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RUDOLF STEINER’s ANTHR OPOSOPHY, A NAZI CULT?
Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy, A Nazi Cult? 
................................
..............................
 1
1. The Nature of Anthroposophy 
....................
 2
2. Anthroposophy and the Nazi Movement 
....
 5
3. Waldorf Schools 
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.......
 12
by Peter Nasselstein
Copyright 

 by Peter Nasselstein
Wilhelm 
Reich h
ad the following 
to say abou
t mov
ements like Rudo
lf Steiner’s
anthropo
soph
y:
"It would b
e worthwhile to make a thorough study of (...) the various theosophic andanthroposophical trends (...) as socially important manifestations of patriarchal sexual economy.Let it suffice to say here that mystical groups merely represent a concentration of facts that wefind in a more diffuse, less tangible, but, for all that, no less clear form, in all layers of thepopulation. There is a direct correlation between mystical, sentimental, and sadistic sentiments onthe one hand and the average disturbance of the natural orgastic experience on the other hand. (...)Compare this with the realistic, unsentimental, vital experience of the genuine revolutionary, thededicated natural scientist, healthy adolescents, etc." (The Mass Psychology o
f Fascism, TheNoonday Press, 1995, p. 138
)."The setting up of ‘animal’ and ‘man of spirit’ as opposites, follows from the setting up of‘sexual’ and ‘spiritual’ oppo sites. It is the antithesis that always forms the basis of everytheosophical moral philosophy"1 (ibid., S. 162). "As might be expected, the mystical attitudeoperates as a powerful resistance to the uncovering of unconscious psychic life, especially torepressed genitality. It is significant that mysticism tends to ward off natural genital impulses,especially childhoodmasturbation, more so than it tends to ward off pregenital infantile impulses.The patient clings to his ascetic, moralistic, and mystical views and sharpens the philosophicallyunbridgeable antithesis between ‘the moral element’ and ‘the a nimal element’ in man, i.e., natural In the original German one reads "gesamte theosophischeMoralphilosophie" and could thus also translate "the whole theosophicalmoral philosophy."www
.w-reich.de
12ointment. These experiments were performed by the KZ-physician,
Anthropo
soph
ist and 
SS
-Haup
tsturmfueh
rer Dr. Sigmund 
Rascher. His
father had been a 
lead
ing 
member of the 
Anthropo
soph
ic Society at its
center in Dornach, who, of course, had 
sent his s
on 
to a 
Waldorf schoo
l. As
a kid Rascher even 
met Steiner himself at Dornach pe
rsona
lly (14).
Rascher was of equa
l qua
lity to h
is c
olleague 
Menge
le, an
unbe
lievable pa
thological sadist, who no
t even beg
rudged h
is victims the
delicacies of their last meal, so that in 1945 he 
was, because o
f
embezzlement, shot on o
rders from Himm
ler. At the 
time Rascher still was
a special favorite o
f Himm
ler, if not his persona
l friend
, he 
submitted 
to
Himm
ler in Augu
st 1942 h
is own invention: the ga
s c
hamber. Here one ha
s
to know that it was one o
f Steiner’s teachings that potassium cyanide 
(like
in the 
insecticide 
"Zyklon 
B" used 
in Auschwitz) from an o
ccult point of view
not only destroys the bod
y, but also the 
soul.
3
 Thus Rascher aspired 
to a
truly Anthropo
soph
ic "final solution" (14). Ravenscroft proud
ly claims that
Himm
ler used, as a follower of Steiner’s bio-dynamic farming,
Anthropo
soph
ic "pest control of rabb
its, rats and 
sub-humans" (Ravenscroft
words) to d
rive a
way the 
remaining 
Jews from the 
European 
continen
t by
mean
s of ashes from the 
KZ-crematories homeopa
thically dispersed 
in the
air (12).
3. Waldo
rf Schoo
ls
According 
to Haverbeck’s 
Handbu
ch zur Deutschen Nation
 (Handboo
k
on 
the 
German 
Nation, 1986
) many elements of Waldorf edu
cation be
came
in 1936 pa
rt of the 
then 
inaugu
rated o
fficial Adolf-Hitler-Schoo
ls and
Napo
la-Schoo
ls (Nationa
l Political Institutions to form the 
future Nazi élite)
(14). Indeed
, the 
lead
ing 
Nazi pedagogue 
Alfred 
Baeu
mler liked 
Waldorf
3
 Steiner spoke abou
t Zyankali (the po
ison 20 
years later used 
in
Auschwitz) to workers building 
the 
Goethenau
m on 10
.10.1923 pub
lished
in Rudo
lf Steiner: 
Mensch und 
Welt - 
Das 
Wirken d
es 
Geistes 
in d
er
Natur
. Gesamtausgabe 
Vol. 351
, Dornach (3. edition) 1978
, p. 47. He said
that Zyankali takes not only the bod
y but also the 
soul, and 
if
Anthropo
soph
y were more known nobod
y would comm
it suicide 
with
Zyankali.
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13
schoo
ls very much and
, e.g., t
he edu
cationa
l concepts of the 
Nazi
pedagogue 
Magda
lene 
von 
Tiling 
were qu
ite like those o
f Steiner’s (6).
Toda
y there a
re in Germany abou
t 170 
Waldorf schoo
ls (with 68 000
pup
ils) and 110 
more a
re unde
r construction o
r planned 
currently.
