Relocation of the German Bruderhof to England, South America, and North America

ONE OF THE MANY fascinating developments in the long history -now nearing half a millennium-of the Hutterian Brethren is their association since 1930 with the Society of Brothers, often referred to as the Bruderhof movement.Although not without strains, leading in fact to a rupture in relations in the 1950s, healed in 1974, the linkage of the venerable communitarians dating from 1528 with the modern communal group is a significant chapter in the story of Hutterites in the 20th century. 1 Founded in 1920 by the German Protestant author, editor, and evangelist Eberhard Arnold (1883-1935), the Bruderhof movement was part of the larger reaction of religiously concerned persons in the wake of post-World War I disillusionment.It was guided in its development by discovery of the witness of the Hutterian Brethren of 16th century Moravia.This was at first entirely a matter of historical investigation and study; to the astonishment of Arnold and his colleagues, they learned that Hutterites were alive and well in North America.This led to a year-long trip (from May, 1930 to May, 1931) by Eberhard Arnold to visit all of the Hutterian colonies in the northwestern states of the United States and the western provinces of Canada.Arnold was accepted as a brother and then ordained Donald F. Durnbaugh is the Carl W. Ziegler professor of religion and history at the Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.1.The latest description of the Society of Brothers, which includes the story of the separation from and later reconciliation with the Hutterian Brethren, is D.