to Eberhard of March 19].

Many greetings to Moni and thanks for her friendly lines!

Till we meet again! Your Curt.

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Fidaz, March 29, 1925

Dear Trudi,

Many thanks for your dear lines! Have you subscribed to those pictures of Switzerland? They are said to be excellent and very suitable for instruction purposes.

You can imagine how eagerly I look forward to seeing all of you again. It’s not going to take me long to find my way back into things; you needn’t worry about that. I have quite got used to the mountains here and am making frantic attempts to put them on paper—something known to go wrong if one can’t draw. What are the children doing? I am so looking forward to being with them!

And now: till we meet again!

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Fidaz, March 29, 1925

Dear Emmy

Your letter has given me great joy, and I thank you for it with all my heart. There is no need for you to worry about my health; the doctor says at the end of April I can safely travel back to you.

For me the time I spent here occasioned an inward gazing and growing whose essence and consequences I am not yet conscious of but which I am bound to come up against in my future work. Part of that gazing and growing is also that which inevitably had to occur here--in fact it’s precisely there that it had its origin. True, I have arrived at various thoughts about this or that; I believe , though, that I can still take time with working through it, being still too young and immature. The clarity one has at the age of 21 simply is not yet a comprehensive one. What I see as the right thing is to quietly wait and to guard the inward development.

I would so very much like to know how things are in Sannerz that I can hardly await the time!

With cordial greetings to all

Your Curt.

Many greetings particularly to Ludwig! Attenhofer did let him have information about ancient Indian literature. [TN: See reference to Sannerz teacher Ludwig Wedel and Mr. Attenhofer in Chur in Maria Arbenz’s letter of February 28 to Emmy Arnold.]

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Fidaz, March 30, 1925

Dear Eberhard,

I scarcely need to assure you that your letter has given me great joy. Getting news from Sannerz always means a holiday for me. Yes, many thanks for that fine letter and the books! The State by Oppenheimer comes to me at just the right time. I am presently poring over Foerster’s Political Ethics. I have really liked some parts of it while other parts have brought me close to exploding.

Otherwise I have been a “good boy” and hope the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” will go on being a “ good boy” (brave). You have no idea how happy this term “a good boy” has made me; it embodies such fatherly care and love/

I have started to read the Böhm . [TN: Obviously meaning Jacob Böhme]. Before advancing to a deeper understanding one has first to get a grasp of his peculiar way of expressing himself. Your brief comment on [TN: Oswald] Spengler is of great interest to me.

I am now constantly living in great joy as I look forward to my approaching journey home. What worries me is just the fare for the journey..

Well, before long we shall be able to converse by word of mouth. I am ever so much looking forward to that and already have a lot of material for it.

So long!

Your friend

Curt

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Sannerz, March 30, 1925

Dear Max Weber,

The dear letter of yours we received this morning has made us all very happy. All Sannerzers return your greetings and faithful remembrance. Yes, Hans Kupfer has kept us informed about the plans for the convention at the Rochsburg, and we joyfully look forward to it, for we very much hope we shall be able to come with several from here! What I would like best would be to bring along our whole core troop, who for years already have been manning our outpost here and who for the sake of the Saxon convention have been ready to forgo our own Easter conference at Sannerz:

Emmy (Arnold) Else (v. Hollander), Trudi (Dalgas-Hüssy), Moni (v. Hollander), Adolf (Braun) and Emi-Margret (Arnold-Zumpe). However, as befits the nature of our cause, we have no money for the journey nor are we entitled to let our current revenues supply us with such a sum. I have already written to Hans Kupfer and Karl Fried Hering and pleaded with them to try and raise some money in their circles so that by a united effort we get together the required sum (100-150 marks) needed to pay for the journey. And now I am also coming to you and ask: Could you and your friends possibly raise part of the money needed for the journey? .

We have taken a lively interest in all you write about your life and experiences and your family, and I very much look forward to having a personal chat with you before long. In the meantime we thank you and your friends for all the preparatory work you are already doing for the Rochsburg gathering

Hail and cordial greetings!

- - - - -

Dr. Hermann Buddensieg

Binau on Neckar

Editor of the Rufer zur Wende (“Call to Change”)

Binau, March 30, 1925

Dear Eberhard Arnold,

So far your writings have not yet reached me; nevertheless I would like to cordially thank you for your dear letter, from which I could derive the certainty of finding in you a friend and confederate.

Though at bottom I could really not imagine it to be otherwise, in my letter I nevertheless faced you with the fact of it having been put into print that “as the first speaker you would ‘take a decisive stand”. That sounds a bit venomous. I must quite openly confess to you that such an attitude always strikes me as truly grotesque. (I know it’s not your attitude.) You have to understand that at bottom all the Summoner to an About-face aims at is to put before the reader all the truths now being called into question; what matters is to plumb the “consensus sapientium”. We have spent years of tenacious work struggling to do just that. For nearly five years we have been living in almost monastic seclusion here in our Radendorf, and considering that it gives a downright comical impression when “a stand is being taken” against this ...ness [TN: first part of word illegible] of the Free-Germans’ human genius. You will surely feel the same. It’s hard to imagine how low they have actually sunk in some Free-German circles, how people have lost contact with any deep and ancient tradition--an attitude signaling the death of any truly fruitful strength. And, dear Eberhard Arnold, would that at the convention God grant me strength so that through me something of the grace of this insight might stream out onto the Free-Germans! I believe that in many things I am finding in you a helper.

