Anthroposophy and its Opponents

GA 255b — 18 March 1921, Stuttgart

Academic and Nationalistic Opponents VI

Announcement before the lecture on the occasion of the “Free Anthroposophical University Courses”

Please allow me to say a few words before I begin my lecture. A few minutes ago I saw the newspaper that published the “Reply to Dr. Rudolf Steiner, Emil Molt and Dr. Carl Unger in Stuttgart”. The article is signed “Major General (retired) von Gleich”. I will not bother you with a detailed response to the matter, but would just like to make the following comment.

I became aware of the statement that was printed in the Stuttgarter Tagblatt and that was made by Dr. Unger and Mr. Emil Molt after it had been written and already printed in the Stuttgarter Tagblatt. I did not exert the slightest influence on this declaration and need not point out to you here that I declare myself in retrospect in complete agreement with the content and with the fact of the declaration. But the other fact is, of course, that I have not addressed any correspondence to Mr. von Gleich – printed or otherwise – and I would like to emphasize this in particular. Mr. von Gleich has the audacity to send me a reply for which there is no request. I would just like to address these words to you so that you do not believe that I sent any request or any correspondence to that Mr. von Gleich, handwritten or printed - one could assume that one could have overlooked the matter. Of course, I would not personally address anything to a person who slimes himself out - excuse the expression - like Mr. von Gleich, but would only comment on it if the person in question could somehow manage to take some part of the public by surprise, and then I would not address Mr. von Gleich, but rather the public. Regarding such jostling, as it has been perpetrated there, I am in the habit, after reading it, to do nothing more than wash my hands. I want to stick to that in the future, but I don't want to fail to point out to you that a reply has been sent here to something that did not happen. Whether it is due to a brain diseased by hatred or to something else, I for one can only understand it in such a way that I would naturally write on such a reply letter: “will not be accepted” and that only if no reply is received does it appear to me as an impertinence.