Each year, at this time, I celebrate Armistice Day with a post. I remember that this is the one great international shared military commemoration, which honours the coming of peace and the end of mass insanity.

The craziness is bare and stark in the story of Joseph, Michael, and David Hofer, and their brother-in-law, Jacob Wipf. They were Hutterites, the forebears of a community which befriended National Geographic writer William Allard.

“Darius, 65, is sitting in his place at the kitchen table. A couple of years my junior, he’s one of my best friends. Bearded, as married Hutterite men must be, Darius wears the suspenders Hutterite males of all ages wear. He’s heavier than he once was, and more flushed in the face, but he has the full head of silvery hair and the twinkling eyes, warm smile, and keen sense of humor of his late father, Eli, the colony preacher when I first arrived. From his kitchen seat, Darius can look out white-curtained windows across the lawn to a bird feeder and clotheslines. Women’s long dresses, skirts, and white blouses, and men’s black pants, white socks, and plaid shirts—and all of that again in children’s sizes—billow in the fall breeze. Just beyond the yard is a dirt road that threads past the colony’s frame houses and nicely appointed trailer homes, the community kitchen and dining room, the church. Running parallel to Surprise Creek, it passes gardens, weathered wooden sheep barns, and stubble fields touched with the first green of winter wheat, then points toward the distant Little Belt Mountains, their upper reaches white with snow.”

The Hutterites are a devout Christian Anabaptist sect which was created by Austrian peasants in the early sixteenth century. Since then, they have wandered the earth, driven from place to place because they are absolute and uncompromising pacifists. They are also strongly communal, working land and enterprise together, owning almost nothing individually, under the guidance of a Minister. Unlike some other sects, they tolerate machinery, though rarely for entertainment. Women are formally subservient to men, and they are largely self-sufficient. They speak a unique dialect of German.

In the 1870’s, eighteen thousand Hutterites came to Dakota and Montana to escape the conscription laws in Russia. As America slowly moved into World War One, the Hutterites became more and more conspicuous. They spoke German, and they refused implacably to make any contribution to the war effort. But they did obey the new conscription law, and send their young men to military camp, where they completely refused to wear uniforms, do army work, or obey orders.

“For forty-five years they lived in relative peace. But that peace was shattered by Wilson’s Conscription Act, and by the summer of 1918, four Hutterites living in South Dakota had been drafted into the Army against their will. Joseph, Michael, and David Hofer were blood-brothers. Together with a brother-in-law, Jacob Wipf, they were ordered to report to Camp Lewis, Washington, on May 25. Because they objected to military service on grounds of conscience, however, they refused to cooperate with even the basic induction procedures, and were thus considered to be military prisoners subject to military discipline. Persecution began immediately.”

By December 2nd, Michael and Joseph Hofer were dead. Michael was buried in the army uniform he had died to resist. As news of the brutality leaked out, David was abruptly released, but Jacob was kept and tormented more, even though the war had been over for a month.

“When two Hutterites visited him at Leavenworth five days later, they found him in solitary confinement, his hands still chained to the iron bars for nine hours a day. He was still receiving a diet of bread and water and sleeping on a concrete floor, although he had been given several blankets. In a message sent home to his family, he wrote:

‘Sometimes I envy the three who have already been delivered from their pain. Then I think: why is the hand of the Lord so heavy upon me? I have always tried to be faithful and hardworking and hardly ever made any trouble for the brotherhood. Why must only I continue to suffer? But then there is joy, too, so that I could weep for joy when I think that the Lord considers me worthy to suffer a little for his sake. And I have to confess that, compared with our previous experiences, the life here is like in a palace.’

…. Jacob Wipf remained behind bars for four more months and was finally released on April 13, 1919, after being hospitalized for a brief illness.

But the deaths of the two Hofer brothers could not be so easily forgotten, and by the end of the year, the great majority of Hutterite colonies had emigrated to Canada to escape further persecution – including vandalism by their neighbors because of their refusal to buy war bonds.

The whole story, in all its terrible detail, is told at The Plough, a website for a Christian publisher.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 11th, 2007 at 1:38 am and is filed under history. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.