# The Fateful Year of 1923

## GA 259 — 16 December 1923, Dornach

### Preparations for the Christmas Conference

Meeting between Rudolf Steiner, Dr. Ita Wegman, Albert Steffen and Dr. Guenther Wachsmuth regarding the future composition of the Executive Council. After Rudolf Steiner had finally decided to take over the management of the Society himself and had discussed the composition of the Executive Council with Marie Steiner, he now informed the other potential members. Dr. Ita Wegman had already been informed before December 2 (see page 864), Dr. Elisabeth Vreede in some way on December 10, Albert Steffen and Dr. Guenther Wachsmuth in the presence of Dr. Ita Wegman on December 16. Albert Steffen reported on the discussion at the extraordinary general assembly of December 16, 1930, as follows, according to the protocol:

"In December, before the Christmas Conference, on December 16, 1923, a meeting took place, a short meeting. Dr. Steiner called Dr. Wegman, Dr. Wachsmuth and me and spoke at that time, so that I heard it for the first time, how he thought the board should be composed, and then he said – I wrote it down –: “Vice President Dr. Steiner and Mr. Steffen.” Then he said: “Dr. Wegman = Secretary, Dr. Wachsmuth = Treasurer.” Dr. Vreede was not yet mentioned at the time.1 However, Rudolf Steiner had already made a comment to her in a conversation on December 10, “which basically implied that he was considering including me on the board”. (E. Vreede, “The History of the Anthroposophical Society since the Christmas Conference of 1923”, Arlesheim 1935.)

Albert Steffen's diary entry, to which he referred here, reads literally:

"On December 16 at Villa Hansi (Dr. Wegman, Dr. Wachsmuth, myself). Dr. Steiner reads the statutes and then says how he imagines the leadership. He: president. Dr. Steiner and I: vice-presidents. Dr. Wegman, secretary. Wachsmuth, treasurer (Wachsmuth suggests “treasurer”, to which Dr. Steiner says with a laugh, “The name is not important.”) Then there are the heads of the individual subjects. Dr. Steiner is head of the entire school. I am head of belles lettres. Wachsmuth is head of economics. He would rather be head of natural sciences. But Dr. Steiner says it is a shame that he is not a mathematician.

Albert Steffen twice gives December 16 as the date: in his diary entry and at the extraordinary general assembly in December 1930. Only at the general assembly of 1934 does he give December 19 as the date. Dr. Heinz Matile of the Albert Steffen Foundation in Dornach explains:

“The entry for December 16 is found in the diary of retrospective entries for December 19/20, 18/19, 17/18, 17 (in that order). The next dated entry (in the following diary) refers to December 20/21, 1923. This could explain why Steffen, when referring to this diary entry at the Annual General Meeting of the General Anthroposophical Society on March 27, 1934, named December 19, 1923 as the date of the discussion. (See the minutes of the AGM in the April 22, 1934 edition of the News Sheet, p. 63)."

A report by Albert Steffen to Marie Steiner in his letter to her dated August 8, 1943 sheds light on the reasons why Rudolf Steiner included Guenther Wachsmuth on the board:

”...It was on April 22, 1923, when Mr. Storrer resigned and I had to propose a helper on behalf of the delegates' assembly [of the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland, of which he was the general secretary] for the work in the secretariat. I had discussed this proposal with Dr. Steiner and accordingly proposed Dr. Wachsmuth. This choice was unanimously accepted by all delegates in the presence of Dr. Steiner. Dr. Wachsmuth declared that he was very willing to take on the work in the secretariat to support Mr. Steffen, and to do so free of charge.

Dr. Wachsmuth himself reported the following at the 1943 general assembly (according to the minutes):

“One thinks back to the time of the fire, when we lost the first Goetheanum through fire, to the year before the Christmas Conference; many will still remember that at that time all the affairs of the Anthroposophical Society were still being administered by the secretariat in Switzerland, at Friedwart House. From that time, I remember hours of meetings at Friedwart House, which were related to the fact that the treasury had a huge deficit, a huge hole in the treasury. And so it happened that Dr. Steiner said to me: Wouldn't you like to take over this financial administration, this administration of the treasury? I did it, I must confess, with a certain trepidation; but one was happy to do everything that Dr. Steiner said. And when the year was over, for the first time there was no deficit, but a small surplus. And it is still vivid in my memory how kindly Dr. Steiner received this relieving result."