Rudolf Steiner and Heinrich von Treitschke

I was surprised to read once that Steiner was an admirer of Heinrich von Treitschke. I wondered what evidence, biographical or anecdotal, existed to support such a conclusion. The claim was made by Peter Staudenmaier so I was not at all surprised to find that, once again, Staudenmaier had misrepresented the situation. I wrote an entire article on the subject. It starts:

Rudolf Steiner did not admire Treitschke. Far from it, he was quite critical of him in several places. Steiner did find one or two ideas that Treitschke put forth that he liked, but these were certainly not the controversial ideas of Treitschke's.

And after considering several quotes that are indicative of Steiner's attitude I conclude:

Steiner did speak favorably of certain aspects of Treitschke's works in a number of places, but his praise was always narrowly directed. And Steiner was careful not to praise Treitschke's person, only aspects of his work. Thus I do not feel that it is accurate to call Steiner an admirer of Treitschke.