Light for the New Millennium: Rudolf Steiner's Association w

That's French for "the ancient system," as in the ancient system of feudal privileges and the exercise of autocratic power over the peasants. The ancien regime never goes away, like vampires and dinosaur bones they are always hidden in the earth, exercising a mysterious influence. It is not paranoia to believe that the elites scheme against the common man. Inform yourself about their schemes here.

Light for the New Millennium: Rudolf Steiner's Association w

Postby admin » Wed Jan 02, 2019 3:39 am

Light for the New Millennium: Rudolf Steiner's Association with Helmuth and Eliza von Moltke. Letters, Documents and After-Death Communications
by Rudolf Steiner, Helmuth von Moltke, Eliza von Moltke
© Perseus Verlag 1993
This translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 1997
Edited by T.H. Meyer
Rudolf Steiner Press London
Translated by Heidi Herrmann-Davey, William Forward and Martin Askew

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Table of Contents

• Foreword to the English Edition
• Introduction by Thomas H. Meyer
• Helmuth von Moltke and Rudolf Steiner, by Johannes Tautz
• PART ONE
o 1. Letters from Helmuth von Moltke to Eliza von Moltke 1877-1914
o 2. Helmuth von Moltke's Appraisal of the Political Situation Three Days Before the Outbreak of War
o 3. Letters from Helmuth von Moltke to Eliza von Moltke After the Outbreak of War
o 4. Helmuth von Moltke on the Retreat from the Marne
o 5. A Document That Could Have Changed World History
 (i) Rudolf Steiner's Prefatory Remarks to the Pamphlet The Question of War-'Guilt'
 (ii) Helmuth von Moltke -- 'Reflections and Memories'
 (iii) Entries from the Diary of Wilhelm von Dommes Between 28 May and 19 June 1919
 (iv) Unsustainability of General von Dammes' Objections, by Jurgen von Grone
 (v) The Sauerwein Interview with Rudolf Steiner for Le Matin About the Events That Led to the First World War
 (vi) The Core of the Problem in Seven Points, by Jurgen von Grone
• Addendum to Part One: The Image of Helmuth von Moltke in Twentieth Century Historical Writing, by Jens Heisterkamp
• PART TWO: Editorial Comments and Listing of Letters, Verses and Documents
o 1. Letters and Verses from Rudolf Steiner to Eliza von Moltke and Helmuth von Moltke 1904-15
o 2. Helmuth von Moltke's Death
o 3. After-Death Messages From Helmuth von Moltke, and Relevant Documents
• Notes
• English Translations of Works by Rudolf Steiner (referred to in this book)
• Index
• List of Illustrations
o 1. Helmuth von Moltke, around 1912
o 2. Melmuth von Moltke, 1891
o 3. Eliza von Moltke, 1897
o 4. Kaiser Wilhelm II with Family, 1893
o 5. Tsar Nicholas II with Family, around 1895
o 6. 'Peoples of Europe, Guard All that You Hold Most Holy' (von H. Knackfuss)
o 7. Helmuth von Moltke, around 1870
o 8. Wilhelm II, 1918
o 9. Helmuth von Moltke, around 1910
o 10. Wilhelm von Dommes, around 1910
o 11. Helmuth von Moltke, around 1910
o 12. Jurgen von Grone, around 1945
o 13. Helene Rochling, around 1915
o 14. Rudolf Steiner, 1915
o 15. Astrid, Adam, Else and Wilhelm von Moltke
o 16. Eliza von Moltke, around 1910
o 17. Helmuth von Moltke, July 1914
o 18. Eliza and Helmuth von Moltke, around 1914
o 19. Helmuth von Moltke on his deathbed
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Re: Light for the New Millennium: Rudolf Steiner's Associati

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FOREWORD TO THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION

This one volume edition for the English speaking readers originally appeared in two separate German language volumes in 1993. Volume one covers Moltke's life up to his death in 1916 and includes the key documents about the outbreak of the war. It was meant to represent the exoteric side of Moltke's life and work. Volume two contains all the after death messages. Roughly the two parts of the present book retain this basic structure of the German edition. Yet it was found appropriate to shorten the contents of the first German volume considerably, as some of its documents. e.g. a number of letters by Moltke to his wife, are of a more special character and might find less interest in an English edition. It should nevertheless be pointed out here that among the excluded documents in Part One a biographical sketch on Moltke by Jens Heisterkamp as well as two detailed studies of the Marne Battle by Jürgen von Grone are to be found in the German edition. Part two has only be shortened very slightly. Any shortening within a document has been indicated by apostrophes within two brackets – (...).

Part One now almost exclusively contains such letters and documents to whose contents there is a reference somewhere in the after death messages of Part Two. Thus readers who are especially interested in finding and comparing the exoteric description of some events with their corresponding after death esoteric messages or comments, will find this easier than in the more extensive German edition. In this respect the present English edition has an advantage which the German lacks. The essay by Johannes Tautz was originally written as an introduction for Part Two. Out of technical reasons it was put after the introduction in front of all the documents of this book. As it deals extensively with Moltke's relation to Rudolf Steiner, the reader might as well come back to it after having been through Part One or even the whole book.
Especially the second part of this book requires some acquaintance or at least some serious interest in the spiritual science of Rudolf Steiner. It cannot be our task here to give a general outline of this science which is by no means a negation of natural science but rather its natural-organic complement. For a more detailed study of spiritual science the reader is referred to the numerous English publications of Steiner's works by Rudolf Steiner Press. But a few remarks may be of some help. The Philosophy of Freedom, Occult Science and some lectures on the Folk Souls are particularly fundamental for the background of Part Two. In Occult Science and other works Steiner describes the method of developing higher forms of cognition. Only through these the messages contained in Part Two could be received. Steiner speaks of the faculty of imagination, inspiration and intuition and shows 1. how they can be developed and 2. that they lead to a knowledge of supersensible facts and beings that is just as exact and objective as any really scientific knowledge on the level of natural science. Many people belief that the results of spiritual science cannot be checked, but must be taken on authority. This is in itself an unscientific prejudice, for it is not based in facts. Generally speaking, any results of spiritual scientific research may be checked in basically three ways. 1. As to the inner logic prevailing in the research presentation. 2. By relating the results of spiritual scientific research to ordinary life and asking whether this becomes more comprehensible by taking them into account. 3. By taking up the methods given by Rudolf Steiner to develop the spiritual faculties of imagination, inspiration and intuition for oneself. Of course, the third way of checking is in itself a (spiritually) scientific one and therefore the highest of the three. But nobody is likely to arrive at this level who refrains from checking in the first two ways. And this can be done by everyone. Any general rejection of spiritual scientific results, however, without checking them at all cannot, of course, claim to be a scientific action.

The messages of part two of this book are a perfect example of the exercise of both intuition and inspiration. For is is by no means inspiration alone which would suffice to be sure about the actual source of these messages. Only combined with intuition in the technical sense of the term Steiner could know from which spiritual entity they were proceeding.

Furthermore, Part Two of this book also provides a wonderful example of a fundamental feature of the basic aim of all science in general, and of spiritual science in particular: not to develop any subjective opinions about the world and its phenomena, but to let the world speak out its truths for itself. In such a way Steiner enabled the deceased Moltke soul to speak out himself the truths he was experiencing within the spiritual world.

Of course, Steiner could have commented these extraordinary messages. As far as I know he never did, at least not in a written way, but seemed to have left it to Eliza von Moltke, Helmuth von Moltke's widow, to interpret and understand them. This is as the reader will soon discover himself by no means always an easy task. There are riddles in this book, especially in its second part. But riddles are a healthy means to develop a process of spiritual understanding.

It might be of some help for such an understanding to structure the messages of Part Two from the point of view of various "themes" being introduced, followed up for some time and sometimes suddenly dropped again. In such a way we can distinguish some main thematic threads running through Part Two: the German Folk Spirit, karmic causes of the war, the 9th century, St. Odilie, demonic beings, the Christ, Europe, the future relation between East and West, the end of the century. Anyone who restricts himself in a second, close reading to one or the other of these or other threads will make a remarkable experience: These "subjects" seem to grow organically, they seem to breathe, and what is not being said appears to be a necessary fertilizer of this growth and breath. One should learn to listen also to the silence between the lines to get into the right mood and disposition for fruitfully reading especially Part Two of this book.

