Memories of Rudolf Steiner by Ludwig Graf Polzer-Hoditz. Chapter 11

          

MEMORIES OF RUDOLF STEINER

by Ludwig Graf Polzer-Hoditz

Chapter 11

I remember a remark Rudolf Steiner made during a walk in Munich with Graf Lerchenfeld and me, July 20, 1917, when he said that Prince Bismarck’s soul in the spiritual world was not interested in the present political events of the earth. We spoke about many other things but this particular remark remained especially vividly in my mind.

Those days with Rudolf Steiner in July 1917 marked the beginning of a spiritual task for me which seemed to be decreed by fate on account of my particular position in connection with Austria, a task which still continues and will continue, although in a different form. I often went back to Berlin after those days to deal with this work. In the middle of September I was accompanied by my wife and on our way we met Lerchenfeld and Frau von Vacano at Munich. Graf Lerchenfeld had told her about the Memorandum and Frau von Vacano gave it much serious thought. She was a Russian who had been a member of the Anthroposophical Society for a long time, had taken part in the performance of the Mystery Plays in Munich, and had translated the works of the Russian philosopher Solowjev under the pseudonym of Harry Köhler. They were published by Diederichs. Lerchenfeld joined us a day later at Berlin and we spent some time with Rudolf Steiner, going to lectures and discussing the situation in the world. During those days I asked Lerchenfeld to come with me to Austria to see my brother, to impress on him the importance of the Memorandum. We both went to Reichenau on September 26th, but the visit did not prove the success I had hoped.

My friendship with the Klima family at Prague became closer and more intimate. Frau Klima had paid us an unexpected visit at Tannbach on Maundy Thursday, 1916. She had been very anxious to meet my wife and to see our home. I have most happy memories of the evenings spent with the Klimas at Prague, where we often discussed Czech history and problems. It was there that I met Graf Raymond Boos-Waldeck, who worked at the Presidential Office of the Bohemian Government and whom Klima respected very much. They occasionally met in their official capacities.

Here I want to mention another dear friend, Thaddaus Rychter, an artist before the war and one of the Anthroposophists of Munich, who was asked by Rudolf Steiner to carry out his designs for the windows of the Goetheanum. He made all the necessary preparations for the work at Dornach and arrived there soon after the outbreak of war. I liked him very much. He was a delightful Pole and we became great friends. But in 1916, in spite of his delicate constitution and advanced age, he was called up. One day in October 1917, we found Rychter unexpectedly at the door of our house in Linz, in a very alarming state of health. He came from the war-zone in Galicia, had obtained leave on account of serious lung trouble but had not the necessary documents to return from Austria to Munich. I realized then, as often before, and especially at that time when confusion ruled at the fronts and the countries behind, that a man without documents had absolutely no right of existence on earth. Verily, the conditions were unworthy of human life! Thanks to my military connections, but only by avoiding some of the regulations, as I was willing to do when the case was genuine and deserving, was it possible for me to help him across the frontier. The absence of the necessary documents was not Rychter’s fault and without my help he would not have known what to do. I was glad to be of service to him.

When I went to see my brother in Vienna at the Cabinet Offices on November 7th, he had no idea of the network of intrigue that was tightening around him. He told me then that he would try for the appointment of Foreign Minister, but that various preparations were first necessary. I was afraid that he was too late for this, as I knew about certain meetings of leading Ministers in Hungary which had become public and struck me as mysterious from other information I had received, and I told him so. He answered : “Oh no, there is nothing to fear, I am on very good terms with the Emperor and feel quite safe.” A few days later I saw a short notice about his impending dismissal in the paper. My brother and the Emperor had left for the southwest front on November 1st, and the next day the Emperor had to tell him that the Ministers’ President, Dr. Weckerle, Dr. Seidler, and also the Foreign Minister Graf Czernin demanded his retirement, because, as they put it, it was in the interests of peace, and he (the Emperor), however much he regretted it, would have to part with him for a while. These men had made the Emperor, who wanted peace and hoped for it, believe this step to be necessary. Through some indiscretion this news had found its way into the press before my brother was told by the Emperor himself. The Emperor intended to have this action investigated. The powers of death were in a great hurry, for they feared disclosures. These items are of great interest from the occult point of view. There is much in all these events which shows to anyone with spiritual perception the background of the ruling powers quite clearly. If one really took the trouble to investigate, even ordinary intelligence would reap a rich harvest of knowledge. Later on in my memoirs I shall be able to point to another moment where reason can immediately grasp the determining occult machinations.

