This led to discussions on different forms of government. “One thing that strikes me,” Eberhard said, “is that for the future state Jesus is not proclaimed as president of the republic of God, but as the coming king.”11
But one gets the impression that under the tyrannical despotism of the present government, one can no longer rely on any law. What Hannes says is right: the limits of the law have been overstepped by a monarch—not merely a monarch, but a tyrant, who can do as he wishes without any constitutional restraints.
If we look back to the time when we enjoyed the protection of the government (whereas now we can definitely expect persecution) I believe that in the Social Democrats [the previous government] there was a genuine respect for human rights. In this sense I am convinced that Social Democracy was better, more just, more devoted to freedom than the National Socialist Party. That is absolutely clear. It really is politics of the dirtiest kind that treads the law underfoot, a wickedness that cries to heaven, a revolting, lawless frivolity.
I can well imagine that a Swiss feels very deep pain on having to see and feel this around him. A religious feeling of reverence for life is injured. Consequently it comes to a point where he feels a kind of nostalgia about a democracy such as that in Switzerland. He also feels a certain obligation to protest now in the name of this relatively better thing against something that is much worse. It is good for us to be reminded of this.
However, we must see that even in the cruelest tyrants there is a certain amount of honest idealism. So too, in Hitler and Mussolini there is high idealism, a sacrificing of self so that the different classes can be leveled. Hitler has the idea he can set up a real community. We must realize that this is idealism, devotion to a high goal. But the means are evil, they are means of suppression, enslavement. It seems important to me that after we have recognized very clearly the relative differences between good and bad forms of government, we must also see that the wildest, most tyrannical violence by the state evidences to an intense degree something that is also evident in the best, noblest, most purified form of government: rapacious violence. We must not forget that in the Revelation of Jesus Christ the church that rules by wealth and might is designated as the harlot, and the state as the beast of prey from the abyss. (This includes the best form of government as well as the worst form.) And the connection is Babylon, which must be overthrown on the Last Day when God judges.12
Hannes Boller, a Swiss who had been inspired by Leonhard Ragaz, had trouble understanding what Eberhard said about finding something positive in National Socialism. He and Adolf Braun exchanged some sharp words. That night Hannes asked to be excused from the united prayer until he could honestly agree with everybody. Instead of excluding him, the brotherhood did not pray together.
The next morning, May 28, at 5:00, gunshots shattered the silence. Arno Martin, looked out the window—his baby daughter had woken from the noise. About sixty storm troopers were firing their rifles in the fields next to the community buildings. He called out to them to be quiet, that there were children sleeping. “No one should be sleeping at this time of day!” the storm troopers retorted. Some of them came into the yard and the barn and demanded to be shown the print shop. When they left, they trampled through the hayfield.
In the evening the brotherhood met again. Hannes felt terrible that at such a moment he had hindered the unity of the group. Eberhard encouraged him: “If in a moment you get worked up and cannot pull yourself together, it is right to do what Hannes has done. I do not know how you could have done better. For us it is better to wait for the prayer.”13
Brothers and sisters continued discussing what attitude to take. Georg Barth spoke. “We reject Ragaz’s one-sided view; our goal is a different one. We seek the way of love. We cannot put ourselves above those to whom we wish to speak. We are all children of one Father.”
“There is a key to every human heart, and this key is the key to understanding. Only we have not yet found it,” Eberhard said. Love, not politics, was the Christian response.
We will not join a democratic party. We represent neither the politics of National Socialism and German patriotism, . . . nor those of the League of Nations whose negotiations demonstrate that politics and capitalism rule beneath the veneer of high ideals. Because of that we cannot say that the League of Nations has the same task that has been assigned to us.
The ideals of National Socialism are neither great nor original, but that is no reason for us to look down on them. Everything Hitler says today is familiar to us from its more idealistic form in the youth movement. What I read somewhere is true: there could be no Hitler without the youth movement. He is indebted to it for its wealth of ideas.
What are the National Socialist ideals? A national community of one blood, nation, and race. Within this people’s community there should be no degrading inequalities based on status or class. All social levels are to enjoy equal rights . . . The intellectuals should no longer look down on the uneducated. Employers should not treat their workers as though they were only figures on a balance sheet. The oppressed class, in particular the factory workers, should not feel hatred toward the upper class and call for a class war . . . They call this concept socialism, which is, of course, a misnomer. Under true socialism the oppressed class is given material help; the Nazis do not give that help . . .
Of course, in stark contrast to this lofty idea there are, exactly as with the Marxist communists, horrifying facts, which cry to heaven. That is quite clear to us. We want to be fair, however, and declare that in spite of these facts we do not reject the ideals. We want to appreciate the people holding them and show them that we love them just as much as we loved the petty communists in [our neighboring village]. They are the same people and have the same hearts. We will not let ourselves be deceived by the change in outer forms. They have not turned into another type of people. They are people with the same human feelings as before, they have only delivered themselves up to another leadership. But that is no reason for us to deny them our love or refuse our service . . .
We must be given the attitude not to convert a man until we love him. But you can love a man only when you have understood what is living in him. I do not truly love my fellowman if I have not understood with my whole heart what is holiest and loftiest to him . . .
We have to meet the Nazis and the now oppressed communists with exactly that same attitude. After we have found that inner understanding, we have to represent the politics of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. That is our stand, which contradicts that of Ragaz.
After coming to a heart-to-heart exchange with the Nazis, when we confront them with the policy of the coming kingdom of God, we are going to collide sharply with them . . . The Nazi ideal is fragmentary; and their practice is utterly contrary to the goal of the kingdom of God.
We represent the conquest of the earth for the peace of Jesus Christ . . . We must challenge the Nazis as well as the communists to consider what true community really means and to ask themselves if they should not pursue that goal too. That’s why it is so important that in our daily practical work . . . we truly act as brothers and sisters. Above all, we must demonstrate in our whole life the perfect unanimity of true comradeship and community, so that despite the weaknesses of human inadequacy that are always with us, a little of this unity will shine through. We will not fight for the Third Reich. We shall fight for the final Reich, God’s kingdom, and for nothing else!14
When Eberhard went to call on the district administrator’s office in Fulda to report the ugly early-morning incident, he was startled to find that his good friend Baron von Gagern had been moved to Melsungen near Kassel. There, higher Nazi officials could presumably keep a closer eye on him; he had been replaced as district administrator by Dr. Burkhardt, a former veterinary