Anthroposophy and Ecofascism 91

Peter Staudenmaier writes in Paragraph 28 of Anthroposophy and Ecofascism:

Steiner was by his own account "enthusiastically active" in pan-German nationalist movements in Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century.[Footnote: Rudolf Steiner, Mein Lebensgang, Dornach 1983, p. 144.]* He saw world war one as part of an international "conspiracy against German spiritual life."[Footnote: Steiner quoted in Volkmar Wölk, "Neue Trends im ökofaschistischen Netzwerk" in Raimund Hethey and Peter Kratz, In Bester Gesellschaft, Göttingen 1991, p. 132.]** In Steiner's preferred explanation, it wasn't imperialist rivalry among colonial powers or fanatical nationalism or unbounded militarism or the competition for markets which caused the war, but British freemasons and their striving for world domination. Steiner was a personal acquaintance of General Helmuth von Moltke, chief of staff of the German high command; after Moltke's death in 1916 Steiner claimed to be in contact with his spirit and channeled the general's views on the war from the nether world. After the war Steiner had high praise for "German militarism" (his own term), and continued to rail against France, French culture, and the French language in rhetoric which matched that of Mein Kampf. In the 1990's anthroposophists were still defending Steiner's jingoist nonsense, insisting that Germany bore no responsibility for world war one and was a victim of the "West."

The above paragraph, should it prove true, would indeed paint a terrible picture of this Rudolf Steiner. But is it factually accurate? First, the quote "enthusiastically active" is based on a faulty translation. In the original, a paragraph in Steiner's autobiography, Steiner states, “At that time I took a lively interest in the battles that the Germans in Austria were fighting concerning their national existence.”*** As I described in the footnote, Peter Staudenmaier has mistranslated "lively interest" as "enthusiastically active". This is no minor point, and indicative of the type of writing that Peter Staudenmaier is engaged in: character assassination, not scholarship.

* Peter Staudenmaier has blatantly mistranslated this quote, even while citing the original German. See *** below.

** Yet again Peter Staudenmaier is lifting a short-phrase quote from a secondary source and constructed a damning portrait of Steiner’s complex position on a complex subject. Steiner addressed the origins of the war at length in numerous contexts. The scholarship on the issues is considerable, yet Peter Staudenmaier’s grasp of it is feeble. While Steiner did mention conspiracies and "secret societies" (but not Freemasons) as factors, he did not consider these the sole, or even principle, causes of the war. Freemasons show up because the Nazi's frequently blamed them, and this is supposed to make Steiner appear more Nazi. However, the Nazi's also blamed Steiner for the loss of the war, a point which Staudenmaier neglects.

*** The German reads: "Nun nahm ich damals an den nationalen Kämpfen lebhaften Anteil, welche die Deutschen in Österreich um ihre nationale Existenz führten.” (Steiner, Mein Lebensgang, Dornach 1925, p. 132) The phrase "Anteil... nehmen... an" - the phrase used in the sentence - is translated as "take an interest in;" or, if indicating sympathy, "sympathize with" (Langenscheidts Handwörterbuch Deutsch-Englisch, Berlin 1996, p. 807). Further, "lebhaft" as an adjective is translated "lively" when indicating interest or imagination (same dictionary, p. 1136) and I should note that by no definition given does it mean "deeply" or "enthusiastically," though both these would seem reasonable to a translator trying to improve the flow. So "enthusiastically active in" is widely off the mark, "deeply sympathetic" is also off the mark (individually each word could go that way, but together in the context of the sentence a far better alternative exists) and the straight dictionary translation would be: "At that time I took a lively interest in the battles that the Germans in Austria were fighting concerning their national existence." The verb in the sentence ("führten") refers strictly to the Germans, and Steiner's position was limited to his "lively interest" in the form of a prepositional phrase.

I should note that the phrase has been mistranslated in the 1978 English edition of Steiner's autobiography. Four other editions translate it correctly. Staudenmaier cited the original German, so this can't be an excuse.