In such a way Part Two could also serve as a kind of textbook for the elementary understanding of some key questions of supersensible realities, such as reincarnation and karma or the relation between the living and the dead.

But the life basis for the unique spiritual unfolding of after death experiences is presented in Part One of this book. It is the fundament without which these experiences would so to speak "hang in the air". And only after having moved through this fundament, their can be a thorough understanding of the heavenly perspectives of the second part of the book.

As to the genesis of this publication some personalities should be mentioned here without whom it would not exist. Jürgen von Grone (1887 – 1978), an air officer during the First World War and later a pupil of Rudolf Steiner, was the untiring defender of the true image of Moltke's exoteric life and work. He was a specialist in German war strategy, and one of his essays was met with the approval of the Military Archive of the German Federal Defense Forces. Grone was appointed by Astrid Bethusy-Huc (1882 – 1961), the elder daughter of Helmuth and Eliza von Moltke, to be the the trustee of the manuscripts published in Part Two.

After Grone it was Johannes Tautz and the editor of the present volume who were authorized with the publication of these documents. A first typescript version was made by Emil Bock (1895 – 1959), a founding priest of the Christian Community. Bock was especially interested in the karmic background of Moltke and the First World War.

During the War time it was quite risky for Rudolf Steiner to send the after death messages by mail to Berlin, where Eliza von Moltke was living. They could have been regarded as a meddling with political affairs which could have endangered Steiners neutral position in Switzerland. Thus, while he stayed in Dornach (Switzerland) he sometimes used a messenger who copied his notes, took them over the border and mailed them in Mannheim. This was the function of Helene Röchling (1866 – 1945) one of the great sponsors of the first Goetheanum building. Helene Röchling saw herself as a real Grail messenger with a holy task. That is why she sometimes signs her letters to Eliza von Moltke with "Kundry".

In the original manuscripts references to the individual Moltke family members in Part Two were always abbreviated or coded in the following way: "She" refers to Eliza von Moltke, "it" to Astrid Bethysy and "El" to the second daughter Else (see Introduction, chapter 3).

The editor wishes to thank Heidy Hermann-Davey, William Forward and Martin Askew for the English translation. Heidi Herrmann translated almost all the documents in Part Two which was according to the particular character of the messages, a particular challenge.

Finally, I wish to thank Sevak Gulbekian for his decision and courage to publish this book. May it be met with unbiased critical understanding. And by critical is meant: may it be checked – in the threefold sense outlined above.

Thomas Meyer
Basel, 1 August 1997
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Re: Light for the New Millennium: Rudolf Steiner's Associati

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Part 1 of 2

INTRODUCTION
by Thomas Meyer

People on earth must learn from events that thoughts are facts.

-- Helmuth von Moltke, May 24, 1918


1. Twelve questions or why this book was published

This book provides an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of some key questions with which humanity was and still is confronted in the 20th century. These questions can be summarized as follows: 1. What were the origins of the First World War? 2. What was the share or "guilt" of Germany in its unfolding, and what was the share of other European nations? 3. What is the true task of the German nation in the world and why did Germany – during the darkest hour of its history – degenerate into Hitlerism? 4. Is there also a spiritual evolution of individual man as well as of nations and humanity as a whole? 5. What is the destiny of the individual human soul after death? 6. Is there reincarnation and if so in what way does it bear on historical events? 7. What is the function of evil in evolution? 8. What is – after the demolition of all old social patterns and the structure of the classical nation state – the future shape Europe has to give itself? 9. How can a better understanding between the peoples of the world be attained for the third millennium? 10. Or is there an inevitably increasing "clash of civilisations" awaiting humanity in the future? 11. Can man become able to really "learn" from history? 12. Is there a science of the spirit and if so what can it contribute to solve the above questions?

All these questions are intimately linked up with the life and in a very literal sense also with the death of Helmuth von Moltke who in the last two years of his life became a friend and pupil of Rudolf Steiner (1861 – 1925), the Austrian born philosopher and founder of spiritual science later called "Anthroposophy". But let us first turn to some biographical facts from the life of the former, as he is often confounded with certain other personalities of the same name.

2. Which Moltke?

The name of Helmuth von Moltke is usually identified with the Prussian field marshal who won the battle against the Austrians in 1866 and against the French in 1870/71 and who died in 1893. In other words, it is linked with the foundation and rise of the German Reich. Or else one thinks of Helmut James of Moltke who was a leading figure in organising the opposition against Hitler and who was executed in January 1945.

This book primarily contains documents from and about that third Moltke, who was the nephew of the field marshal and who led the German army into World War I. As much as his two namesakes are generally known and appreciated today as little known or rightly understood is this third important son of the Moltke family. Since 1995 a history of the Moltke family focusing on these three bearers of the name is available in English: Otto Friedrichs book Blood & Iron – from Bismarck to Hitler – the von Moltke Family's impact on German History.1 The headings of the main parts of the book are "The Field Marshal", "The Martyr" and "The Nervous Nephew", and they clearly reflect the factual recognition of the first, the high appreciation of the second and the prejudice against the third Moltke still prevailing nowadays. In her widely read book The Guns of August Barbara Tuchman 2 provides a similarly biased picture of this Moltke, and within most German language publications on the history of the First World War the general is by no means treated in a more balanced manner 3. Another source on Moltke for the English speaking public is The Spear of Destiny by Trevor Ravenscroft 4. This book however which enjoys a certain popularity among some people with uncritical occult interests is full of inadequacies and wild fantasies 5. In one word: Moltke is either unknown or depicted in a very distorted way.

One of the Chief aims of the present publication therefore has to be to set the record on him straight. And one of the key issues of this record is his real association with Rudolf Steiner (1861 – 1925) the founder of spiritual science later called "Anthroposophy". This is not an easy task as both Moltke and Steiner as well as their close association have been the object of wild speculations and heavy slandering.

3. Who was Helmuth von Moltke?

Helmuth von Moltke was born on May 23rd 1848 on the estate of Gerstorff in Mecklenburg (Northern Germany). The Moltke family had been deprived of much of its wealth in the era of the Napoleonic wars. The atmosphere was one of old and noble protestant families, landowners and officers of a more conservative kind with no inclinations whatsoever to join in the choir of revolutionary voices that sounded throughout Europa in that year.

Helmuth (Johannes Ludwig) was the second son of Augusta (born von Krohn) and Adolph von Moltke, the brother of the later fieldmarshal Helmuth von Moltke. He spent his early childhood on the idyllic river island of Rantzau in the North of Hamburg. Four years before his death Moltke is making a pleasure trip in a Zeppelin airship, overflying this very spot where he spent the happiest years of his childhood. And this little scene is like a foreshadowing of what was going to happen after his death, but this is for later ...

The young Moltke was highly interested in literature, history and music. He learned to play the cello with great skill and was to cultivate the arts during his whole life. After visiting the high school of Hamburg Altona Moltke decided for a military career, though he would almost have chosen to become a merchant or a seaman, while in his youth he had wished to become a forester. Apart from this being a very usual choice for a member of the impoverished nobility, it was in his case also motivated by the high esteem he had always felt for his uncle.

Thus at the age of 22 he participated in the German-French war. Here he had the first severe encounter with the reality and mystery of death: while he himself hardly escaped it, his lieutenant told him just before the first battle that he was going to die and presented him a photograph on which he put a little cross instead of his signature. The whole company was killed in this battle – except Moltke.

When the German Reich was proclaimed in Versailles in January 1871 this was a decisive happening in Moltke's life. For this Reich, he felt, he was going to live and work with all his strength – for as the vessel of the impulses of Goethe and Bach and Beethoven and innumerable other spirits it seemed very worthy of consolidation and protection. That this vessel was more and more filling itself with quite another sort of impulses of empty power striving and nationalistic elements was one of the most painful disappointments Moltke had to realize and overcome during his lifetime.

