The Fateful Year of 1923

GA 259 — 1 October 1923

Report on the Founding of the Austrian National Society

At the autumn event of the anthroposophical movement in Austria in Vienna from September 26 to October 2, 1923

[No minutes of the meeting are available. In the “Mitteilungen des Vorstandes in Deutschland” (No. 8 of October 1923), Dr. Carl Unger's report on the founding of the Austrian national society is as follows:]

“The founding of the Anthroposophical Society in Austria presents the Friends there with major tasks and the necessity of overcoming many difficulties. But the first step has been taken, which should lead to a significant representation of Anthroposophy in the most important place. The leadership of the Anthroposophical Society in Austria has been taken over by an executive board consisting of the following personalities: Julius Breitenstein, Dr. Norbert Glas, Dr. Franz Halla, Dr. Hans Erhard Lauer, Graf Polzer-Hoditz, Alfred Zeißig. A circle of trusted individuals, which also includes the cities of Graz, Klagenfurt, Linz and Salzburg, is at the side of the board. The meeting concluded with a declaration of support for the rally for Dr. Steiner, which was heard standing.”

The wording of the resolution adopted at the time:

In the face of the increasingly brutal and concentrated attacks on Dr. Steiner's person, the executive council of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany recently made a public statement. In the wake of this, we, at the founding of the Austrian Anthroposophical Society, feel it as our primary duty to also profess to the world our undying gratitude to Dr. Steiner for the tremendous wealth of spiritual insights that he has given to humanity.

We recognize in him the purest embodiment of true humanity and the strongest moral will, and look to him as the appointed leader who, as the bearer of truth, is alone capable of leading humanity out of the chaos of the present time and into a new epoch of human spiritual development. Under his leadership, we anthroposophists have learned through his word and his way of life how thinking can lead to wisdom, feeling to beauty and willing to moral strength.

We have learned to understand how these new spiritual and moral sources can be tapped into by humanity. We know that the Anthroposophical Society in Austria can only fulfill the tasks set for it under his spiritual guidance, and we ask him to take on this leadership without us giving it an external name.

The Anthroposophical Society in Austria will endeavor to prove itself worthy of this leadership.

Today, however, it recognizes it as its special duty to protect Dr. Rudolf Steiner from slanderous attacks and to make it clear to the outside world that this protection is the duty of all truth-seeking and decent people, whether they are within or outside the Anthroposophical Society.

Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz reports in his “Memories of Rudolf Steiner”, first published in 1937:

“At the meeting on this matter, which Rudolf Steiner attended, Mr. Zeißig, the former board of the Vienna branch, was in the chair. The meeting was very unsatisfactory. There was a lot of talk, so that no decision could be taken until the last moment. Dr. Steiner had to leave in a few minutes, was always looking at his watch, and the meeting threatened to end without a result. So I stood up, made a brief proposal to found the society, regarding the composition of the board and the renunciation of further debate, and called on those who agreed to stand up. The motion carried a majority and the Society was founded. Since we had no binding rules of procedure, this was possible. In any case, the Landesgesellschaft still exists today and was the first of the countries to establish such a society at the request of Dr. Steiner.” (As can be seen from the present documentation volume, it was not the first, but one of those established at the time ‘at the request of Dr. Steiner’.