Arnold, Emmy (1884–1980)

German-born leader of the Bruderhof movement Born Emmy von Hollander in 1884 in Riga, Latvia; married Eberhard Arnold, in December 1909; children.

With her husband, founded a small Christian commune they called the Bruderhof (1920); fled to Great Britain after persecution by the Nazis (1930s); in Britain, the group sheltered Jewish refugees; after the war, members of the Bruderhof immigrated to Paraguay and then to upstate New York.

Emmy von Hollander was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1884. As Germans in the Russian Empire, the von Hollanders lived a comfortable life. Emmy's father was a law professor, and the family was both financially well off and highly respected in the community. But life changed dramatically after the turn of the century when the German minority in the Romanov Empire's Baltic provinces was increasingly subjected to a harsh policy of forced Russification. Determined to maintain their German identity, the family moved to Germany where Emmy's father continued his academic career in the city of Halle an der Saale. In 1908, Emmy von Hollander met her future husband there, an intense young man named Eberhard Arnold.

Eberhard Arnold came from a very religious family. His American paternal great-grandfather, John Arnold, had come under the influence of Charles G. Finney, an American frontier revivalist, who believed that Christianity was a faith that had to be experienced not only in theory but also in practice. Eberhard's grandparents, Franklin Luther Arnold and Maria Ramsauer Arnold , had left America to work as missionaries in Africa. His father Carl Franklin Arnold was professor of church history at the University of Breslau. Eberhard himself was born in Breslau (modern-day Wroclaw, Poland) in 1883. While only a child, he criticized what he considered to be his parents' extravagant entertaining. The Salvation Army was his model as an authentic expression of Christian fellowship. At age 16, deeply influenced by his distant relative Ernst Ferdinand Klein, a Lutheran pastor with a strong sense of social justice, Eberhard dedicated his life to creating a more just social order through Christianity.

Emmy fell in love with Eberhard shortly after they met. Both were searching for an experience beyond conventional religion. Both were impressed by the Anabaptist tradition found in the numerically small, but theologically vibrant, Mennonite and Hutterite churches around Halle an der Saale. They were baptized in this tradition, a step that disqualified Eberhard from teaching theology or holding a pastoral office in the Lutheran Church. Dropping his plans to finish a degree in theology, he switched to philosophy and completed a dissertation on Friedrich Nietzsche in November 1909. In December of that year, he and Emmy were married. Eberhard lectured for the Student Christian Movement during the next few years.

World War I convinced these two young idealistic Christians that they were pacifists. By the early 1920s, both were meeting with German, Swiss, and other Christian pacifists with a goal to create a Christian community in a world shattered by four years of war and revolution. In the last months of 1920, Emmy, her husband, and a nucleus of fellow believers founded a small Christian commune in the village of Sannerz-Schlüchtern, near Fulda. By the middle of 1922, this community had grown to 40 members. The Arnolds called their new society the Bruderhof; it would be the focus of their lives from that point forward.

Emmy Arnold played a central role during the Bruderhof's formative years. Busy as a wife and mother, she devoted a great deal of time to molding her life in accordance with the Scriptures and to working to free the community from a life of greed and materialism. Self-sufficiency was the group's first goal. In order to support the community, the society relied on printing, publishing, and providing reliable childcare as a way to pay their expenses. To spread the message of their successful experiment in Christian communal living, Eberhard Arnold went on many lecture trips, including several to the United States in the early 1930s. In his absence, Emmy functioned as the first among equals, providing strong but often unspoken leadership through the power of example. Known in later years as the First Bruderhof, she helped forge a working Christian community.

With the Nazis' ascension to power in 1933, members of the Christian pacifist community were living on borrowed time. Members of the Bruderhof knew Hitler's German Reich would never tolerate a group preaching love and peace, no matter how numerically small that group might be. Increasingly, the Bruderhof's society depended on Emmy's energy and willpower. Eberhard's health was already seriously impaired due to a leg injury that had crippled him, and he was often unable to provide the leadership so desperately needed by his disciples.

At eight o'clock on the morning of November 16, 1933, a contingent of 140 brown-troopers and plainclothes Gestapo officials arrived at the Bruderhof. Emmy held them at bay while her sister Else burned incriminating papers in the stove. During the search, her husband lay on the couch, his injured leg in a cast. After a day spent searching the premises, the Nazis left late that night with a large carload of books and papers.

For several years the Bruderhof had supported itself through its publishing house and printing activities. After the Gestapo raid, this source of income was cut off. Emmy Arnold realized it would not be long before the Gestapo arrived to take the Bruderhof's children, including her own. The children were quickly evacuated to Switzerland, shortly before a new Nazi schoolmaster arrived in the village in January 1934. By this time there were no children for him to indoctrinate. Knowing that members of the religious community soon would be rounded up and sent to concentration camps, Emmy Arnold began plans to relocate the Bruderhof.

In 1935, Eberhard died as a result of complications from surgery. Undeterred by her husband's unexpected death, Emmy made plans to move the community out of Germany, and, by 1936, she had devised a detailed plan for a move to England. In 1937, the Nazis demanded that all eligible male members of the Bruderhof present themselves to authorities for military service, a move totally unacceptable to devout pacifists. In light of recent developments, Emmy decided to move the community to the tiny alpine principality of Liechtenstein, located between Austria and Switzerland. Their sojourn was brief, however, as the Nazis annexed Austria in March 1938, threatening the group's security. On the eve of World War II, led by Emmy Arnold, members of the Bruderhof immigrated to Great Britain as an intact group.

The war years were hard in Britain for the exiles. But despite their difficulties, the Bruderhof managed not only to sustain members of the community but also to provide shelter for many Jewish refugees from the Nazi terror. Later, many Jews who lived with the group said the communal experience was an influence when they founded Israeli kibbutzim.

At war's end, the Bruderhof, led by Arnold, decided to emigrate again. First, they went to Paraguay and later to upstate New York. In the rural environment of Rifton, New York, the group prospered spiritually as well as materially, doubling their population in a single generation. Emmy Arnold remained the group's spiritual inspiration, never abandoning the goal that "Humankind waits for the day when all will be one." The 20th century witnessed many religiously based social experiments; few were as successful as the one led by Emmy Arnold.

sources:

Arnold, Emmy, and Eberhard Arnold. Seeking for the Kingdom of God: Origins of the Bruderhof Communities. Selected and edited from earlier sources and memories by Heini and Annemarie Arnold. Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing, 1974.

——. Torches Together: The Beginning and Early Years of the Bruderhof Communities. Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing, 1971.

——, and Annemarie Arnold. From Hitler Germany to Paraguay 1937–1941. Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing, 1982.

Hüssy, Gertrud. A Joyful Pilgrimage: Emmy Arnold 1884–1980. Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing, 1980.

Oved, Yaacov. Witness of the Brothers: A History of the Bruderhof. Translated by Anthony Berris. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1995.

Yoder, John Howard, and the Hutterian Society of Brothers. God's Revolution: The Witness of Eberhard Arnold. Preface by Malcolm Muggeridge. Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press, 1984.

John Haag , Associate Professor of History, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia