The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Speech at the General Assembly of the Berlin Chapter

[ 1 ] After a relatively long time, I am able to address you again today. This is due to the importance of today’s General Assembly and the opportunity presented by my current brief stay in Germany. We are, after all, living in a time whose connection to my prolonged absence you have certainly already considered. The connection between current events and the limited activity—if one can even speak of any at all—that I am currently able to carry out for the Berlin branch is surely obvious to you.

[ 2 ] Before we proceed with the formal consideration of today’s agenda, I would like to make a few preliminary remarks. First, I would like to recall how, in early spring of 1914, during a series of lectures in Vienna, I spoke words that were intended to foreshadow what was to come. At that time, I spoke precisely those words, which have since been published in the lecture series. I said then that civilized humanity is living through a kind of social disease process, a kind of social carcinoma or cancer; that the entire nature of spiritual, political, and economic conditions is such that an outbreak of this insidious cancer is inevitable, that it must progress from a chronic to an acute state. Of course, at the time, even very intelligent people regarded such a statement—which, coming from a bleeding soul, pointed to the near future—as a kind of fantasy, a rhetorical expression of a pessimistic mood. After all, at that time, in the widest circles of the world, people naturally preferred to listen to voices such as the one that sounded a little later—even later than this one—for example, through an official figure here in the German Reichstag, where it was stated that the relations between the Central European governments and the governments of the other European countries were entirely satisfactory and that a general easing of tensions was to be expected in the near future. You may still recall the other statement made at that time during a public Reichstag session here in Berlin: that friendly and neighborly relations with the court in St. Petersburg were becoming increasingly favorable, that good relations with London also existed, and so on. That is indeed how the “practitioners” spoke back then, while those who spoke from the spiritual realm had to speak of an illness, of a creeping carcinoma. Basically, people still speak this way today—and quite thoroughly at that—among those who still consider themselves “practitioners,” even though this “practice” has brought about the successes of recent years. People still speak this way. And whatever is brought to light through spiritual research—including social insights—is either dismissed out of hand or, as is indeed the case in Germany, met with the most vehement hostility; and, what is worst of all, it is attacked and slandered through all manner of secret channels—slandered in the worst possible way—so that anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, and everything associated with it, is perhaps today among the most slandered things making their presence felt in the world. And yet it must be assumed that there are already a number of souls today who, from the entire attitude of this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, have gained the sense that it alone can give rise to that which can lead to salvation from the general decline. This must be said today, even if a foolish or malicious humanity were to speak of some vanity or ambition as the motive behind such statements.

[ 3 ] I can say—and I will keep these introductory remarks brief—that the entire attitude and the entire nature of the debates, as I had to conduct them during the actual war years, have not been understood. After all, the year 1914 marked the beginning of a time when contemplation in the ordinary sense of the word had to cease, and when what was to be accomplished through words had to become deeds. But humanity is accustomed to taking words in the sense of journalistic style, and not in the style that is meant to enter into humanity precisely through spiritual science. Thus, precisely during the so-called war years, much was misunderstood. Above all, no attention was paid to something that I personally considered to be of the utmost importance. Before the end of the first year of the war—as most people are aware—I published a short treatise: *Thoughts During the Time of War*. This treatise sold out relatively quickly. And if one had viewed things from the perspective from which, unfortunately, they are still viewed today—despite the fact that the need has become so great—it would have been a matter of course, for practical reasons, to produce a new edition of the first large print run. I opposed this new edition for the simple reason that this pamphlet did not fulfill its purpose. This pamphlet—you can pick it up again today, if it is still available—was a question posed to the German people. This work was not to be received in such a way that one would be led to fall into the same tone that so many people in Central European countries fell into during the war—a tone that is common today precisely where anthroposophy is slandered with insidious, creeping poison. But not even the slightest bit of what I had expected from this text—in terms of understanding—came to pass. Only if that had happened would it have made sense to publish a new edition of this text. So it was not published; it disappeared from public life—and, in my view, had to disappear from public life. The evidence of misunderstanding that this provided had to be taken extremely seriously in a certain sense. Thus, many things that were said—intended to uplift the spirits, to inspire them, and to bring to the fore what could have come to the fore in Central Europe—have been thoroughly misunderstood: a revival of that spiritual life that swept through Central Europe at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century. Essentially, spiritual science is the revival of this spiritual life in the form in which it must be brought to people today.

