Was
Rudolf Steiner similar to Hitler?
Since 1996, a small vocal anti-Waldorf group in California, "PLANS Inc.", coached by its secretary, Mr. Dan Dugan, repeatedly attempts to connect Rudolf Steiner, the main founder of anthroposophy, which is the philosophical basis of Waldorf education, with Adolf Hitler and Nazism. For an actual comparison between them, see below.
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ADOLF HITLER | RUDOLF STEINER | |
My struggle
1924 Vol
II: The National Socialist Movement
»Therefore, when we speak of the high mission of
the State we must not forget that the high mission belongs to the people
and that the business of the State is to use its organizing powers for
the purpose of furnishing the necessary conditions which allow this people
freely to unfold its creative faculties. And if we ask what kind of statal
institution we Germans need, we must first have a clear notion as to the
people which that State must embrace and what purpose it must serve.
He who talks of the German people as having a mission to fulfill on this earth must know that this cannot be fulfilled except by the building up of a State whose highest purpose is to preserve and promote those nobler elements of our race and of the whole of mankind which have remained unimpaired. Thus for the first time a high inner purpose is accredited
to the State
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The world
riddle and anthroposophy
[GA 54, 12.10.1905] »That is the great achievement for our soul, that we as a consequence of the spiritual development learn to understand the common soul of humankind, the unity of all of humanity, that we do not get as an unconscious gift, but that we must struggle consciously to come to [...] That is expressed in our first principle: to found a brotherhood encompassing the whole earth, without regard to race, gender, color, and so on. That is the recognition of the soul that is common to all mankind. Even into the instincts the purification must take place that makes it evident to all people, that the same soul lives in their brothers (and sisters). In the physical we are separated, in the soul we are a unity as the ego of humanity. But only in the true, real life can we realize that and find our way into it. [...].« [GA 54, 9.11.1905] »We more and more approach the solution to this riddle and we can understand that we in the future will have to go through other epochs, that we will have to go other ways than the races have done. We must be clear about that the evolution of the soul and the races are different. [...] so we also understand the basic principle of founding the core of a general brotherhood without regard to race, color, social position and so on.« Cosmogony
[GA 94, 2.11.1906] »"The one who eats my bread walks on me with his feet" (Joh.. 13,18). Christ leads ... beyond the race to the whole humanity of the earth, to all peoples and races of the whole planet. Jesus Christ is the representative for that; he carries the whole of humanity in himself. ... Jesus Christ is the one who in an extract encompasses the consciousness all of humanity.«. |
The world
riddle and anthroposophy
[GA 54, 1.2.1906] »Man has spanned the whole earth with industry and trade that works without regard to nations and races. Machines produce the same products in Japan, Brazil and Europe. The same railways cross the earth everywhere without regard to race, nation and position. The differences in humanity have dissolved in our cultural body. The check that is issued here in Berlin can be cashed in Tokyo. Everything in our culture has developed in such a way that we can formulate the principle ...: We want to found a culture that spans the Earth without regard to race, gender, profession and denomination. That's the material culture, that under this motto has spanned the circle, the sphere of the Earth. This culture must get a soul. And to bring this cultural soul into it, ... that is the task of anthroposophy and our way of life (Lebensführung). We have a material culture and we need a spiritual culture with the same qualities ... People must be able to understand each other in their souls again.« The spiritual background to the external world [GA 177, 26.10.1917] » ...Someone still of the 14th century, speaking of the ideal of races, of the ideal of nations, spoke out of the developing qualities of human development. But someone who nowadays speaks of the ideal of races and nations and belonging to a tribe, speaks of decaying impulses of humanity. And if he believes that these so-called ideals constitute progressive ideals, when speaking of them, he is saying something that is untrue. Because through nothing will humanity bring itself more into decay, than if the ideals of races, nations and blood were to continue. Nothing will be a greater hindrance for the further development of mankind than the conservation of the ideals held by earlier centuries [...] in declarations about the ideals based on nations. The true ideals for the future must be, not was is based on 'blood', but in the purely spiritual world.« |