Re: Halle

Bruderhof News wrote:

> That fall semester marked his first as a student in this imposing city
> on the Saale River. In the university’s attendance register,
> Eberhard’s address appears in his own hand: Albrechtstrasse 13. Three
> floors up in that apartment building was the home of Heinrich Voigt,
> Elisabeth Arnold’s younger brother. Eberhard’s uncle was a
> quintessential scholar right out of a picture book: doctor of
> theology, guest member of the scientific academy in Prague, and an
> associate professor of church history in Halle since 1894. He was also
> an eccentric, unsociable bachelor, who was sensitive to noise and had
> weak nerves. But he possessed a deep faith – and golden fingers.
> 

Playing the piano and organ compositions of Gluck, Mendelssohn, and 
Schubert, as well as chorales from the Reformation and hymns from the 
English revival movement, helped him overcome his loneliness. And now he 
had his nephew to keep him company.

For Eberhard this was in all respects a favorable place to live. At the 
YMCA just around the corner in the Geiststrasse was the meeting room used 
by the SCM every Thursday evening at 8:30. Fifteen minutes on foot along 
the Friedrichstrasse took him to the university. The Rosenthal Mission 
House, located on a side street behind the theater, was only a ten-minute 
walk. But his uncle’s home lacked the hospitality of his parents’ house in

Breslau. Heinrich Voigt had been granted a sabbatical during the winter 
term 1905–1906 in order to write his book The Oldest Accounts of the 
Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A Critical-Historical Examination. Hosting 
visitors was out of the question. However, the professor was quite content

to have his nephew available in the evenings for conversation or a game of

chess. On those occasions, for better or for worse, Eberhard had to cancel

his own plans and let his fellow students go out without him.