Worldwide 
there a
re more than 700 
schoo
ls (5). Even 
if
 Anthropo
soph
y per
se is not taugh
t the 
"atmosphe
re" is there and 
the 
whole structure o
f the
edu
cationa
l course is based on 
Anthropo
soph
ic theo
ry (5). There a
re the
rigid schemes of four "ether bod
ies," cycles of seven 
years, and 
the
traditiona
l Aristotelian 
four tempers (8).
Steiner took the 
more specific elements of this latter concept, t
he 
very
hea
rt of Waldorf edu
cation, from the, at the end o
f the 19
th century,
popu
lar trivial edu
cationa
l boo
ks 
of Bernha
rd Hellwig, toge
ther with a
ll its
popu
lar dep
reciatoric notions on, e.g., t
he 
"phlegmatic" temper (6). Also
there is the 
"law of Karma," the 
Waldorf teacher has to suppo
rt,
unde
rmining an
y possibility of persona
l development (2). Due 
to Steiner’s
version o
f the 
law of Karma an
y bod
ily feature ga
ins moralistic s
ignificance,
since the 
spirit got this s
pecial bod
y due 
to h
is former karmic actions - a
kind o
f micro racism (6). A little female pup
il told he
r female teacher that
her father abu
ses her sexually, the 
teacher answered: "You ha
ve chosen
your parents yourself" (1).
According 
to Steiner the 
Waldorf teacher is a "prophe
t" of "the 
coming
development of humanity" and a 
missiona
ry of the 
"spiritual world." A
"mediator" between 
the 
"divine 
world o
rder" and 
the 
child (5). Typical for
Waldorf teachers are h
ysteric outbursts of corporal pun
ishment and e
ven
sadistic exorcisms of "evil spirits," literally! (10). Nonconformity is treated
with "medicinal Eurythmics" (5). Everything 
is s
een 
from a moral point of
view. Even 
the a
rtistic expression o
f the 
children 
is s
ubmerged 
in morality:
no 
color contrasts and no edge
s are a
llowed, and e
verything ha
s ethical
mean
ing 
(8).
The 
Waldorf view of life is patriarchic, moralistic, anti-sexual, and
conservative (1). Little children 
who a
sk 
where the bab
ies are coming 
from
are told abou
t the hea
venly origin o
f the hu
man 
soul, the 
role o
f the
gua
rdian ange
l and o
ther such stuff (5). The 
world o
f the o
ld 19
th century
fairy-tales is brough
t to the 
children, with a
ll its guilt, f
ear, and ang
st. A little
girl, who d
id no
t enjoy fairy tales, Steiner called a 
"natural demon" void o
f
any humanity (1). Since the 1890
s human 
shape
s were bo
rn who a
re no
reincarnations of humans at all, but the hu
man 
form is filled b
y natural
demons (16).
The 
main ene
my of Waldorf edu
cation 
is the 
masturbatory interest of
the 
child. According 
to Steiner little children a
re no
t ego
istic, not
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14
agg
ressive, not curious, not erotic, not sexual - 
if
 they are, there a
re
Ahrimanic forces beh
ind 
it (1). Before the age o
f 20 o
r 21 
sexuality is
considered 
something pa
thological and pe
rverse, so that kids are fired 
from
Waldorf schoo
ls, if their sexuality gets too ob
vious (10). Teenage
rs s
hou
ld
be d
istracted 
from pube
rty by the 
spiritual. Younge
r children a
re bea
ten up
.
There is a case where a 
Waldorf kinde
rgarten 
teacher hea
vily slapped 
the
face o
f a p
re-schoo
l boy who had e
xposed h
imself naked 
in front of a p
re-
schoo
l girl. One bo
y’s mouth was washed 
with soap a
fter he u
sed d
irty
words (1).
It is repo
rted 
that in Waldorf edu
cationa
lly-subno
rmal-schoo
ls restless
children a
re b
ind 
fast to their chairs. Other measures of Anthropo
soph
ic
special edu
cation a
re writing do
wn sentences a hund
red 
times, staying 
in
the quo
in, or slugs: like in the 
merry old Prussian 
schoo
l (8). But the 
main
edu
cationa
l technique o
f the be
loved 
Waldorf teacher-Fueh
rer is the
withdrawal of love (1). The 
teachers, of course, also ope
rate with
devastating 
moral judg
ments - and o
ccult spells, literally! (8).
To call Waldorf a "free 
schoo
l" is the 
same a
s c
alling a p
rivate
Catholic sc
hoo
l a "free 
schoo
l" (8). Well, there a
re no 
marks 
and 
repo
rts as
in o
ther schoo
ls, instead 
the 
teacher writes little a
ssessments, "app
raisal
repo
rts," of the pup
il’s persona
lity: open
ing 
the doo
r for all kind o
f
stigmatizations of the pup
il by psychological dilettantes (5).
Literature:
1. Rudo
lph, Charlotte: 
Waldo
rf-Erziehung
, Darmstadt 1987
2. Prange
, Klaus: 
Erziehung 
zur Anthropo
soph
ie
, Bad 
Heilbrunn 1985
3. Dvorak, Josef: 
Satanismus
, Frankfurt 1989
4. Trimond
i, Victor and 
Victoria: 
Der Schatten d
es 
Dalai Lama
,
Duesseldorf 1999
5. Grand
t, Guido and 
Michae
l: 
Waldo
rf Conn
ection
, Aschaffenbu
rg 1998
6. Ulrich, Heiner: 
Waldo
rfpaedagog
ik und o
kkulte Weltanschauung
,
Weinhe
im 1986
7. Heyer, Friedrich: 
Anthropo
soph
ie - ein Stehen in Hoeheren Welten?
,
Konstanz 1993