Rudolf Steiner, 1861 to 1925
His life by witness. Every entry names who says so and links to where: his own account, the lectures the Gesamtausgabe dates, and the chronicle of one who was there. 6,568 records over 4,026 days. Where two witnesses disagree, both stand. How the register is made.
Childhood on the railway
Born at a station on the Hungarian border to a telegraphist of the Southern Railway. Four station houses in eighteen years, and at Neudörfl the borrowed geometry book.
His autobiography dates these years to the year, from the ages he gives; no witness in the register yet dates them by the day. The biographies that do are not yet folded in.
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- Born at KraljevecHis own account
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1865
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1867–68
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1870–71
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- Enters the Realschule at Wiener NeustadtHis own account
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1873–74
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1877–78
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- The summer given wholly to philosophyHis own account
Vienna and the Hochschule
Daily into Vienna on the Pottendorf line. Schröer, the herb gatherer on the train, and the commission to edit Goethe's scientific writings.
The register reaches here through his autobiography and the first lecture the Gesamtausgabe dates. The years between are not empty; they are not yet witnessed.
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1880
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1881
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- Invited to edit Goethe's scientific writingsHis own account
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1883
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1885
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1887
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- Edits the Deutsche WochenschriftHis own account
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- Reads Nietzsche for the first timeHis own account
- The first lecture the corpus datesGesamtausgabe
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- To Weimar, to the Goethe and Schiller ArchiveHis own account
Weimar and the archive
Seven years among Goethe's manuscripts at the Goethe and Schiller Archive, and the writing of the Philosophy of Freedom.
His own account dates Weimar by the year. The dated lectures of the Gesamtausgabe begin in earnest only after the move to Berlin.
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- Publishes on Goethe's knowledge of natureHis own account
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1893
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- Nietzsche, a Fighter against his TimeHis own account
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- Acquires the Magazin für Literatur and moves to BerlinHis own account
Berlin and the German Section
The Magazin für Literatur, then the lecturing life: the German Section from 1902, the cycles, and the Society.
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- A Heretic's New Year ReflectionHis own account
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- Hands the Magazin into other handsHis own account
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- The years he says the spiritual world approached himHis own account
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- His first Theosophical congress, at LondonHis own account
- Takes the leadership of the German SectionHis own account
- The German Section is formedGesamtausgabe
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- The first General Assembly of the German SectionGesamtausgabe
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- The Paris cycle, and the meeting with SchuréHis own account
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- The Munich congressHis own account
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- The foundation stone laid at DornachEyewitness · Wachsmuth
Dornach and the Goetheanum
The building on the hill, the war years around it, the threefold social order and the first school, the fire, the Christmas Conference, the last illness.
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- Moves to the House Hansi at DornachEyewitness · Wachsmuth
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- The first Waldorf school opensGesamtausgabe
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- The Goetheanum burns on New Year's EveEyewitness · Wachsmuth
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- He speaks to a newspaper the morning after the fireGesamtausgabe
- The Christmas Conference opensGesamtausgabe
- The Foundation Stone of the Anthroposophical SocietyGesamtausgabe
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- The agriculture course at KoberwitzGesamtausgabe
- His last lecture, at MichaelmasEyewitness · Wachsmuth
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- The constitutional assembly, from his sickroomEyewitness · Wachsmuth
- Rittelmeyer invested as ruling bishop, Steiner representedEyewitness · Wachsmuth
- The letter saying his condition improves only graduallyEyewitness · Wachsmuth
- Dies in the studio at DornachEyewitness · Wachsmuth
Who is speaking
- His own account
- Steiner's own hand: the autobiography (GA 28), the writings on the Society (GA 37) and the letters to members (GA 26). The only tier whose words the page quotes.
- Gesamtausgabe
- The collected works as a dated record: a lecture printed under a day puts him in that place on that day. The place is the cycle's, so two volumes can disagree.
- Eyewitness
- Someone who was there. Wachsmuth's chronicle, scored before it was trusted: 87% of his lecture days land on a day the Gesamtausgabe records.
- Scholarly
- A biography with an apparatus, so a row can be followed to its document.
- Secondary
- A source without an apparatus. Kept where it disagrees, because the register never adjudicates.
Not here yet
Moments of the life the register does not yet carry a witness for, listed rather than drawn on trust: Marries Marie von Sivers (24 December 1914). They wait on the next witness to be folded in.