Memories of Rudolf Steiner by Ludwig Graf Polzer-Hoditz. Chapter 14

             

MEMORIES OF RUDOLF STEINER

by Ludwig Graf Polzer-Hoditz

Chapter 14

This public advocacy of spiritual ideas which were applicable in practical affairs naturally provoked all the dark powers at work in the various political camps, but alertness to symptomatic events strengthened one’s understanding. Belief in the spiritual backgrounds of events — which in the beginning was only a kind of instinctive knowledge — changed during this apprenticeship into a power of discernment. The so-called revolutionary risings of that time were not conducted with any definite spiritual aim. Those who believed they were fighting for progress without abandoning old modes of thinking and turning to spiritual ones were only destroying prosperity, which was already so impaired by the war. People wanted to employ the methods of thought current in Natural Science to create a new order for humanity, and only achieved paralysing criticism and fruitless revolutionary risings. Those who opposed them wanted to preserve spiritual traditions which had become abstract, and an order of society which the war had reduced to an absurdity. These people shrouded themselves in fallacious, theoretical humanism.

Rudolf Steiner saw through all this and endeavoured to oppose the materialistic and agnostic lack of ideas with thoughts suited to the real needs of the present and future. Practice which so often boasts of its successes had led humanity into material and spiritual misery which even today is still manifesting in the most terrible form.

From Anthroposophy, those who were willing to hear had learned that it was not only a question of war among men, but that what happened during the war and continued to happen after the so-called “Peace” was a war of spiritual beings in human souls. The souls of individual men had become the theatre of war. But the groups which were fighting one another were ruled by the Powers of Darkness, and it was just because demonic powers were opposing each other that the war on earth became so bitter, and is getting more and more so. The spiritual beings of Light must first of all be victorious in individual souls before men can unite in a spiritual community which will put an end to the wholesale slaughter now sanctioned by bodies politic. In other words, only true spiritual individualism which can develop in a free life of the Spirit can lead without force and compulsion to a new culture and put an end for always to the old herd-life.

My wife and I arrived at Munich on April 12th, late at night, coming from Salzburg. At the hotel our attention was drawn to the fact that if we wanted to go on to Stuttgart we must take the early morning (5 o’clock) train from Munich, as it was the last one permitted to leave the town. It was the night before the communistic riots in Bavaria. At Gessartshausen we were asked to leave the train as it could not run any further, the rails having been torn up between Gessartshausen and Dinkelscherben. April 13th was Palm Sunday. I was not able to procure a vehicle anywhere and all the travellers were waiting for means of transport in the little inn. To pass the time we went for a walk down the street and just outside the village met a small one-horse carriage which was bringing a traveller from Dinkelscherben to Gessartshausen. We at once hired it and after a few hours arrived at Dinkelscherben. There again we had to wait until the evening. The travellers in the station restaurant were talking politics. Being full of the ideas of the Threefold Commonwealth, I joined in this wild discussion and even gave a lecture. Towards midnight we arrived at Ulm. We had to stay the night but were able to leave for Stuttgart early in the morning. At Stuttgart we stayed at the Hotel Marquardt, which was extremely well run, even during the more than difficult period after the war. When we went to the police station in the morning we were told that we could not get permission to stay and must leave within twenty-four hours. But through a fortunate circumstance it was possible for us to remain. At the hotel I met an Anthroposophical friend from Denmark, Mr. Vett, who told me that he had spoken to a gentleman from Berlin who had been sent to Stuttgart to obtain information about the Threefold Commonwealth idea for the Government. Herr Vett did not then know very much about it and so referred this gentleman to me. The talk I had with this agent of the Government, whose name I have forgotten, was a very friendly one and what I told him seemed to have satisfied him entirely. At the end I asked him to intercede for us with the Director of the Police so that we might remain in Stuttgart. He was glad to do this and was successful. So fate came to our help and we were able to take part in the events of the following weeks. Rudolf Steiner was still in Switzerland and only arrived at Stuttgart on Easter Sunday, April 20th. At our first meeting he just said to me: "Germany is a heap of ruins; the signing of the Peace Treaty was a mistake. The acknowledgment of guilt, the signing of the accusing articles, was synonymous with signing one’s own death-sentence, the beginning of continuous exploitation and bullying.”

I have to concentrate my memories now, and deal with something that was related to me personally by Rudolf Steiner and is not taken from a lecture. Rudolf Steiner had written a pamphlet, based on the personal notes of General Helmuth von Moltke, which were put at his disposal by Frau Eliza von Moltke. This pamphlet was the simple story of the events which took place between July 31st and August 1st, 1914, in Berlin at the Imperial Palace and offered incontestable proof that Germany could not be accused of having been the cause of the war and that even at the last moment efforts were made to frustrate the execution of the plan of mobilization. But the publication of this pamphlet would have exposed the absolute incapacity and helplessness of German political leadership and also the Kaiser’s military ineptitude. On July 31st, the Kaiser received a telegram from the German Ambassador in London, Prince Lichnowsky, saying that Sir Edward Grey hoped a war in the West could be avoided. On this the Kaiser wanted to upset on two fronts the whole plan for mobilization which had been minutely worked out for many years. Accordingly he gave orders to Moltke to concentrate all his forces on Russia. This, of course, would have brought about the greatest military confusion. Because in the military preparations a one-front war had never been considered, everything was prepared with two frontiers in mind, one against Russia, the other against France. Moltke, on whom the whole military responsibility rested, who realized the senselessness of such a hope and could also see the collapse of the whole German policy, refused to carry out this order. Then the Kaiser, behind Moltke’s back, gave an order not to march into Luxemburg — an order which would have endangered the whole mustering of the troops. Late at night, when the Kaiser had already gone to bed, a further message came from London, retracting the telegram of the morning. Moltke was called again and the Kaiser said to him: “Now do what you like.” Rudolf Steiner’s pamphlet which treated of these circumstances in detail had already been printed, when a German General arrived in Stuttgart as an envoy from the German Foreign Office and officially demanded that the pamphlet be destroyed. In this way were the German people betrayed by the phantom of the German Reich. This event was similar to one I have already described. It was a moment at which, if one really allowed oneself to think, without being rationalistic, one could have perceived the intervention of the powers which were really determinative, though well concealed. They showed themselves for a moment and the lie might have become apparent. But then, of course, the whole tissue of lies and the depravity of those circles which are the servants of the powerful Spirit of Lies in the world would have been unveiled. The whole of the public would have been able to see the decadence of a political order that is based on lust for power.

And so it happened that the guilt for the war was admitted at a time that was decisive for the fate of Middle Europe. All later justifications and disclosures were treated too academically and could no longer change the lot of Middle Europe. The moment had been missed and the remark Rudolf Steiner made to me about the “heap of ruins” remains true. This fate, in spite of subsequent illusions, could not be altogether prevented. The Powers of Darkness had scored a victory which one had to try to tear away from them, if even only partially, and what followed in Stuttgart was a further spiritual fight by Rudolf Steiner to prevent, by means of the Threefold Commonwealth idea, the complete victory of those Powers of Darkness and to save Europe’s culture from barbarism.

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

The Count in 1937

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.