In 1876 he entered the "Prussian Garde" and soon afterwards the Chief of the General Staff and the military academy of Berlin. Moltke's appreciation of his uncle whose personal adjutant he had become was by no means confined to the strategic abilities of the field marshal. For it was especially in the house of the older Moltke that the younger enjoyed many excellent music performances and met highly reputed singers and musicians. Joseph Joachim the violinist and composer performed regularly. And Joachim was a close friend of Herman Grimm the Goethe scholar and writer of the excellent biography on Michelangelo. Grimm himself was the discoverer and friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson whom he introduced in Germany. Joachim' son Herman later became a colleague of the younger Moltke in the General Staff; he had deep interests in spiritual questions, become a devoted freemason and a pupil of Rudolf Steiner. He died about a year after Moltke in 1917. Thus there was a sort of cosmopolitan cultural and artistic atmosphere in the house of the older Moltke frequently visited by the younger. Almost all the letters in Part One of this book reflect something of this artistic side of Moltke: They are written in a prose which shows some kind of natural excellency. The same atmosphere prevailed in Kreisau (Silesia) the field marshal's retreat with which the Kaiser had rewarded him for his victory of 1866. And it was only in the logic of things, that Kreisau which thus harboured the highest appreciation of true Germanic cultural achievements later became with Helmuth James von Moltke the symbol for the unrelenting opposition against Hitler.

Helmuth von Moltke was in his late twenties when he met the first of the three personalities which were – beside his uncle – to become the three pillars of his mature life: Eliza Countess of Molkte-Huitfeldt from a Danish side branch of the family. After her only Wilhelm II and Rudolf Steiner played a similarly decisive part in Moltke's life, of course, in quite different respects. Eliza was born in 1859 in Quesarum (Sweden), had herself deep artistic and spiritual interests and was – after a materialistic phase – confronted at an early age with some spiritistic phenomena which convinced her of the reality of a living spiritual world. On the other hand she was a woman with both feet on the ground and with a keen sense for appreciating other people in a very realistic way. The letters in Part One are almost exclusively addressed to her and show the deep bond of mutual understanding between the two lovers who married in 1878. Four children were born: Wilhelm (called Bill, 1881), Astrid (later countess Bethusy-Huc, 1882), Else (later Koennecke, 1885) and Adam (1887). Astrid shared most interests of her parents, she had many far reaching spiritual experiences herself and it was her who treasured the documents published in Part Two for many decades.

In 1888 Wilhelm II. became the German emperor. And with this the second "pillar" in Moltke's life was pompously erected before his eyes.

In the nineties Moltke had to travel quite frequently and quite extensively, sometimes as emissary of Wilhelm II. And it is evident from his letters that he had a special love for Russia. But despite this love something mysterious and almost uncanny can be felt in the way he describes his first encounter with Tsar Nicholas II. in October 1895. When leaving the room of the Tsar one of his gloves fell to the ground as if pointing to a future disharmony between Germany and Russia ...

Moltke was always determined not to become one-sided in his world view and therefore pursued the historical, philosophical and theological literature of his day. He studied Chamberlain, Bebel, Eduard von Hartmann and the early works of Rudolf Steiner. Steiner had met Eliza von Moltke in 1903 in Berlin, and it was Eliza who told her husband about the spiritual science which Steiner was erecting on the foundations of what Goethe had inaugurated. Thus Moltke studied Steiner's books on Nietzsche and Haeckel as well as his Theosophy and on March 8th 1904 he writes to his wife: "No other philosophizing author has so far been more comprehensible to me than he." But he is no rash "believer". He submits everything he reads to the severe test of the common sense and to the process of a kind of slow and thorough mental digestion. And, contrary to what has been told and retold many times, it was never him who invited Steiner to his Berlin home, but Eliza. And it was never matters belonging to Moltke's professional sphere which were discussed at those occasions, but spiritual or cultural questions. There was one exception to this rule, and this was shortly before Moltke died. It is important to keep this in mind, for the theory has been invented that Moltke lost the Battle of the Marne under Steiner's influence! 3

One year after having encountered Rudolf Steiner, Moltke was offered by Wilhelm II. the post of the Chief of the General Staff, as Count Schlieffen, his predecessor, was getting too old. It was Schlieffen who – vis à vis the complicated European system of federations – had begun to prepare Germany for the eventuality of a war on two fronts, and the younger Moltke was to take over and refine this strategy. But first he rejected the Kaiser's offer. He hoped "that this cup would pass me by". And in a conversation with the Kaiser he asked him whether he hoped to win twice in the same lottery – the younger Moltke's modesty did not dare to reckon with the victories and successes of his great uncle. As the Kaiser insisted on him, Moltke insisted on having a totally frank conversation with him. In this conversation which took place in January 1905 Moltke explained the condition under which he might be ready to accept the post: Wilhelm had to keep out of any military action. For in the manoeuvers the Kaiser used to take an active part with the consequence that his army regularly had to win. This had loosened the bonds of confidence in the army considerably. The Kaiser accepted Moltke's condition and definitely appointed him in January 1906. It is in the letter of January 29th 1905 included in Part One of this book that Moltke tells us this important story which shows his admirable lack of personal ambition, his sense of moral responsibility and his unusual straightforwardness in matters of truth.

Despite the new burden on Moltke's shoulders the letters written to his wife between 1906 and the outbreak of the war still reflect his interest in religious and cultural affairs or in visiting old sites like the famous Odilie's Mount in the Vosges (in June 1911). But as his life was now so closely linked to the destiny of Germany it became more and more a mirror of this destiny of his own folk.

Though Moltke was certainly not personally interested in leading Germany into a war, he was realistic enough to see that events in Europe were increasingly tending towards it. On the one hand there was the beginning rivalry between Germany and England on the level of trade and commerce. As early as 1905 (3rd of August) Moltke writes to his wife: "There is no need at present to fear the worst but there is enough inflammable matter around (...) The worst part for us is England's jealousy about our expanding commerce and industrial development."

On the other hand Moltke was very aware of the shortcomings of the Slavic people within the allied Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy which led to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and thereby triggered off the Serbian-Austrian conflict. We consciously say Serbian-Austrian conflict, for there was no immediate necessity for Russia to ever involve itself in the conflict by mobilizing all its armies.

4. Illusions and Expectations on August 1st 1914

For Moltke the outbreak of war coincided with the sudden and totally unexpected break of confidence between the Kaiser and himself. This was by no means a purely personal or private affair but it had in impact on the whole future development of events.

What has brought about this tragic event which stood at the very beginning of the War in Germany? Let us briefly look at what happened in Berlin and London on August 1st.

At 5 pm the Kaiser proclaimed the general mobilization. Russia had effected its general mobilization already the day before which was a threat not only to the Austrians but to Germany as well. France had like Germany ordered the general mobilization on August 1st.

Shortly after 5 pm a telegram from Karl Max von Lichnowsky the German ambassador in London, arrived in Berlin. Lord Edward Grey, the head of the British Foreign Office, allegedly declared to Lichnowsky that "England would pledge herself to prevent France from joining a war against Germany if Germany in turn were to pledge herself not to commit any hostile action against France". On the basis of this telegram the Kaiser believed that England would adopt a neutral stance and would itself influence France towards neutrality if Germany refrained from marching through Belgium as provided for in the Schlieffen plan. The Kaiser sent for Moltke, explained the "new" situation and joyfully declared: "Now we simply post our entire army to the East!" With this action he broke his own pledge given to Moltke as the condition for his acceptance of the post of the Chief of the Staff. Thus the Kaiser who was an absolute dilletante in matters of war strategy destroyed the confidence between him and Moltke and was about to destroy years of the minutest planning. Moltke refused to obey the new "order" of His Majesty. What followed were without any doubt the most painful hours in the life of Helmuth von Moltke who was sitting in his room, "in sombre mood".

In the late evening a second telegram arrived, this time from George V. It destroyed the illusion of a serious intention on the part of the British and the French to maintain neutrality. The Kaiser, already in his bedroom, again sent for Moltke and said: "Now you may do as you wish!" Barbara Tuchman's comment on this scene is: "Moltke, who clung to the prearranged plan, lacked the necessary courage" for such a change.6 It was however not a question of courage at all, but of a realistic assessment of the European situation. And the second telegram would have required even more of this strange sort of "courage" – to change the whole strategy once more! To Moltke's keen eye for political realities the first telegram had seemed illusory from the outset.

