---
ga: 259
title: "Financial Crises and Artistic Plans in 1923"
date: 1923-11-25
location: Dornach
words: 664
---
# Financial Crises and Artistic Plans in 1923

## GA 259 — 25 November 1923, Dornach

To Marie Steiner in Berlin  
Sunday, 25 November 1923

Dornach, 25 Nov. 1923

My dear Mouse,

Thanks for the letters. The last one [no. 165] was brought by Miss Vreede yesterday. Hopefully you will soon be out of the woods of the processing. By now you will also have received my letters. Yesterday evening the eurythmy players arrived and reported successes similar to those in the telegram I wrote about.

Now there is still some uncertainty about the Christmas play performance in Schaffhausen. I thought that it had all been canceled. But now Käthe [Mitscher] tells me that Gnädinger[^1] now wants to have a performance scheduled for December 16 in Schaffhausen. Please write and tell me whether I should prepare some rehearsals for the Christmas play before you come. I will take care of the performance you write about for next Sunday.

Now for something rather unpleasant. Two letters have just arrived from Del Monte, one to you, one to Waller. They say that you are being asked to immediately provide a further 20,000 francs for the Eurythmeum in Stuttgart; Waller is being asked to provide 12,000 francs for her house. Waller is furious, has categorically declared that she will not do so and has telegraphed that she will not continue to run her building under such circumstances. Today she first went to Winterthur to visit her sister. I don't know if she will go to Stuttgart tomorrow. She is afraid because Del Monte and Schmid[^2] Incidentally, the people have already exceeded the funds provided, and Stammer[^3]in your and Waller's name.

I find it all outrageous. As I said at the beginning of the construction, Schmid's calculations were not worth a thing. When you come to Stuttgart, the “Stuttgart system” will try to make clear to you[^4] that it must be so because in 1914 a liter of milk cost 18 pfennigs and now it costs 32 gold pfennigs[^5] But that is all nonsense; and all the planning that is done there is just wishy-washy.

Spiller[^6] has asked about the following: Goldacker wants to recite her poems somewhere in Zurich and Spiller – I don't know if anyone else – wants to accompany her with eurythmy. She even says that she has already practised doing this. I told her that I would have to discuss it with you first. But the stuff is supposed to start as early as Sunday. If you don't have anything particular against it, I think you should let Spiller do what she wants. But I won't say anything to her until I hear from you.

I have many concerns here. I have to come to terms with the decision these days regarding the extent to which the Goetheanum should be rebuilt, and that is difficult because it is impossible to say how the funds will be. Everything is quite difficult. I would also like to be there in Berlin. Now we will see what you write about the next few days.

With all my heart, Rudolf Steiner

---

[^1]: Franz Gnädinger (1894-1971), active as a priest of the Christian Community in Switzerland from 1928.

[^2]: Dr. Carl Schmid (d. 1931), married to Hilda Curtius, member since October 1907, architect of the first Stuttgart Society House, Landhausstr. 70, and from 1911-1914 the first architect of the Munich-Dornach building project.

[^3]: Hans Heinrich Carl Stammer (1886-1956), head of the banking house H. Stammer & Co., Stuttgart, which was associated with the “Kommende Tag AG” from 1922-1924

[^4]: Term used by Rudolf Steiner for the leading members in Stuttgart.

[^5]: The gold mark was a unit of account during the period of hyperinflation in Germany, equivalent to the pre-war mark, defined as 2790th part of a kilogram of fine gold, i.e. 100 GM = 35.8423 g fine gold.

[^6]: Agnes Spiller, eurythmist in Dornach. Goldacker: Dagmar v. Goldacker, member of the Berlin branch since February 1911.