O, I myself am only too well acquainted with the inward situation of the Free-Germans; I have tasted all needs to the very dregs, and any perceptive person will recognize that my essay on Free-Germanism represents at the same time a ruthless settling of accounts with myself as regards an epoch I nave inwardly done with.

For many years now I have concerned myself with a highly select group of exalted spirits; and there one learns to see with new eyes, and the “old things have passed away”. True, that also serves to thoroughly spoil one’s taste for “genuineness. [A Youth Movement shibboleth (TN)]. And this may also help to unriddle this or that in the “Summoner” that may strike the beginner as strange. To the practiced reader it is of value and he sees it similarly. Providing as it does a better understanding of civilization [possible meaning (TN)] our “Summoner” has made a deep impression among devout people as well as among highly cultured ones; to the autonomous buffoons it is, of course, an offense and to the apostles of progress a folly.

We are serving God in deep seclusion with the gifts He granted us in blessed hours as to men who would lovingly listen so as to hear the secret sounds of what is going on but who also, when it has to be, will fight with intrepidity against deceit and falsehood, against the Antichrist, however cunningly he might disguise himself. Well, all these things you will also gather from the “Summoner”. As to the short stories it brings I will still send you a prospectus I recently signed and also commented on.

Now still briefly something about the writings I sent you. There is first of all my poor [TN: illegible name of the book’s title hero] Please receive him with the love I wrote him with, about three years ago. With him I shared the days of that happy creativity—days when he would stand close to my desk, would look at me with his large eyes and often guide my hand—those were days when we rejoiced together and would also jointly curse. As long as I live I shall never forget those happy days. Perhaps I succeeded in bringing something of all that to expression in my work. It’s a book I still stand behind even today. True, I would probably change this or that in the style, above all also the philosophical view of history at its base. (The reader) will find everything in it to be like the Summoner—or, more precisely, like my own writings.

When you read the Wuttling, I would advise you to first read pages 1-34, then continue on p. 84 and conclude by reading the other pages. It’s just these sections , by the way, that readers have been specially pleased with, as they show how one can penetrate to a man’s core and essence by observing his speech. I am also sending you my essay about the Free-Germans. As compared with the earlier version printed n the “Summoner” this version has been augmented by about ten more pages, which I regard as important. The page numbering, too, differs a little because of a change on p. 13F [TN: ¿] And you should perhaps reread the two last sections as one whole--the way they now stand.

To end with, I also send you the “Summoner” numbers 3, 4, and 5 The article “About the coming Kingdom” will be of great interest to you as well as in number 5 the one about “Faith and Science” (a subject I always value highly, since it unfolds the principles guiding our research) and the one about “Understanding and Educating” Also Dr. Mückle’s essay about Goethe and Nietzsche is sure to captivate you.

You will surely have received my “guiding principles” in the circular letter; so you will be able to form an idea of what is to be presented I shall give a detailed explanation of those principles and leave the remainder to be dealt with in the ensuing discussion. After all every participant ought to have worked his way through the Summoner.

I must tell you quite openly that the contributions by Dr. E. A. Werner and Tansi Oelfken have given me a shock. Everybody is to be able to create “works of art”? How awful! And the bone-dry, completely depleted language of Tansi Oelfken, who is after all not a young girl! [meaning? (TN)] It made me shudder! This language makes a mockery of the blossoming movements of the human body she is so intent on awakening to life! Maybe you will harbor similar feelings. Wouldn’t it be possible to dampen things down a bit? Amidst those other two movements I feel like Moses among the bulrushes.

Well, I must come to an end now. Maybe you will still find time to write me a few lines. I joyfully look forward to meeting you and am full of good hopes. I also hope Sachse Freidenker will come; he has always been my faithful fellow fighter and helper whenever it was a question of disposing of prejudices.

By the way I just happen to be in Eisenach at present, i.e. with my father:

Eisenach, Markt 5.

You really must let me know when exactly you will arrive in Eisenach! Joyfully looking forward to a cordial meeting with you and your friends

Your Hermann Buddensieg

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Sannerz, PO Sterbfritz

March 31, 1925

Dear Elisabeth Biemann,

We are joyfully looking forward to your arrival! Since several of us will not be here at Easter—we shall be attending a Neuwerk convention in Saxony—it suits us fine if you come to us only on the 16th, for we would all like to be here to welcome you. Your dear letter has made us happy; we all send you heartfelt greetings!

On behalf of the whole Sannerz house community

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[Mid-March 1925]

Highly esteemed Mrs. Arnold,

Enclosed you will find the final instalment payment for Sigrid’s board and lodging. Please excuse the delay in payment, It is due to a misunderstanding: I had asked somebody to send the money and expected it to be long since in your hands. I also enclose the money for Sigi’s train journey. Sigrid arrived here in good spirits, but on the following Sunday she was no good for anything; she was still under the spell of Sannerz. Now she is happy again, but every second word she says is “Sannerz”. I am still not quite sure just when she is to travel on, but presumably very soon.

Once again hearty thanks to the whole house community there, especially to you and your husband, for all your loving-kindness toward Sigrid. Every moment it’s some other member of the house community that Sigi “likes best of all”.

With many cordial greetings

Your Else Vogel.