5. Some Deeper Causes for the Outbreak of the War

The movement of German troops into Belgium on the 3rd of August caused Britain, as is well known, to declare War. If, as has always been emphasised, the key political powers in Great Britain had indeed wished for nothing more than to keep out of war, it is difficult to reconcile the actual conduct of the British Government between the 1st and the 3rd of August 1914 with this desire. This is a point to which historians have given too little or no attention so far.

Nevertheless, it has been documented long ago, though this is by no means widely enough known, that in certain circles in England to which Edward VII also belonged there had already in the 80's been talk of the necessity of the next great European War. C.G. Harrison very openly spoke about such views in his lectures The Transcendental Universe held in 1893 in a London club 7. Such views were linked with definite plans for a radical restructuring of all future social conditions in Europe and in the Slavic East. In place of the old monarchies there were to be republics all over – indeed in Germany there was to be more than one! And Russia had been selected as Terra Nova for "experiments in socialism" unsuited for the Western population. An apparently harmless echo of such far sighted international planning in the West – of which there has hitherto been no evidence in Central Europe – may be found in the Christmas edition of the satirical magazine Truth which illustrates such intentions in a remarkable way on a map of Europe. The map is entitled "The Kaiser's Dream" and shows Wilhelm II. revealing his worst fears for the future under the influence of hypnosis. What does he see? He sees a completely post-monarchic Europe!

Everywhere republics, and over Russia the enigmatic words "Russian desert" which means territory for experimenting with new forms of social conditions.

Was not the Kaiser, with his sabre rattling superficiality and pomposity indeed an idle dreamer, compared to the skilled statesmen of the West, such as Disraeli, Lord Salisbury, Lord Rosebery or Gladstone – as may be seen by his behaviour on the 1st of August 1914? And were not Lord Rosebery or Cecil Rhodes and others much more realistic in their "dreams" than Wilhelm had ever been in his ordinary waking life? And did they not "dream" of the universal power that should be given to the English speaking nations in the modern industrialized era? And did some of these statesmen like Rhodes not think in terms of long range spiritual laws governing the rise and decline of nations and people?

Was it not so that German export figures had risen to alarming heights in the years preceding the war? Did they not represent unwanted competition for Great Britain? And how could one become the teacher and thus the ruler of the young slavic peoples in the "Russian desert", if an economically and and politically strong Central Europe remained independent between the East and the West?

Certainly the British people did not want War, as it is rarely ever the people which wants any wars. Neither did many leading Members of the Parliament. The deciding influence on Britain's diplomatic moves in the first days of August must therefore have issued from quite other circles in Great Britain. The time may not be too far off when such questions may be taken more seriously in connection with the outbreak of the First World War and possibly also in relation to the near future of Europe.

6. A Document that could have changed World History

It cannot be denied that there would still have been a possibility to confine the war to the East, if an official British declaration of neutrality would have been given. And it was tried on the part of Germany to get such an English guarantee. On the same 1st of August Lichnowsky had put the question to the British Foreign Minister Grey, "whether Britain would agree to remain neutral if the Germans respected Belgium's neutrality. Sir Edward Grey would not give this assurance, wishing to keep his options open." 8 Thus it would only have needed a firm commitment on the part of Sir Edward Grey for the war in the West to have been avoided. These are the two facts which historians up to this day have not dealt with in due objectivity: 1. There was no need for Russia to order general mobilization at this stage of events. 2. England had the choice of giving an assurance of neutrality in the West. 3. In the night of the 30th to the 31st of July Helmuth von Moltke decided to wait for a third confirmation of the mobilization in Russia (which was also directed against Germany), before he was going to advise General mobilization to the Kaiser. 9 It was and is therefore utterly unjustified to accuse a nation with such a carefully considering military leadership as represented by Moltke and such a chaotic leadership as provided by Wilhelm II. to have willingly and consciously led Europe into the abyss of the War. This however was stated in the Versailles treaty of 1919 where Germany was the object of the sole "war-guilt", and this was restated again and again, also by German historians, up to this day. (To this whole question see also notes 55 – 57 of Part One and note 66 of Part Two) And if in anything at all – Hitler was right in not recognizing the guilt paragraph of this treaty. But it would have been far better for the destiny of Europe and the world in the 20th century if others before him would not have recognized it.

It is precisely in this direction that Rudolf Steiner took action after Moltke's death in 1916 and before the final proclamation of the so called peace treaty of Versailles. Steiner's endeavours in this direction were based on the "Reflections and Memories" of Moltke which he wrote down in November 1914, immediately after his dismissal by the Kaiser from the post of Chief of the General Staff (see next heading). Moltke wrote these memories for his wife, without any intention of ever publishing them. In 1919 Eliza von Moltke consented to a publication by Steiner. Steiner wrote a foreword and published the memories under the title "Who was to blame for the War? Thoughts and Recollections of the Chief of Staff H. v. Moltke on the events of July 1914 to November 1914."

Steiner first of all wished the Germans to have clear ideas about the outbreak of the War. He begins his foreword with the words: "The German people must confront the truth about the outbreak of the war." And he considered the memories of Moltke as "the most important document to be found in Germany on the beginnings of war".

Moltke's memories show that in the years leading up to the war, and quite particularly on the 1st of August 1914, Germany's political leadership had reached an absolute "nadir", as Steiner puts it. Had this little publication appeared in time it would undoubtedly have had a very significant influence on the progress of the peace negotiations in Versailles. It would, above all, have been of cardinal importance in the forming of a judgement on the question of who was to blame for the outbreak of war. One has only to think of the extent to which the fatal paragraph 231 of the Versailles treaty which attributed sole blame to Germany, provoked and contributed to the rise of right wing forces in post war Germany to give due importance to the impact the prevention of its publication had on the history of the twentieth century.

As soon as the brochure was printed, an impatient anthroposophist handed it on prematurely (see document Nr. 66 on page 250f and note to it). Thus it was immediately in the hands of Germany's military leadership. Its publication was then prevented primarily by General Wilhelm von Dommes who intervened at the end of May 1919 on behalf of the Supreme Command and the German Foreign Office with the widow of Moltke and then with Rudolf Steiner as the publisher of Moltke's notes. In the course of an interview with Steiner in Stuttgart which lasted several hours von Dommes made the point that there were three factual errors in Moltke's notes, and that they could therefore not be published. Dommes declared that he was prepared testify to the erroneousness of the the three points on oath. If Steiner would have gone on and published the brochure anyway and sent it to Versailles he would have made himself publicly ridiculous – by trying to defend Germany without the backing of its own military and political leadership. Thus he had to give in.

In reality those around the Kaiser were anxious to avoid exposing to the whole world the pathetic house of cards which German politics had become – in contrast to its British counterpart which rested on incomparably firmer foundations! Thus a false national pride stood in the way of the prevention of a genuine disaster, and one which was to prove so ominous for the development of Central Europe: the fatal paragraph 231.

Only recently von Dommes' diaries have come to light in which he sets out in detail the conversation which he had with Steiner in the spring of 1919. The relevant passages are published on page • of this book.

7. Moltke, Steiner and the True German Folk Spirit

There is perhaps no clearer example of Steiner's attitude to the essential quality of the German spirit than the position he took on the question of war guilt. Yet even this has frequently been the object to dire misrepresentation. Steiner had energetically opposed the politics of attributing sole blame to Germany but in doing so he had, of course, never wished to present Germany as being "completely innocent" as has been maintained even among those who are sympathetic to Steiner. 10 For him Moltke's notes are "a terrible indictment of [German] politics"; they prove that there was no German policy capable of preventing decisions being made on the basis of purely military considerations. Only by means of clearly defined policies could the events of the year 1914 have taken a different course to the one they did. The true nature of Germany's guilt lies in its failure to develop such policies. Thus Steiner's struggle to oppose the acceptance of the policy of the Entente attributing sole blame to the Germans is at the same time the strongest possible rejection of Germany's political stance. How, in his eyes, should such a political stance have been conceived? In his own words: "The German Reich had been placed into the context of world politics without having substantial aims to justify its existence. These aims should not have been such that they could be furthered only by military might, should indeed not in any sense have been directed towards the exercise of power. They should, on the contrary, have been directed towards the inner development of its culture. Such aims would never have made it necessary for Germany to consolidate itself with things which must of necessity place it in competition with, and then in open conflict with other powers to which it must inevitably succumb in the exercise of military power.

