Bruderhof Communities

The Bruderhof (ˈbruːdərˌhɔːf; 'place of brothers') is an Anabaptist Christian movement that was founded in Germany in 1920 by Eberhard Arnold. The movement has communities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Paraguay, and Australia. The Bruderhof practises believer's baptism, non-violence and peacemaking, common ownership, the proclamation of the gospel, and lifelong faithfulness in marriage. The Bruderhof is an intentional community as defined by the Fellowship for Intentional Community. The communities are best known by the name "Bruderhof" or sometimes "Bruderhof Communities", although "Bruderhof" is the name used on their website. The communities are legally incorporated in the US as Church Communities International. Their corporation used to be called The Society of Brothers (1939 to 1978). Bruderhof maintained connections with the traditional Hutterite Church, from which they broke in 1995. The word "Bruderhof" was first used by the early Anabaptists in Moravia. , there are 26 Bruderhof communities. The word Bruderhof was first used by the Hutterites to refer to their communities in Moravia and then in other areas as the movement expanded. In the 1920s, Eberhard Arnold developed a growing interest in the Hutterites, and his first written reference to the community at Sannerz as a Bruderhof appears in letter from 1926, indicating an initial identification with the Hutterite movement. Nazi Dissolution of the Bruderhof The Bruderhof was founded in Germany in 1920 by Eberhard Arnold, a philosophy student and intellectual inspired by the German Youth Movement and his wife Emmy, née von Hollander. In 1920, the young family with five children rented a house in Sannerz, Hesse, and founded a Christian community. When the group outgrew the house at Sannerz, they moved to the nearby Rhön Mountains. While there, Arnold discovered that the Hutterites (an Anabaptist movement he had studied with great interest) were still in existence in North America. In 1930, he traveled to meet the Hutterites and was ordained as a Hutterian minister.