ABSTRACT
The pacifist communitarian sect, known formally as the ‘Society of Brothers’, and more colloquially as the ‘Bruderhof, today consists of three communities in the eastern United States, which together have a total population of between eight and nine hundred persons. In the half century of its existence, the sect has at various times established now defunct communities in Germany, Liechtenstein, England, Paraguay and Uruguay. The original community was founded in Germany in 1920 by Eberhard Arnold, who led the group until his death in 1935, and whose religious teachings and heirs continue to dominate the Society of Brothers.