Far from developing power politics, a German Reich should have developed true culture politics. There should never have arisen, in Germany of all places, the thought that anyone who saw these culture politics as the only possible ones would be an "unpractical idealist."

Inner development of culture, of faculties of the soul and the spirit, of a cosmopolitan attitude – this was what Steiner (and Moltke) saw as the principal mission of the German people. And Moltke who used to have Goethe's Faust in the pocket during the maneouvres had wished to place himself at the service of a Germany with aims of such a kind. Such an impulse towards inner development lay behind the words that Steiner wrote to Moltke in November 1915: "This destiny of the German people is bound up with the deepest and most noble aims of human development." Among these aims one can count the full emergence of the human being as a truly free spirit. But just because of this inner spiritual freedom "inner development" also bears within it the risk of illusion and untruth. Both sides are reflected in the history of the German people: the ascent to the peaks of spiritual achievement but also the fall into the abysmal illusion of false, external power play and fictitious notions of racial supremacy. The latter tendency, of course, is identical with a break with the true German folk spirit. Steiner hat already warned in 1888 that the increasing superficiality of German politics could lead to such a break – to the detriment of Germany and the whole world. And during the time of the holocaust brought about by Germany this break has been complete. 11 And National-socialism, therefore, has nothing whatsoever to do with the true German spirit, but is on the contrary only the expression of this break in its most radical form.

Moltke at any rate was well aware of the dangers threatening a further real ascent of the German people, when he wrote to his wife in 1904: "The German people as a whole is a pathetic society. Full of politicians in ivory towers, lacking any trace of magnanimity, petty, mean, full of envy and resentment, hateful and myopic – one can only feel sorry for it. Everywhere things are torn down, soiled, there is slander and lies, and all in the guise of virtuous moral outrage. Hypocrisy wherever you look, mean minded egotism and crass materialism. Ideals no longer have any validity, everything is outer semblance. Whatever still stands is torn down, everyone seeks to raise only himself, and when the great heap of ruins is complete, the judgement will fall upon us."

And Steiner once said: "If the German individual manages to truly grasps the Spirit, he is a blessing for the world: if he does not, he is the world's scourge." 12

If anybody, Moltke was the man to deeply feel the truth of such words.

Where will the German people turn in the future – after all that has happened since the First World War, including the external union of the German Republics which featured as early as 1890 on the political map referred to above? Will the individual members of this people now turn with renewed strength to the spiritual roots of its deeper mission? This would mean the fulfilment of the deepest hopes of both Moltke and Steiner.

8. Retreat at the Marne, Martyrdom, and Fantasies about the after death Messages

It was Moltke's destiny to become himself the target of the kind of "slanders and lies" that he found at work among his own compatriots. And this in the most hideous manner and the highest degree. For it will be difficult to find another personality within the German culture of this century who had been similarly misrepresented in the general public opinion – except Rudolf Steiner. These slanders and lies which are endlessly repeated up to our own days usually focus on the part Moltke played during the first weeks of the war.

Let us therefore briefly turn back to our general while he had the task to lead the German armies into war. Though the first weeks of fighting in the West were successful for the Germans, after six weeks the German armies suddenly retreated – undefeated. It was a turning point in the whole war. The French spoke of the "Miracle at the Marne."

As Jürgen von Grone points out in his contribution on page • there were several factors decisive for the final loss of the Battle of the Marne for the Germans despite the fact that they were in a far better position than the enemy. Among the Chief factors are the following: After the break of confidence between Moltke and the Kaiser, Moltke's instructions were ignored particularly by the Headquarters of the 1st Army on the right wing which advanced much too quickly. Moltke dispatched a Lieutenant-Colonel to the front who spread false informations with the consequence that on September 12th he had to undertake what he calls "the hardest decision of my life which cost me my lifeblood" – he had to take the army back. The Kaiser did not like the news of this decision and broke the already broken promise a second time by requesting Moltke's leave! General Falkenhayn was to replace him. But Moltke in order to ameliorate the bad impression created by this rash change of army leadership with the soldiers agreed to cover Falkenhayns decisions for the time being with his own name! And Falkenhayns decisions led to nothing else then the prolongation of the (mobile) war (by turning it into a positional trench war) and to innumerable victims on both sides. "I was left like a bystander without any influence whatsoever", Moltke writes in his memories. "I took this martyrdom upon myself and covered all further operations with my name, for the sake of the country and to spare the Kaiser from any speculation that he had sent away his Chief of the General Staff at the very first setback." "Sparing" the Kaiser – this was more than martyrdom; it was actual heroism rising far above any considerations of personal sorrow and disappointment.

After his formal dismissal in November 1914 Moltke wrote down the memoirs, assisted the occupation of Antwerp and later started to organize the chaotic production and circulation of nutrition within the country. Still serving Germany! It was after these painful events in the autumn of 1914 that Helmuth von Moltke was getting into closer contact with Rudolf Steiner than ever before. Steiner wanted to help Moltke by trying to widen his soul horizon beyond the boundaries of the physical world and of the world beyond birth and death.

And here a few words about Rudolf Steiner as a scientist of the spirit should be said. 13 Steiner's spiritual science is holding fast to the ideals of observation and exact thinking that have to reign in natural science. But its observations are not made in the physical world, but in spheres only perceivable after a certain "inner development" has taken place based on a special cultivation of the faculty of human thinking combined with certain moral exercises. "For every one step forward that you take in seeking knowledge of occult truths, take three steps forward in the improvement of your own character." 14 This was his "Golden Rule" for any inner development leading to the faculty of spiritual observation. The assertion that spiritual science is just a new form of dogmatic belief, would in itself be an expression of – a (negative) dogmatic belief. This is, of course, not to deny that a movement which in itself is in no way sectarian or dogmatic may have sectarian followers.) Thus in its methods spiritual science is just as exact and objective as any science which really deserves this name. Any open minded study of the philosophical and scientific basis of Steiner's Spiritual Science can easily persuade any thinking person of the essentially scientific character of this supersensible field of research. But among those who have a dogmatic prejudice about the "dogmatic" character of Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy thinking is notably absent where it would be most needed, namely in the formation of such a prejudice which is nowadays so widespread that it is even often considered to be scientific! It was necessary to make the above remarks since it may be seen from Tuchman's and Friedrich's and others' comments on Moltke and his achievements that the false or distorted conception of them is intimately bound up with a false conception of the true character of the Anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. Thus the former can only be corrected in the measure that the latter is.

In his personal letters to Moltke Steiner pointed to the entity of the true German folk spirit then being deserted by most German individuals. Then, in the summer of 1915, he revealed Moltke something of his past life as pope Nicholas I ( d. in 867) in the ninth century. In August 1915 Moltke made excerpts from what Gregoroius had written about this decisive pope.

Nicholas was paving the way for the separation of the East and the West from Central Europa in order to enable Europe to develop the capacity of material observation and free thought life. Out of a still highly spiritual consciousness and advised by his counsellor Anastasius Bibliothecarius he took the hard decision to inaugurate this West-East separation that was to become the vital destiny of Europa for a whole millennium. When in 1054 the orthodox and the roman catholic churches were formally separated from one another, this was just the outward fulfilment of the deeds of Nicholas.

In such a way Moltke through Steiner's help got the opportunity to feel and understand the world historic background of his being placed in the very centre of a conflict between East and West which he himself had initiated a millennium before. At that time Europe needed to be closed off for a while against Western and Eastern influences in order to develop its own special mission. When Moltke died in June 1916 unexpectedly of a broken heart, as his wife put it, his soul and spirit had been nourished of such far reaching insights into the connection of his own destiny with the destiny of Europe.