[ 4 ] Take what is written today in newspapers of all political stripes, in popular publications, and even in popular science writings; take what is written in Königsberg or Berlin, in Vienna or Graz, in Munich or Stuttgart; and compare it with what is written today in Paris, Rome, London, Chicago, and New York: You will find a great similarity; you will find the same underlying tone in it—a spirit that must be overcome. If, on the other hand, we ask about another similarity—if we ask about the similarity that exists between what is written today in Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Munich, Hamburg, and Bremen, and what minds such as Herder, Goethe, Fichte, and Schiller once proclaimed—then we must say: That is fundamentally different. And all the declamations that have taken hold by citing Fichtean or even Goethian phrases—all that which has been produced there—resembles more what is written in Chicago, New York, London, Paris, and Rome than the spirit of Herder, Fichte, Schiller, and Goethe. The tidal wave that has swept over Central European life from the West has also washed away what should have lived within us, and nothing in what has been produced in recent decades bore any trace of the old spirit. This had to be brought before the world’s “eyes” when the catastrophe broke over Central Europe; it welled up from my soul as I composed my “Appeal to the German People and the Cultural World.” What was connected with this simply could not be continued in the same way as it had been customary until 1914, in the form familiar to you.

[ 5 ] At that time, I could not appeal to something that people had to believe they would be able to appeal to after 1918. One could not appeal to what is the proof of the decline of civilization as a whole: hardship. Since 1918, one had to believe that the hardship that had befallen Central Europe would awaken souls and make them receptive to the message conveyed in the “Appeal to the German People and the Cultural World.” Certainly, the Anthroposophical Movement could not continue to be nurtured as it had been in the past. In the past, one had to perform the service that, of course, must always be performed in the anthroposophical movement—and must continue to be performed today and into the future: to nurture the eternal in the human soul, that which transcends birth and death, that which points beyond the merely sensory world into the supersensory world. And one had to wait to see whether, from the souls—from the slumbering souls of modern civilization—here and there would emerge those souls who truly understood what is meant by spiritual science. At that time, one could not yet appeal to external evidence in the face of hardship. But now, after 1918, the time had come when something entirely different had to be brought before the inner eye as a prerequisite. Humanity could have realized where the prevalence of materialism had led it. For what we have experienced, what we continue to experience, and what we will experience even more powerfully in the future is the external karma of materialism in the spiritual, political, and economic spheres. It is the consequence of a failure to act—namely, that people did not want to find within themselves the active force to cultivate spiritual life in the soul. Then came the time following the drafting of this “Appeal to the German People and the Cultural World,” when the most important thing was to work positively toward something concrete. This arose purely out of the possibilities of life itself. I had to take the first hands that were extended to me, for every moment was urgent. I had to take the first hands that were extended to me: they were those extended to me from Stuttgart. At first, the task was to nurture and cultivate what could be nurtured and cultivated there through the initiative of a few friends. Had humanity understood at that time what was at stake—had it not failed even in the face of hardship—then it would have been enough to undertake such a project from a single center, for that could have served as an exemplary model. But what actually happened?

