Memories of Rudolf Steiner by Ludwig Graf Polzer-Hoditz. Chapter 9

        

MEMORIES OF RUDOLF STEINER

by Ludwig Graf Polzer-Hoditz

Chapter 9

Emperor Franz Joseph I died in the evening of November 21, 1916, after a reign of sixty-eight years. Thus ended a life of consistent fulfilment of duty. It is right to say that he, the last representative of the spirit of the House of Hapsburg, discharged his duties as Ruler with the greatest conscientiousness. The kind of wisdom that he possessed was more useful in the leadership of men and nations than the abstract intellectualism of later times which is determined to rule but brings only misery to mankind. Nowadays people only want to rule "States," that is to say, abstract totalities, with a legalized, mechanical intellectualism, at the expense of human beings and nations.

All the blows of fate to which he was exposed during his long reign in Austria, his honest endeavour to deal with the national problems, the misfortunes of his own family — all this surrounded the Emperor with an atmosphere of decline which he always endured courageously. He was the last representative and executor of the Hapsburg spirit (in the sense of a real spiritual Being) which was superseded by the Spirit of the Time. It is the tragedy of our epoch and the cause of the ever-increasing chaos that the sovereign will of this Spirit of the Time has not yet been recognized.

Emperor Karl came to the throne, was placed by destiny into a world-situation the perception and solution of which would have needed a power of spiritual cognition with wide and spiritual horizons, quite different from that with which his education provided him. This gigantic panorama of the world-situation, recognized by scarcely anyone, demanded of an Emperor of the Middle States infinitely more than an education of a conventionally religious and scientific character which might equip an average man to fulfil his duties. Because of his education, no more could have been expected of him than he accomplished, with an honest sense of duty and with devotion. From the beginning of his reign onwards he worked for peace, but without knowing the means which would have been capable of securing real peace.

My brother had been a friend of his for many years, ever since he was still practically a child. He spent many months as the guest of the Emperor’s mother at the Castle Miramare, near Trieste, or at Persenberg on the Danube in Lower Austria. Archduke Karl told him then that if ever he was Emperor he would make him his “Kabinettsdirector.” He kept the promise made in his youth. In such a position there would have been the possibility, for a short time, of helping the Emperor to realize more fully the underlying currents which were determining events in the European situation.

This brings me to a period in my reminiscences which was the most difficult one for me but the most decisive for Middle Europe.

In the year 1917 Rudolf Steiner made the first attempt to save Middle Europe from deliberately planned destruction and decay. While this first attempt, and others too, were broken by the terrible opposition of the leading circles in a world possessed by the powers of death, they were not in vain. They were bearers of the spirit for a later future. No failure ever gives the deathblow to the truth of a real spiritual impulse.

I want first to speak of some friends who, from this time onwards, not only helped me in my personal affairs but also in all the work I tried to do in the spirit and service of Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy. I feel forever united with them because of the work we did together, and I look back to these days with gratitude. By and by I will write about all of these friends, as successive events demand.

I cannot now remember the actual date when Frau Julie Klima came to see me in 1916, at the Hotel “Blauen Stern” in Prague, where I generally stayed when engaged in anthroposophical work. Rudolf Steiner also often stayed at this well-known hotel where peace between Austria and Prussia was signed in 1866. The building was demolished in 1935. Frau Klima wanted to discuss certain anthroposophical matters with me. Her enthusiasm and zeal for anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner was expressed in her eyes. Since then we always kept in touch and met at many anthroposophical meetings. She was the wife of Dr. Jaroslav Klima who was serving with the State Police at Prague. Klima was a true Czech, kind-hearted, capable of great enthusiasm and faithful in his friendships. For years he had been sent as official representative of the police to Rudolf Steiner’s lectures and had therefore known him longer than I. When his wife began to take part in the movement, he too became more and more interested and often helped it financially. He had great admiration for Rudolf Steiner who was also very fond of him. I met him soon after I had made his wife’s acquaintance, and a real friendship developed between us. Dr. Klima repeatedly proved to be a friend who gave practical help. He died in 1927 as Chief of the Police at Bratislava (Pressburg). I lost not only a good friend but one who, with every prospect of gaining a higher and more influential position in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, would have been able to do much for the anthroposophical movement.

I was revolted by the unjust treatment meted out to the Czechs during the war and by the lack of understanding displayed by the Austrian people for the Folk Soul of the Slavs. It seemed to me to be disastrous for the Empire. I divined in it a deliberate plan which had started with the “Battle of the White Hill” (1620) to injure Middle Europe. The oppression of the Slavonic races on the one hand and the advancement of Hungary on the other was only one part of the plan for the destruction of Middle Europe. I decided to do something towards harmonizing the German-Slavonic differences. Let me say here that I only refer to Poles, Czechs, Western and Southern Slavs. First of all I tried to get the most flagrant injustices corrected. Jaroslav Klima informed me about many things, and I went repeatedly to my brother at Court to tell him definite facts. Dr. Kramar’s trial for high treason had been conducted in such a way that a revision seemed to me to be essential in order to pacify the Czechs and also on account of the critical position of the war. The trials of others, too, seemed to call for revision, e.g. those of Dr. Rasins and Dr. Preiss. Emperor Karl desired justice and felt that Austria could not exist without the Slavonic element. By justice he hoped to serve the cause of the peace for which he longed. Revision was called for, not amnesty. Headquarters objected to this, so also did Count Czernin, the Foreign Minister. And so amnesty, which had not been suggested by my brother, was decided on. My brother was merely instructed to draft the manifesto.

In these first months of 1917 I knew that something must come to pass if the worst was to be averted for Middle Europe. Rudolf Steiner had not yet spoken more concretely because he had not been asked, not even by the anthroposophists, although, as I heard later, he was waiting and hoping for such a request from them. They were still rather entangled in ideology and mystical trends of thought. In his lectures at Dornach, December 1916 to January 1917, Rudolf Steiner only gave historical hints of the underlying currents of European events in order to make us understand the outbreak of war.

In May 1917 the Emperor Karl offered my brother the post of Prime Minister. He did not, however, feel justified in accepting as he knew of no way to lead out of the chaos of war and yet uphold internal politics. It seemed wrong to him to accept the post under those circumstances, in such grave times. He also told the Emperor that he believed he could serve him more efficiently in the post he then held. I shared in all these phases during those troublous months with a conscious realization of the responsibility which devolved upon me, on the one hand through Rudolf Steiner and on the other through the close, lifelong relationship to my brother and my love for Austria.

In the lectures of January 1917, Rudolf Steiner spoke of the way in which the sincere desire for peace of the Middle States in 1916 was being treated by the Allied States of the periphery. For in reality the Central States never had any other war aim than the preservation of their own free activity. Nobody has done spiritually so much for the exoneration of the Middle States from war guilt as Rudolf Steiner. But it appears that even this kind of exoneration was inconvenient to the hidden and influential wire-pullers of Middle Europe, because it might have brought strange disclosures in its train and have hit circles which posed as advocates for peace.

In order that he might be informed about the political atmosphere in Bohemia, I proposed to my brother that he should receive Dr. Klima. The latter went to Vienna (I accompanied him to Laxenburg), and he had a long interview with my brother. I myself was not present at this interview but was told later that Dr. Klima spoke there "too late" and advised against the Emperor visiting Prague at the time.

As Frau Klima told me later, she has in her possession her husband’s memoirs which have not yet been published. All the facts mentioned by me are dealt with at length in those memoirs.

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