Steiner who was so deeply interested in the individuality and the destiny of this man followed his path even after he had passed through the portal of death. This Steiner did in innumerable other cases. But in no other case he left such an extensive bulk of written notes on the spiritual destiny of a human individuality.

Eliza von Moltke who herself was not clairvoyant and who received all these messages supported Steiner's research by keeping a meditative link to the deceased and by reading to him the letters he had once sent her.

The reader of Otto Friedrichs book gets quite another picture of these subtle processes of spiritual understanding in the last two years of Moltke's life. This is mainly due to the fact that Friedrich instead of going to the primary source of this extraordinary material quotes Ravenscroft's book The Spear of Destiny und by this helps to spread some crucial nonsense even more widely over the English speaking world. Here are some examples:

"There are also some very strange stories" says Friedrich, "that he lost the battle of the Marne because he fell into trances and had visions". According to Ravenscroft Moltke had already during the Marne battle and before his dismissal a kind of a visionary state of mind in which he saw himself as pope Nicholas, Schlieffen as pope Benedict II. and his uncle as Pope Leo IV. Moltke allegedly had stood in front of the holy spear at the Hofburg in Vienna together with his Austrian colleague General Conradvon Hötzendorf – the same spear in front of which Hitler later had been standing, according to Ravenscroft. Friedrich reports that it was Eliza von Moltke who in spiritistic séances became by "inspiration" the tongue for the messages of her late husband! He calls this "a peculiar technique of conjugal glossolalia". 15

Furthermore, according to him the deceased supposedly spoke in his after death messages even of a certain Adolf Hitler: "A little stranger was the late general's naming of the obscure Adolf Hitler as the Führer of a Third Reich, but that of course, may have been the basic reason why these séances were held in the first place." No such statement can be found anywhere in the real after death messages! Friedrich's "explanation" for it is especially frivolous, for it associates Moltke with Hitler, as if somehow they were moving on the same line. At this point I request the reader to well remember the distinction made between the true German folk spirit to which Steiner and Moltke were deeply linked and its demonic caricature to which Hitler delivered himself. There are hardly any greater spiritual opposites than these two spirits.

The only thing that has some truth in it so far is that Moltke from 1915 onwards (!) slowly (!) came to consider a karmic relationship between himself and pope Nicholas. All the other statements of Friedrich's are objectively untrue and pure invention, as the reader can easily check in part two of this book.

Friedrich himself finds: "This all sounds bizarre even if one recalls that Moltke and many of his contemporaries believed in the doctrines of anthroposophy." But instead of seriously checking what sounds "bizarre" he actually concludes his long chapter on the general by the following statements: "The Moltke Mitteilungen" [communications] are very extensive", Ravenscroft writes, "and amount to several hundred pages of typescript, photostats of which are still circulating secretly among hidden Grail groups in Germany today." Freya von Moltke who probably knows more than anyone else about the Molkte family history, says she knows nothing about these transcripts or about the séances that led to their existence."

Thus Friedrich in the end leaves it open whether all the things he quotes from Ravenscroft are fictitious or true, despite the fact that in his bibliography the two volume German edition of the "Mitteilungen" is correctly listed. Thus works some "scientific" modern scholarship! True or not, the quoted stories seem to fit and nourish the prejudices against both Steiner and Moltke. For what sounds "bizarre" is directly associated with "the doctrines of anthroposophy". How could such an "anthroposophy" therefore be anything serious or even scientific? Such insinuations and prejudices are generally nothing else but the dogmatic expression of a totally unscientific antipathy against the reality of the spirit with which both Moltke and Steiner, though in very different ways, established a very earnest, serious link.

In other words: At the basis of the distorted picture of Helmuth von Moltke there seems to lie a certain antipathy or fear of the spirit in its reality. And a sort of a very hideous trick to "disguise" this fear is to try to associate directly or indirectly both Moltke and Steiner's Spiritual Science with Hitler ...

After these remarks on Friedrich's most "bizarre" treatment of the after death messages the reader may well wish to embark on his own journey of discovery of this new "ocean" of knowledge and wisdom. And he may do so in full public and without having to be a member of any hidden Grail group.
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Re: Light for the New Millennium: Rudolf Steiner's Associati

Postby admin » Wed Jan 02, 2019 3:42 am

Part 2 of 2

9. From a higher vantage point

Four years before his death Moltke looked at the scenery within which he spent his childhood from a higher vantage point, overflying it within an aircraft. After his death he starts looking back at the dramatic scenery of his earthly life from the higher vantage point of after death life. Every human soul looks at his past life and incarnations from this higher point of view each time he has passed through the gate of death. But usually little or nothing is known about the spiritual experiences of the deceased by those left behind. But here is a man whose life developed in the focus of world historic events and for whose after death panorama there was a unique witness who could also act as a messenger: Rudolf Steiner.

The stream of spiritual vision unfolding after Moltke's death can be basically seen developing in four main time-steps: 1. Present spiritual experiences 2. Flashbacks into the time still "near" in other words the past immediately before death stretching backwards to the last birth. 3. The view widens and includes experiences in the time before the last birth and goes back to the second last incarnation in the 9th century. 4. Previews to the time of the end of the century – that is our present historic moment – and beyond it into the third millennium.

Let us briefly consider some examples for each of these steps.

1. One of the most characteristic present experiences interwoven with the whole variety of all the other after death experiences is put by Moltke in the following words: "Out of the body, one must direct the gaze of the soul across centuries." (March 1, 1918) As in the physical space one is able to look over a wide space in all spatial directions, thus in the spiritual world the same happens within the time-space and its time-directions. What is just farther in the distance, is farther back in past or farther away in the future.

2. Naturally it is events and facts during the preparation and the the actual war that repeatedly become the focus of the spiritual eye of the deceased. And looking back at all his own endeavours to safeguard the existence of Germany through his military office and duty, the soul reveals a shattering truth without any embellishment with which we so often surround truths found in earthly consciousness. "Whoever is able to see that materialism has ruined noble forces in the inner nature of Germany will also see that all that happened was bound to happen (...) German militarism had to become an empty vessel, without spiritual content. And as such it could not but destroy itself because it had not been called up to defend something of value which it cannot give itself but which it ought to serve. German militarism wanted to fight for Germany; but what was Germany fighting for in the shape of the people who led its politics? No word of significance was ever heard from any quarters that should have acted in the place of the military. German militarism fought for Germany; but Germany fought for – nothing. That is why the spirit of Bismarck and the older Moltke stood apart through those years."

There are 3. many flashbacks into the 9th century and 4. significant previews into the end of the century and the soul's renewed mission in the East. As these elements of the messages have so much to do with our own present time of reshaping European as well as world politics after the breakdown of socialism in 1989, we should like to give it some special attention here.

10. Three maps fighting for a new shape of Europe and the World

The soul looks often back into the 9th century where the shaping of the future Europe was initiated through pope Nicholas I. Nicholas was, aided by his wise counsellor, actually drawing the new map of Europe for the second millennium. It was his mission to prepare the world historic separation of the West from the East to bring about an independent Central European culture. The "soul" recognizes now what were the karmic consequences of this mission in the 9th century. One of these (dated 28 of July 1918) is expressed as follows: "It was my task then to conceive of ways to separate the East from the West. Many people were involved in this separation (...) In those days there was still a closeness to the spiritual world (...) Yet the inhabitants of Central and Western Europe were striving away from the spiritual beings. Already at that time they needed to prepare for materialism." For only through solely looking at the world as matter for a while could man become a really free being, merely relying on sense perception and clear thoughts which, being themselves only dead images of living reality, form the basis of freedom. For the dead thought images contain no immediate driving forces, as emotions and instincts do. Therefore in any action based on thought this driving force is nothing else but man's own free will. Herein lies the deeper meaning of developing the faculty of looking at mere material processes, at dead matter to which dead thoughts are the corresponding counterpart. This was Europe's mission, and this mission has been achieved. Therefore modern Europe should take a new step – and use free thought now for the knowledge of supersensible realities, as done in spiritual science. "The counsellor would often say then: «The spirits will withdraw from Europe; but later on the the Europeans will long for them. Without the spirits the Europeans will make their machines and their institutions. They will excel at that. But in doing so they will breed in their midst the western people who will drive ahrimanic culture to its highest peak and take their place".