[ 6 ] To help you understand how things should be viewed, I’d like to touch on something. Before I traveled from Switzerland to Stuttgart in the spring of 1919 for my first lecture tour, a world-renowned pacifist came to see me. He wanted to sign the “Appeal to the German People and the Cultural World,” but hesitated somewhat and wanted some more information about the appeal. He said to me at the time: “What are you actually counting on in Germany?”—I believe that’s how he put it: “You’re counting on a second revolution.” — It was the spring of 1919, and at that time many in Germany were indeed counting on a second revolution following the first one in the fall of 1918. He believed that what was to come into the world through the threefold social order should be used as a kind of vehicle, as a kind of path, for what lay in the impulses of a second revolution. I said: No! That is by no means my opinion. It is by no means my opinion, first of all because I do not believe at all that any real understanding of the threefold social order could immediately emerge from the very people who might bring about a second revolution in Germany, as long as the old leaders are still there; and secondly, I said, because I do not believe in a second revolution at all. Rather, I believe that this second revolution will consist of a chronic decline and will not lead to an acute outbreak. The only thing I am counting on is that, for what is born out of spiritual depths, as many souls as possible will be found who will accept it impartially out of the necessities of the times, quite apart from what happens through the intentions of the old leaders. — So I did not count on those things that many believed I was counting on. When I then came to Stuttgart, it was, in a certain sense, self-evident that the broad masses of the people would be addressed first. These broad masses of the people, although in many cases paralyzed by the events of the war, were the ones who should hear something first. Deep down in my soul, I knew how things stood; for I knew that as long as the leaders who carry over from the old era—whether they are the leaders of the right-wing parties or the leaders of the left-wing parties, even those on the far left—have a firm grip on the parties and a firm grip on the people, nothing can be done with the people. But just think what would have happened if I had said I was not in favor of addressing the broad masses of the people. No one would have had to believe me, but if it hadn’t happened, people would have said afterward: If only he had addressed the broad masses of the people, then everything would have turned out quite differently! — When it comes to realities, one must also prove one’s case through realities. And it first had to be proven through these realities that, from among all the left-wing parties, the slanderers and empty rhetoricians rose up against what, through the threefold social order, was just beginning to become understandable to the broadest masses of the people. We were on the right track. It is fair to say that we were winning over thousands of people every three days. But it was precisely the understanding that the broad masses of the people showed toward the threefold social order—precisely that—that drove the old leaders to their slanders and their empty rhetoric, and so it came to pass that, at first, the ground seemed to be pulled out from under our feet on this front.

[ 7 ] And what was there to hope for from the other side? Well, there’s no point in deluding ourselves about these matters; the only thing that helps us now is to speak the truth. A leading figure at the time—who had risen through the ranks of the party that called itself, and still calls itself, the “German Democratic” Party based on a peculiar interpretation of the term—and who appeared at one of the meetings held back then, said to me: “Yes, you know, if we were in a position to let more people speak before the broad masses of the people—people who can explain things in this way—then fine, then one could indeed join in.” But we can’t rely on that alone, and that’s why, for the time being, we’re relying more on firearms, on violence, and will continue to use them for the next fifteen to twenty years to keep the broad masses of the people in check.” — That was, in essence, the prevailing bourgeois mindset; the other was the proletarian economy.

[ 8 ] So, in fact, there is no other option but to present what has been drawn from spiritual depths in such a way that more and more people come to understand the matter. But behind this, in particular, must still stand that which was born from—and should have been nurtured—what was established even before the war at the border of Switzerland, France, and Germany, so that it might look out from Central Europe into the wider world, looking out especially toward the West, and which then also received the name it must bear: the name of the Goetheanum. For today we face global challenges in spiritual matters! Today we do not approach spiritual matters as we would, say, merely personal affairs. For treating spiritual matters as we would personal affairs would indeed lead us to ruin. That is ultimately why my activities in recent times have had to be limited to southern Germany and Switzerland. I truly long for a time to dawn once more when the horizon of our work can once again expand. Yet that does not depend on me alone; it depends, above all, on the understanding with which people approach the matter. I may yet have the opportunity in the coming days to point out certain aspects of the kind of understanding that emanates from certain circles, which operate more in the shadows through forged letters, fabricated interviews, slander, and lies.

[ 9 ] For now, let what I have just said serve merely to point to the reasons that made it necessary for us to temporarily set aside our activities in Berlin, and to highlight the circumstances that made it necessary to appeal—even in Berlin—to what simply had to be appealed to at that time. Have we not, over the course of nearly two decades, spread anthroposophy across a vast territory? Was it not reasonable to hope that people would be found who would continue the work independently? Such people have indeed come forward. They have also come forward here in Berlin, and with the help of these friends, we must first attempt to continue the work in Berlin. It is for this purpose that we have gathered here today. At this general assembly, a decision is to be made regarding the continuation of the work here in Berlin.