Anthroposophy and Ecofascism 77

Steiner's relationship to Haeckel

Rudolf Steiner’s curious relationship to Ernst Haeckel has been much remarked upon. Indeed, it has been the subject of several books.* Just what did Steiner, of all people, see in the “Pope of Monism”? Rudolf Steiner himself gave an answer, and no one who has gone into any depth on the subject has yet found it necessary to object to Steiner’s description. In Haeckel Steiner saw the seeds of a few important ideas, and these he championed. The rest, including Monism, he cared little for but did not speak of this publicly, at least not initially. In examining this question we are really delving into the cultural battles of a bygone era, but this is important in order to understand Haeckel, Steiner, and their cultural milieu.

* Among others, Johannes Hemleben, Rudolf Steiner und Ernst Haeckel, Stuttgart 1965 and Karl Ballmer, Rudolf Steiner und Ernst Haeckel , Hamburg 1929, as well as just about every biographer who has dealt with Steiner in any depth. Peter Staudenmaier has cited some of these without apparently having seen their contents.