Now according to a number of other messages it gets quite clear to the soul that the separation-task has been completely fulfilled with the end of the last incarnation on earth. From the message of June 22nd 1918 we learn: "In the ninth century we pushed back to the East what was of no use for the West and Central Europe (...) Our task (...) will be the opposite task from the one we had in the ninth century." The task will now be to erect a bridge between what had to be separated a millennium ago. From this point of view the still prevailing borderline between Roman and Orthodox Christianity which was the result of the church policy of Nicholas and which again with renewed strength runs across Europe in our own days is totally outdated. Already in the message from 19 October 1916 we read: "It is the clearest mission of my I to work on the European relationship between the Germans and the Slavs." And the soul experiences it as a blessing that he was not have to wage a war against the East in the last incarnation. The bridging mission, which is his task at the end of the century and the beginning of the next can unfold itself on unspoiled ground. Thus the Moltke individuality so to speak draws a new map of Europe and the world which obliterates the old borders between the East and the West and abolishes the frontiers between the orthodox and Roman Christendom. Within the framework of this "Moltke map" it is also clear from the message of March 23rd 1918 that "we may not approach the East with purely economic thinking; we have to think in such a way that the East can reach a spiritual understanding of the Middle European. Otherwise «the Beast" will be unable to spiritualize itself. We need to bear the thought within us: in the East many people are «waiting» who must be «found», for they would be able to understand, if one spoke to them in the right way. Any attempt to reach an understanding with those «people of the East» who have become «western» is futile. The «West» corrupts these people (...)" 16

Not only there is a true German element and its horrible counterpart which became active in Hitlerism, there is as well a healthy layer in the Eastern slavic people which must be clearly distinguished from that other layer which was gradually corrupted by purely materialistic an economic Western thinking and the Roman Catholic church. 17

This spiritual map with the realization of which the individuality sees himself deeply connected for the present and near future stands in the sharpest possible contrast to the main forces now shaping European and World politics. We should like to remind our readers of a map published in the British magazine the Economist in September 1990 (1-7), just one hundred years after The Kaiser's Dream was published in the magazine Truth. On this map which is accompanied by a very serious commentary we see a huge continent called Euro-America, another huge continent called Euro-Asia and some huge islands called Islamistan, Confuciana and Hinduland. On the earth of Euro-America we see a kind of kneeling pilgrim father, on the soil of Euro-Asia an orthodox pope. If we look closely enough we see that the two halves of Europe are exactly divided along the borderline of Roman catholicism and the orthodox belief! This map is in perfect tune with the new political philosophy of Samuel Huntington which outlined the coming clashes between the different types of world civilisations based on different religions and confessions. And both this map and Huntington's philosophy are being actually put into outward historical reality. All the countries now admitted to the European Union belong, according to this criteria, to Euro- America. And the NATO expansion towards East functions according the same principle of division. On on the hand old religious beliefs which are strengthened again, on the other "purely economic thinking", the false "bliss" of the so called free market for the East.

In reality, the map from the Economist, the corresponding philosophy of clashes of civilisations and both their realization in European and world politics today are nothing else then a renewal of the impulses of Nicholas in the 9th century. According to the insight of the Nicholas-Moltke individuality however they are – viewed from a higher vantage point – totally anachronistic, in other words nothing less than "new". This means that on the level of international politics the real conflict at the end of this century is by no means that between different civilisations as Huntington suggests, but the somewhat more hidden conflict between the renewal of impulses which were adapted to the need of the second millennium, and those needed by humanity for the third millennium. And whereas the Economist map is an expression of the former impulses, the "Moltke map" implicitly contained in some of the after death messages of this book is the only really new map for Europe and the world that has hitherto been designed. And because the old one is not appropriate any more to modern humanity it can only create but chaos. We need only glance to the state of affairs in former Yugoslavia after the Dayton plan has been forced into function to see that no true peace can ever come of it. Besides, the actual American foreign policy in general and the architect of Dayton Richard Holbrooke in particular are perfectly representative for what is called "the Western people" in one of the messages (July 28 1918), "who will take their [the European's] place". But no true European should blame the US foreign policy or certain American individuals for doing what is being done in Europe. It is the Europeans themselves who have nothing to oppose to such "new" Western maps and their political aims. They could only do so if they would care about a really new West-East map and its spiritual implications as outlined in these documents.

11. The European Union – New "clothes" for Europe?

It is hardly possible to consider the present European Union as the really new and European answer to the needs of the time. As a brief glance on its origin can easily demonstrate the EU was founded to serve the desire of Western economic predominance in the world on one hand, and, spiritually, is guided by the old Roman catholic spirituality on the other. Brussels is little more than a crossing place between Washington and the Vatican. Furthermore, the exclusion of the orthodox countries of Eastern Europe from both EU and NATO clearly shows the continuation of the cultural separation impulse which on a world-historic level has become outdated long ago, as shown above.

Helmuth von Moltke witnessed the beginning demolition of old social structures. After his death in 1916 he was gradually awakening to the full realization of his "Kaiser's Dream". But the crash of the monarchies is representative for the crash of all old systems of an all powerful nation state. In the nation state cultural, political and economic matters are chaotically handled out of one and the same source. It is of no fundamental importance whether this source is a sovereign king (monarchy) or a sovereign people (democracy) or anything between these two extremes. But humanity was and is more and more in need of a social structure that is adapted to what unfolds increasingly within each human individuality itself: a separation of the inner faculties of thinking, feeling and willing. Because of this fact of the inner development of each individual the social structure has to become threefold as well. A cultural domain has to be created within which the thinking or spiritual activity of man finds possibility of expression within a free spiritual life, unhampered by any national or political differences. The economic activities on the other hand should be taken out of the political domain of the individual nation state and work on a world wide level. This they do today to a high degree already, but unfortunately the international globalization serves the ends of a few mighty trusts or individual persons and prepares the way for a two-geared world society without a middle class – the ever richer on one side and the ever poorer on the other. Only by basing the world wide economic life on what Steiner called "associations" where producers, distributors and consumers express their needs and share their insights into the actual economic processes, an international economy serving the needs of every human being can slowly evolve.

Each of the above mentioned soul faculties thus finds its own field of unfoldment. The old nation state cannot satisfy this modern development within human nature anymore. Its demolition was ripe. This was well known in some Western circles and therefore preparation was made for an experiment in socialism in the East. This experiment was actually launched in 1917 in Russia and stopped in 1989. But instead of producing anything basically new, it was but a new form of the all empowered nation state. In the same year 1917 however a really new model for the social organism was created by Rudolf Steiner's idea of the social tripartition, as outlined in his book Fundamentals of the Social Question and in some memorandums – as answer to the inner tripartition of human soul life. 18

In the after death message of February 16 1921 we learn: "Europe had to cast off its old garments." That refers to the natural decay or artificial demolition of the old nation state, no matter whether in the form of monarchies, democracies, republics or state socialism. "Now it will wander naked through human evolution for a while." Is the present European Union about to provide such new garments? Only shortsightedness, superficiality or simply naiveté could think so. And what would be the remedy? The threefold social organism. But this can only develop if in Europe, after a millennium of a materialistic outlook, an new spirituality spreads and is cultivated. We read in the message of February 2nd 1922: "Central Europe cannot progress through unspirituality but only by the power of the spirit (...) In Central Europe science, too, will have to become spiritual. Central Europe has yet to pass this test." All the materials for passing this test successfully are already there. They only have to be taken seriously as something really new in the 20th century. They are to be found in Rudolf Steiner's spiritual science.

12. A new, individual spirit of truth for Europe

Only if Europe breaks through to a new spirituality, the future bridge between East and West can be built. If however Europe would prefer to remain buried under the spiritual debris and ruins of what has been destroyed in the beginning of this century, this would have dire consequences. "The lie of the age has led to ruin. Truth must lead to the building of the new. The spirit can only work in truth", we read in the message of May 3rd 1919. "Truth must hold sway. Otherwise not only German culture will perish; the entire European world would perish too, and Eastern Europe would have to be rebuilt from Asia. That must not happen. Europe must come to its senses and find its way to the spirit."