The last months of 1917 were full of extremely painful events and disappointments. Another hard blow came to me in November. Our faithful manager at Tannbach, Ignaz Reichl, who had been with us for many years and in whom we had implicit trust, suddenly died, in his 49th year. This made life increasingly difficult, at a time when things already seemed more than hard.

When, after this failure with my brother, I went to see Rudolf Steiner again, he told me — and his words were always kind and understanding — that if my brother had been more energetic, as Foreign Minister he might have achieved what we hoped of him and which would have altered the whole situation in the world. "Now we must find new ways."

Graf Lerchenfeld’s efforts to approach the German Emperor with the "Threefold Commonwealth" as a means for an honourable peace did not get beyond a start. Moreover Germany had not the same mission as Austria. Through the mediation of Alfred Meebold, Rudolf Steiner was able to speak to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Herr Kühlmann. He was clever and superficial like Czernin. Rudolf Steiner told me that Kühlmann understood in that talk that the separation of economic life from the political authorities was the only real possibility of preventing wars. But in spite of having realized this, he did nothing in the matter.

Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophical work became more and more intense from this time onward, for the demands and pressure of the time required the very greatest effort. If one had not seen his ever-increasing and colossal capacity for work from close by, one cannot have the remotest idea of what was accomplished and given to us. In spite of the war, the membership increased, although from the ranks of the younger members many remained on the battlefields.

Rudolf Steiner began all the lectures for the members during the war with some words in remembrance of those who were fighting, the fallen and the suffering and sorrowing. In February 1918 we went to Munich, in March to Berlin, in April to Stuttgart, Ulm, and Heidenheim for lectures and conferences. The public and other lectures became more and more magnificent. Lerchenfeld was often with me, and together we tried to understand this idea of a "Threefold Commonwealth" in more detail. Rudolf Steiner always emphasized that the idea could only gradually unfold its creative and active power in the individual. What he had written in the Memorandum was not an abstract programme but contained within itself formative powers, once it started its way to realization. It was only much later that I understood that one can gradually attain an inner faculty to handle these thoughts in events and situations, so that at any time and at any place one can take the right attitude. But this cannot be done in the primitive way in which politics as a rule pursue their programmes.

This first attempt in connection with the Threefold Commonwealth was not meant for the public platform but was only addressed to the Emperors. Later, after the so-called Peace and after the weak, social, really anti-social revolution, different steps were needed.

I also continued my work at Prague and Linz with still greater intensity. The strength and power needed for this always came through Rudolf Steiner’s inspiration.

On May 26th, he came to Vienna. The subjects of the two lectures, of which there is unfortunately no record, as the stenographer failed to appear, were:

I. How can we reach scientific knowledge of supersensible life and man’s being? (Results of spiritual investigation of reality.)
II. The historical life of mankind in the light of supersensible investigation of reality.

Rudolf Steiner hoped to meet my brother on this visit to Vienna. Unfortunately this meeting never took place.

The European situation became more and more alarming; the misery and well-founded hopelessness of the peoples of Middle Europe became unbearable. At the same time there was the fanatical fear of those who through ignorance and helplessness had made themselves servants of the powers of destruction, misunderstanding the Middle European, German character. What one may call the aberration of German and Mid-European nature for many centuries began to bear fruit. It was not understood that the people of Middle Europe must develop the greatest spiritual individualism in a free spiritual life which alone could have led to a really all-human culture without a catastrophe. This was opposed by materialism and abstract intellectualism which led to a mechanization of life. It was not realized that the forms of government of Western and Roman people could never be those of the nations of Middle Europe. The powers of the Roman mode of thinking hindered the spiritual evolution of consciousness, kept it in chains. The mechanization and regulation of thinking served those powers. The attitude and character of the Western nations helped this mechanization of life. Both elements were destructive to the German character and to the Slavonic. With the help of centralistic tendencies and Roman law which governed politics more and more, as well as the pseudo-Liberal endeavours to regulate everything, the grave for the men of Middle Europe was dug some decades ago. An absolutely muddled Liberalism and a mechanized Socialism, buoyed up by Roman instincts for power, prepared all that led to the war and finally to the ensuing barbarism, with bombastic phrases and platitudes.

Materialistic science, historical pragmatism, State socialism, Roman law, Napoleon worship — none of this was German or Mid-European, nor could it ever lead in Middle Europe to an all-human spiritual culture, but only to a senseless prison-existence and finally to the decline of just those nations which carry the culture of the future latently in their soul but could never become “Roman.”

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