Anthroposophy and Ecofascism 87

Continuing my commentary on the 26th paragraph of Peter Staudenmaier's Anthroposophy and Ecofascism.

Haeckel's influence on National Socialism is well documented, and Peter Staudenmaier is mostly correct in his summary of it. What is not so logical is to maintain that anyone who read Haeckel must share his views. Neither must everyone who praises Haeckel's scientific work share Haeckel's racism. But with the simple formula: Steiner admired Haeckel, Haeckel was a racist, Peter Staudenmaier would have us believe that it must follow: Steiner was a racist. Of course, it does not follow, and Peter Staudenmaier cannot muster a better argument, for he would not be able to find any evidence to support it. Guilt by association is the only method of implicating Steiner.

Gasman’s book (cited by Staudenmaier in this paragraph) does not mention Steiner at all beyond, in a footnote, linking Steiner and Haeckel via Johannes Hemleben’s book of that title.

I find it interesting that Peter Staudenmaier cites Mosse but appears to have missed the fact that Mosse, a respectable and fair scholar, did not regard Steiner as contributing to Nazism:

"Theosophy itself was not racist… but eventually racism allied itself with Theosophy. Theosophy could, in fact, also support a new humanism. Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophical Society, founded in Berlin in 1913, linked spiritualism to freedom and universalism." Mosse, George. Toward the Final Solution: A History of European racism. New York: Howard Fertig, 1978. Page 96.

I'll discuss Hemleben's book at length tomorrow, and show how Staudenmaier's description of it can only come from someone who has not actually read the volume.