SYMPATHIZERS?

Charges and Denials

Whether there are direct connections between Anthroposophy and Nazism is a subject of heated debate. Certainly there are affinities between the two ideologies, especially their racial views and the tenet that some apparent human beings are actually subhuman.

Peter Staudenmaier has offered this overview: “Anthroposophy as Steiner taught it focused crucially on ideas like ‘the German spirit’ and ‘the German soul’ and ‘the German essence’ and ‘the German mission’ and so forth. These same concepts were central to several versions of Nazi thought as well. Nazis often found worldviews like Anthroposophy too flighty, too woolly, too religious, not political enough, while Anthroposophists often found Nazism too political, too materialist, not spiritual enough. But some Nazis had notably positive attitudes toward Anthroposophy, and some Anthroposophists enthusiastically greeted the rise of Nazism.” [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/message/9771 ] 

According to Staudenmeir, one faction in the Nazi government supported Anthroposophy; he also asserts that some Anthroposophists engaged in Nazi political activities. A major example of the latter: “Friedrich Benesch (1907-1991) was a leading figure in the Christian Community, the forthrightly religious arm of Anthroposophy ... Benesch is a generally revered figure in Anthroposophical circles ...  [A]n article by historian Johan Böhm ... reviews Benesch’s early career as a radical Nazi activist ...  [F]rom 1934 to 1945 Benesch was a leader in the more extremist wing of the regional Nazi party....” [Peter Staudenmaier, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/messages/1571 . Böhm’s article is “Friedrich Benesch: Naturwissenschaftler, Anthropologe, Theologe und Politiker” Halbjahresschrift für südosteuropäische Geschichte, Literatur und Politik, vol. 16 no. 1 (May 2004).]

Arguing that there were no connections between Anthroposophy and Nazism under Hitler, Anthroposophists sometimes claim that the Nazis closed all the Waldorf schools in Germany. Staudenmaier rebuts this, saying “All of the Waldorf schools in Germany were eventually closed during the Nazi era, though most of them were not directly closed by the Nazis ... The only Waldorf schools that were actually closed by the Nazi authorities were the Stuttgart school in 1938 and the Dresden school in 1941.” [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/message/1569 .] Staudenmaier has also written that the last remaining Waldorf school in Germany did not shut its doors until eight years into the Nazis’ twelve-year reign. Moreover, he has contended, the Nazis permitted Waldorfs to continue operating in the occupied countries throughout the war. [Staudenmeir, “Waldorf in the Nazi Era,” 2004, www.waldorfcritics.org .] 

Some sources say that Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy führer, was an Anthroposophist, but this claim is vigorously denied by Steiner’s supporters [www.defendingsteiner.com/pers/Hess.php ] and the evidence does not seem conclusive. Both Hitler and Hess were occultists, although to varying degrees. See Goodrick-Clarke, THE OCCULT ROOTS OF NAZISM: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology (NYU Press, 1992).

The hostility some Nazis displayed toward Anthroposophy may have arisen from the similarities between Nazism and Anthroposophy, not from fundamental differences: Some members of the SD and Gestapo feared that occult movements like Anthroposophy would prove to be potent competitors to Nazi ideology. [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/messages/6061 .]

One source says that Hitler enjoyed reading Steiner’s works: “In discussing Hitler’s favorite reading, especially in his youth, mention should be made of what Ernst Pretzsche remembered of Hitler’s browsing (not buying) in his Vienna bookshop. Apart from the usual Nietzsche-Wagner material, he liked Rudolf Steiner and especially the racist diatribes of Georg Lanz von Liebenfels.” [cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/index.php?p=3896 ]. Goodrick-Clarke casts doubt on this account, writing that no one named Pretzsche lived in Vienna at that time (ascertaining this would be difficult, but not, perhaps, impossible). [THE OCCULT ROOTS OF NAZISM, p. 223]. Hitler once referred to Steiner disparagingly (see below), disputing some of Steiner’s social/governmental ideas. [ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/messages/7596 ] Steiner apparently never spoke of Hitler on the record. [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/messages/9786 ]

Steiner’s first headquarters, a wooden structure, was destroyed by fire. Anthroposophists have blamed Nazi arsonists, but the charge is, at best, unproven. [www.forteantimes.com ] Likewise, one of Steiner’s lectures was disrupted by agitators whom Anthroposophists labeled Nazis; but the culprits actually seem to have been members of a different far-right group. [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/messages/9787] 

Some Anthroposophists have unquestionably been Fascists or Fascist sympathizers. One example is the Italian Fascist Ettore Martinoli, who was a founder of the Italian Anthroposophical Society. Martinoli wrote, “Rudolf Steiner was a true ideal precursor of the new Europe of Mussolini and of Hitler. [My aim] has been to reclaim the spirit and character of this great modern German mystic for the movement ... introduced into the world by the two parallel revolutions, the Fascist revolution and the National Socialist [i.e., Nazi] revolution, to which Steiner ideally belongs as a true predecessor and spiritual pioneer.” [See Staudenmaier: http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/Anthroposophy-and-Fascism-in-Italy.html.] Of course, Anthroposophists today would argue that Martinoli misunderstood or misrepresented Steiner. 

