Pacifists in Chains
Subtitle: The Persecution of Hutterites during the Great War
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: November 12, 2013
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 296
ISBN-13: 9781421411279
Description: To Hutterites and members of other pacifist sects, serving the military in any way goes against the biblical commandment "thou shalt not kill" and Jesus’s admonition to turn the other cheek when confronted with violence. Pacifists in Chains tells the story of four young men―Joseph Hofer, Michael Hofer, David Hofer, and Jacob Wipf―who followed these beliefs and refused to perform military service in World War I. The men paid a steep price for their resistance, imprisoned in Alcatraz and Fort Leavenworth, where the two youngest died. The Hutterites buried the men as martyrs, citing mistreatment.
Using archival material, letters from the four men and others imprisoned during the war, and interviews with their descendants, Duane C. S. Stoltzfus explores the tension between a country preparing to enter into a world war and a people whose history of martyrdom for their pacifist beliefs goes back to their sixteenth-century Reformation beginnings.
Table of contents: title: Preface; title: Acknowledgments; title: Timelines; label: Chapter One
title: Called to Duty; label: Chapter Two
title: Forced Migrations; label: Chapter Three
title: A Nation Rises Up; label: Chapter Four
title: Standing Trial; label: Chapter Five
title: The Dungeons of Alcatraz; label: Chapter Six
title: Enemy on the Home Front; label: Chapter Seven
title: Midnight at Leavenworth; label: Chapter Eight
title: Outside Advocates; label: Chapter Nine
title: Official Misjudgment; title: Epilogue; title: Notes; title: Bibliography; title: Index