The Fateful Year of 1923

GA 259 — 10 July 1923

Meeting of the Circle of Thirty (without Rudolf Steiner)

In the library of the Research Institute in preparation for tomorrow's meeting, at which Dr. Steiner has promised to appear.

It was stated at the beginning that, according to Dr. Steiner, it is not the task of the group to discuss questions, as happened at the meeting on July 2 and for which Dr. Steiner's later participation Steiner's later participation in the meetings, which were intended to deal with how to prepare for the appearance of the etheric Christ, how to take the dead into account in society, and which ideals of which cultural epoch (the fifth or sixth) should be represented in society's basic attitude. All these are matters for private study. In contrast, the representatives of the institutions are together in our group to do practical work. The theoretical discussions must stop, and we must finally get down to doing real work.

After that, various matters were addressed. It was mentioned that the students (Maikowski, Rosenthal, and others) intended to use the funds that had been made available for a college at the delegates' meeting to build a house on the grounds of the Waldorf School that would also serve as a meeting place for the Free Anthroposophical Society. As Leinhas, who administers this fund, was not present, it could not be determined whether the benefactors had been informed of this use, which was not in accordance with the original purpose of the foundation. In any case, however, it was stated that if the funds were not used directly for a college - Dr. Steiner once said that even if we had billions for a college, we could not open one because there would be no teachers and because if the Waldorf teachers were claimed for it, then the Waldorf school would perish - they should not be used for such a construction under any circumstances. It would be better to spend it on a movement for a free university or to combine it with the intended Goetheanum foundation fund.

Dr. Stein then reported on a conversation with Mr. Kretzschmar. He had pointed out to him after the “financial meeting” on June 22 that the anthroposophical economists who had not yet joined the coming day should join forces to support the movement after the Stuttgart financiers had committed themselves in the coming day. Kretzschmar replied that this was not the case. On the contrary, Unger and Del Monte had rehabilitated their businesses by founding Kommender Tag, made a killing, and now walked around with a halo on top of it. Stein said he had communicated this to Leinhas, who had written to Kretzschmar but received an evasive answer.

Benkendörfer said that such things kept coming up, but that after the unpleasant experiences he had had, he was no longer interested in finding out more. Unger explained that he no longer cared about such things at all.

Finally, Dr. Stein reported that the Kerning branch had been continuously approaching the board of directors since the delegates' meeting about Dr. Unger's continued presence on the board, and even after the board had declared that it would continue to work with Dr. Unger, even after he knew everything that the Kerning branch had brought forward against him, was not satisfied and threatened to pursue the matter further.

When the matter was discussed, reference was made to events that had given rise to it 16 years ago.

At the time, Miss Völker had spoken of the Jewish rule that was here. Benkendörfer, on the other hand, had said during the fall of the Besant that Miss Völker would soon meet the same fate.

Here, too, Benkendörfer and Unger declared that any hope of an understanding was completely hopeless.