Memories of Rudolf Steiner by Ludwig Graf Polzer-Hoditz. Chapter 1

 

MEMORIES OF RUDOLF STEINER

by Ludwig Graf Polzer-Hoditz

Chapter 1

In a novel written by my grandfather in the 1840’s one of the characters expresses himself thus: “‘Is it to be wondered at that men become egoists when there is no common dominating thought, the basic ideal of the State is lost, and its painfully-surviving decayed forms last on for the next generation? It is certain that the powerful sun of the twentieth century will shine but on a heap of ruins.”

Rudolf Steiner, when he read this novel in June 1918, told me that it contained a great understanding of the driving forces of world events.

Already from the beginnings of the nineteenth century an atmosphere of decay was present in all the social circles of the former Austrian Empire. The feeling which was only dimly felt might be formulated thus: ‘If a compelling thought cannot arise in the heart and mind of the leaders, a thought that surrounding nations will acknowledge, then Austria must collapse.” The mission of Austria to show the way to a new communal order of society cannot be accomplished if Austria acts the egoist among other egoistic states. Austria could have united nations and peoples. This did not happen, although at the eleventh hour Rudolf Steiner showed the way. The powerful sun of the twentieth century now shines on the ruins of the pre-war Austria.

Many Europeans thought, with reason, that if Austria did not exist then it would be necessary to create it. The preservation of Austria would have entailed the creation of a non-egoistic ideal which would not have been an imitation or a rehash of old and today quite useless ideals. Valid ideals, fitted to the changed world of this epoch, which will be recognized as such, must have a definite relationship to the spiritual world.

Actually those who recognized the necessity for the existence of Austria acknowledged the possibility of such ideals, whilst those who anticipated her decay denied those ideals. These two lines of thought were prevalent in my youth and were reflected in current opinions and events. These two notions as to the destiny of Austria remained as contradictions in my soul. But contradictions are often the means of finding the truth since they are constant challenges in our life, warning us not to lose heart in the struggle for knowledge.

The contradiction was only resolved when I met Rudolf Steiner, the only Austrian who by means of his spiritual research knew how the problems of Middle Europe might be solved. Today, twelve years after his death, conditions have not improved but are just as chaotic.

The most significant moment of my life was when I met Rudolf Steiner. My father was responsible for drawing my attention to him, for whenever Rudolf Steiner came to Vienna he was present at all his lectures. The occasion then was during a lecture that he was giving in Vienna on November 23, 1908, the subject being “Self-Knowledge.” I was full of enthusiasm over it. Another lecture was announced for the following day and I engaged a Government stenographer and asked permission of Rudolf Steiner to take it down. Much later, I think in 1921, he told me that none of his lectures had been so faithfully reproduced as this one.

From the very first meeting I knew that this man possessed the key to many world secrets, but I did not foresee the influence that the meeting would have on my future.

I therefore began my first spiritual studies with problems on the nature of man and of self-knowledge. I was then 39 years of age, having fourteen years of service in the army behind me. But from my thirty-third year I had turned to the land and managed a small estate.

The problem of the nature of man played a further part in my acquaintance with Rudolf Steiner. This I learned after some years when I knew him more intimately. In a lecture in Berlin on October 14, 1909, he spoke on “The Mission of Spiritual Knowledge, past and present," and said: “I will quote someone much less famous than Shakespeare, a thinker of the seventeenth century who is of the greatest importance for those who study the history of human thought — Franciscus Josefus Philippus, Count of Hoditz and Wolframitz, who lived the life of a philosopher during the second half of the seventeenth century and in a small book, Libellus de Hominis Convenientia, raised the important question of the nature of man. In this book he says with the great perspicacity born of the need for self-knowledge: 'Nothing deforms a man more than when he does not know the nature of himself.'"

The greater part of the lecture was devoted to this book. The author was, on my mother’s side, my great grandfather three times removed. The manuscript is in the archives of the old castle of the Bohemian kings at Pürglitz (now and probably then called Krivoklat).

The domains were then in the possession of a Count Sternberg. Hoditz handed the manuscript to his cousin Sternberg for his opinion as to whether it should be published, and he let it remain in his archives. Long before I knew Rudolf Steiner, I had had a copy made of it. Robert Zimmermann mentions the book in his Kritiken and Studien. When Rudolf Steiner learnt I was related to the writer, he said that he regarded the book as the first call to a new common social order.

With this first meeting with Rudolf Steiner the door of the path to spiritual knowledge was opened to me. When I look back, I can appreciate the great change that has completed itself in my soul. Since then I have learnt much that the future requires if it is to be worthy of mankind, and not to relapse into the barbarism which is so threatening today. Mankind wants new revelations, for all the convulsions of the sad present-day events are only the external expression of the search for them. It is only from new revelations as to the essential nature of man and his relation to the whole cosmos that morality and purpose of life can permeate mankind.

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Source: https://rsarchive.org/OtherAuthors/Polzer-HoditzLudwig/MemoriesOfRudolfSteiner/Chapter_II.html

Ludwig Graf Polzer-Hoditz played a central part in the development of the anthroposophical movement from 1911 to 1925. He was a personal friend of Rudolf Steiner and one of his closest helpers. As such, these memoirs present a first-hand impression of Rudolf Steiner in daily life.

In 1913, Rudolf Steiner called him to Dornach so that he could be present at the laying of the foundation stone of the first Goetheanum. In 1917, Graf Polzer-Hoditz, whose brother Arthur was the Prime Minister and a personal friend of Kaiser Karl of Austria, belonged to a small circle to whom Rudolf Steiner gave the first indications regarding the Threefold Social Order.

As a member of Austrian aristocracy, Graf Polzer-Hoditz was very influential in cultural and political circles of the times, thereby enabling him to work for social reform during and after World War I. The Count was present at the burning of the first Goetheanum in 1922-23 and was also given special responsibility for the then newly-founded School of Spiritual Science in 1924. He vividly relates his memories of his travels with Rudolf Steiner and those who participated in the early anthroposophical movement.