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Society for the Study of Brethren History in Germany

In 1995, historians from Brethren assemblies in Germany convened to found a Society for the Study of Brethren History in Germany (Arbeitskreis Geschichte der Brüderbewegung).

The aims of the Society are:

1. to establish and run an archive with documents from the Brethren movement in Germany,
2. to publish literature in the field of Brethren history, and
3. to organize conferences on topics related to the history of the Brethren.

Members of the Society belong to different wings of the German Brethren movement. They are faculty members of Wiedenest Bible College (Rhineland) or other individuals interested in research on the Brethren movement. The Society meets twice a year.

The archive is located on the campus of Wiedenest Bible College in the town of Bergneustadt, not far from Cologne. It contains books and pamphlets that were mainly written by members of the assemblies in Germany. In addition, there are more specialized sections in the library which are relevant for research, for example the Erich Sauer Archive, a collection of Brethren journals, material on the Brethren in the Third Reich, files with manuscripts, typescripts etc. The archive is open for the public (contact the archivist, Susanne Borner).

The Society edits a special series of books on Brethren history. They are published by Jota Publikationen in Hammerbrücke, Germany.

In the past years, we organized two conferences, both at Wiedenest Bible College. One conference, in 1998, was in memory of Erich Sauer, well-known lecturer at Wiedenest and author of many books, the other, in 2000, in memory of John Nelson Darby. In 2003, we were involved in a larger conference in Dillenburg that was held to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the German Brethren movement. In 2005, we hosted the Second International Brethren History Conference.

The Brethren movement in Germany started in Wuppertal-Elberfeld in 1853. Some earlier assemblies in the areas of Dillenburg and Rhineland later joined this “Exclusive” wing of the movement, which became the largest Brethren group in Germany. The movement became well-known by its own Bible translation, the Elberfelder Bibel, edited by John Nelson Darby, Carl Brockhaus and Julius Anton von Poseck, who later emigrated to England. The beginning of the “Open Brethren” movement is not easy to date because there were many forerunners in the field of “Evangelical Alliance assemblies” who later became Open Brethren, for example in Berlin, Dresden, and Bad Homburg. The Bible College founded in Berlin in 1905 (moved to Wiedenest in 1919) became a centre of the Open Brethren movement. In 1937, the Nazi government closed down the Exclusive Brethren assemblies in Germany. In the same year, under the pressure of the regime, the Exclusive assemblies formed the Bund freikirchlicher Christen, which was also joined by the Open Brethren. In 1942, together with the Baptists, they founded the Bund Evangelisch-Freikirchlicher Gemeinden, while some assemblies met in hiding outside this union. After the War, more than half of the Brethren assemblies left the union with the Baptists and started the Freie Brüdergruppe, others joined the “secret Brethren” of the Nazi period to re-establish the group of the Exclusive Brethren.

For more information, contact Dr. Gerd Goldmann. See also www.bruederbewegung.de.