Steiner’s statements about Jews and Judaism are inconsistent — he seems to have passed through an anti-Semitic phase, then a mildly philo-Semitic phase, before returning again to anti-Semitism. In general, he taught that Jews performed a valuable service in paving the way for the Messiah, but thereafter history had no further use for either Judaism or the Jewish people. Hitler’s disparagement of Steiner, mentioned earlier, involved the assertion that Steiner was controlled by Jews: “Who is the driving force behind all this devilishness? The Jew! The friend of Doctor Rudolf Steiner....” [Adolf Hitler, “Staatsmänner oder Nationalverbrecher?” (Völkischer Beobachter, Mar. 15, 1921.)] This blast tells us little about Hitler’s true opinion of Steiner: In any debate, Hitler was likely to associate the other party with Jews; he was, moreover, capable of turning viciously on his allies, as when he ordered the murder of many supporters on the Night of the Long Knives. Clearly, tying Steiner to “the Jew” was a canard. Steiner was on good terms with some Jews, but he also spread anti-Semitic stereotypes: “The Jews have a great gift for materialism, but little for recognition of the spiritual world.” [Rudolf Steiner, FROM BEETROOT TO BUDDHISM (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999), p. 59.]

As to whether some people are subhuman, Steiner said "[C]ases are increasing in which children are born with a human form, but are not really human beings in relation to their highest I [i.e., a human spiritual identity]; instead, they are filled with beings that do not belong to the human class. Quite a number of people have been born since the nineties [the 1890s] without an I, that is, they are not reincarnated, but are human forms filled with a sort of natural demon. There are quite a large number of older people going around who are actually not human beings, but are only natural; they are human beings only in regard to their form ... “I do not like to talk about such things since we have often been attacked even without them. Imagine what people would say if they heard that we say there are people who are not human beings. Nevertheless, these are facts. Our culture would not be in such a decline if people felt more strongly that a number of people are going around who, because they are completely ruthless, have become something that is not human, but instead are demons in human form ... Such things are really shocking to people. I caused enough shock when I needed to say that a very famous university professor, after a very short period between death and rebirth, was reincarnated as a black scientist. We do not want to shout such things out into the world.” [Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), pp. 649-650.]

For what little my own opinion is worth, I think Steiner was a man of his times, sharing some of the prejudices of his times. His occultism also led him to form a theory of human evolution that, consistent with views held by many in his day, involved higher and lower human races and even the existence of subhumans. Many of Steiner's statements on these matters are far more shocking to us today than they were at the time he made them. Steiner was not a Nazi, but some of his opinions are repellant to us now.

I don't want to provide any assistance to Anthroposophists as they pursue Steiner's occult agenda, but I think it is clear that they would do well to clearly renounce all forms of racism, not only in their own lives but also in Steiner's works. The same goes, of course, for the hideous proposition that some people are not really human beings. The only moral course for Anthroposophists to take is to assert that, whether or not Steiner was right on other subjects, on these subjects he was wrong and we repudiate his teachings on these subjects without reservation.

— Roger Rawlings

[R.R., ~ 1968;

created during a period of mourning.]

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AFTERWORD

Some commentators have linked the rise of Anthroposophy with the rise of other fringe movements in Germany after World War I, when the German people were oppressed by social forces that engendered a kind of national hysteria. “Extraordinary phenomena [related to hysteria] ... were numerous during the post-War years — e.g., the curious 'healer' of Hamburg, Häuser, who was followed by immense crowds; the Bibelforscher (Bible Students) who raised tides of adventistic emotion in Silesia and elsewhere; and Rudolph [sic] Steiner, the anthropologist [sic], who built houses resembling trees; etc.” [Adolf Hitler, MEIN KAMPF (Reynal & Hitchcock, 1940 - copyright 1939, Houghton Mifflin, published by arrangement with Houghton Mifflin), footnote on p. 467.]

A recent news commentary draws similar parallels: “The idea of a racial soul, operating at a preconscious ‘blood’ level, will be familiar to students of Germany's Völkisch [nationalist/racist] movement — which provided much of the ideological impetus for national socialism [Nazism]. This was a huge cultural tendency, which also gave rise to such things as Steiner schools and biodynamic farming, and many neo-Völkisch sects survive today across Europe, united in little but their hatred of modernity, immigration and multiculturalism.” [Hari Kunzru, “BNP Puppets Are Not the Real Threat”, THE GUARDIAN, May 30, 2009 — http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/30/bnp-puppets-recruitment-tools]

The point of these analyses is not that Anthroposophy is literally fascistic, but that it is a form of mania arising from some of the same roots as the Nazi movement as well as more recent forms of racist delusion.