There are numerous indications about the necessary preconditions to find this way to the spirit. One is linked to a certain awakening process in the human mind. Rudolf Steiner often talked in the war years about the fact, that ordinary human consciousness is not more awake in regards to the actual historical processes within which it lives than it is awake about the ordinary dream life of the human soul. In this context the Moltke soul says (on April 22nd 1918): "Down below, it is quite rightly being said to people; history is being dreamed, indeed, to some extent, even being slept through. But this dream must not go on being dreamed on the earth." Another fundamental insight refers to the different attitude to truth and to the spirit in the Western, the European and the future Eastern man. How in the West and the Middle truth is often really feared, is expresses in the message of June 1921 as follows: "In Central Europe many people are afraid of the truth because they have lived a lie for so long; in the West people fear the truth because they would have to change their whole life if they admitted to the truth. – Only a humanity that understands what it is to live in the spirit will be able to bear the truth." About certain tendencies in the West the Moltke soul says (on July 15th 1918): "The Anglo- American nature will misapprehend this spirit and fight against it. It will be given materialistic forms. That will be the part of the world that will become more and more soulless." And about Eastern man and his relation to the spirit we hear in the message of May 14th 1918: "In this East there will be people one day who will speak a very particular language (...) They will be speaking of spiritual matters. And one ought to understand them in the rest of Europe (...) The time is coming in which one will have to learn to distinguish whether it is someone from the East or someone from the West who says something. Though they may be saying the same thing, it will in fact be quite different."

Above all, the new spirituality that Europe requires must be centred within each individual, if there is to be a free spiritual life in Europe as the fundament of a threefold social organism. Rudolf Steiner termed this spirituality "ethical individualism" which of course includes the individualism of true knowing. Such an individualism, anchored in every individual's concrete relation to the world of truth, is the true basis also for all social life and should not be confounded with anti-social egotism. The latter can, however, rightly be determined as that part or sphere of the individual which is precisely lacking any relevant relation to truth.

We find a message of the Moltke soul (of March 27th 1919) which shows him to be himself a true representative of such a spiritual or ethical individualism: "People who want to accomplish things on earth have to become builders of bridges (pontifices)." Now, what is really remarkable here is that a Latin expression is added – it is the only place in all the messages –, the plural form of the word for bridgebuilder: "pontifices". "Pontifex" was the technical term for the Roman pope who had the task to build the bridge between the earthly and the spiritual realm. By force of a spiritual appointment he was privileged for this function and acted on behalf of all the other believers, in their place. From this privileged spiritual position all spiritual authority within the Church was derived. This authority was justified up to the time of the beginning spiritual freedom of the individual. If we now bear in mind that the Moltke soul had previously himself been incarnated as Pope Nicholas I. we might get an even deeper view on this statement. Nicholas may be considered as the last pope who was still aware of the individual spirit and the world of the hierarchies. And he was the last pope who, based on this true individual experience, justly acted as a spiritual authority and as a representative for others. But just two years after Nichols' death the world historic attempt was undertaken to wipe out any consciousness of the individual spirit in mankind. This was tried at the Council of Constantinople in 869. At about the same time we see on the other hand the emerging fight for a new individual spirituality as reflected in the various legends of the Quest for the Holy Grail. For it is precisely the individual spiritual activity to be found by Parsifal which enables him, by asking a truly individual question, to become a healing factor in his social surroundings. If a thousand years later the soul who lived in Nicholas spiritually pronounces the word "pontifices", he is actually saying: While up to the time of Nicholas one pontifex had to act for many people, now each individual has to become an independent pontifex for himself. Also in this case it is important not only to pay attention to what is being said in this sentence, but to who is saying it. If this former true pontifex soul now points to the necessity of having "pontifices" all over the world, he herewith pronounces the world historic end of the old pontifex-principle with its spiritual authority. From now on each individual must through his own relation to truth become his own spiritual authority! This means that any traditional authority-based spirituality of any churches can play no true part whatsoever in the development of the new individual spirituality needed in Europe.

Such a vertical individual bridging between the earthly and the spiritual world, as it could only be briefly outlined here, is also the fundamental precondition for the horizontal bridge-building between East and West to be undertaken by all true Europeans – unless a spiritually ruined Europa is to be built up from Asia ...

13. Light for the new Millennium

In Part Two of this book there are about 30 references about the end of this century and a renewed task of the individuality which lived in the earthly personality of Helmuth von Molkte. In this respect the after death messages were like a secret prelude of what R. Steiner openly revealed in the year 1924 before his pupils: Many of them, he said, would reincarnate at the end of this century, hereby breaking the rules of the ordinary span of time between two incarnations. It belongs without any doubt to the highlights of this book to see the gradual emergence of this end of the century perspective. At the same time we can again learn with amazement how different the spiritual outlook of the deceased is from the earthly way of looking at the future. For the spiritual gaze events of the future are like definite places in the spiritual space to which one might decide to go.

Whereas the earthly Moltke – as every human being – was sometimes fighting with doubts about the steps to be undertaken the next day or week, the heavenly individuality speaks with unwavering firmness about some task lying eighty years in the future. And as this future has now become our present, it is maybe worthwhile to take a short look at the character of the task the soul foresaw for his present incarnation in the East, probably Russia. First of all it has to do, as already said, with the new bridging of East and West. This requires that Europe wants and finds a new spirituality. But there will be no outwardly political effort by the Moltke soul in his present incarnation: "In the East my task can only be a spiritual one (...) Earthly institutions must then be founded which will be an image of spiritual ones. «She» and others who are linked with us are to work together on this", we read in the message of February 8th 1918. And in the same message: "A spiritual wilderness is now spreading over the earth (...) In the twentieth century there will be a great deal of materialism which will be even more powerful in the twenty-first century. But everywhere there will be centres of spiritual will and deed." Such centres will also have the function to cultivate "a spiritual understanding of the world situation on earth" (January 8, 1917).

Of fundamental importance for such an understanding is that mankind learns to take thoughts and acts of thinking as seriously as any outward visible acts are being taken seriously. For it is only for our normal waking consciousness that thoughts are lifeless, pure images. In reality they have a hidden relation to the living world of the spirit. It is therefore not less harmful for the world as a whole if I live in lies and keep untruth living as if I would hit or even kill a human being. Steiner often called a lie an astral murder. If the disastrous events of the 20th century have anything to teach maybe the most fundamental lesson might be to learn to treat human thinking as a reality with quite definite effects. This is expressed in the following statement by the Moltke individuality (May 24th 1918): "People on earth must learn from events that thoughts are facts."

Wrong thoughts create wrong facts, i.e. are hindrances for the evolution of man and the world. One of the hopes linked to the publication of this book is precisely this: that the mass of wrong thought-facts about the life and work of Helmuth of Moltke whom Otto Friedrich simply calls "the nervous nephew" are being substituted by thoughts with real truth substance.

Of course, both the editor as well as the publisher of this book are under no illusions that especially the second part of it is open to misrepresentations – if it is merely studied superficially. They are also aware that many a representative of the anthroposophical movement may raise perhaps very justified objections against the publication of the after death communications it contains. Nevertheless they are fully convinced of the necessity of its publication at the present time. For only by risking it the heap of half truth's or whole lies about Moltke and his association with Rudolf Steiner may be gradually outweighed. Thus the publication of the Part Two was undertaken in the sense of the following words of the Moltke soul from January 1918: "What is decisive in the world is not just what is right but what is of heavier weight."

Furthermore there are so many positive and constructive thought-facts about the course of man's evolution over and beyond the manifold dramatic crossroads awaiting us at the end of this century, that this book could contribute to the growth of a certain spiritual courage more and more lacking in so many people today – a courage that can organically arise in the mind and heart of every reader who step by step becomes a witness of the grandeur and immutability of the spiritual laws governing evolution.

"Many adversities are yet to come to pass by. But the light at the end of the twentieth century shines brightly before my soul." Thus we read in the message of February the 2nd 1922. And three years earlier: "Fruit will ripen before the end of the century (...) Europe's materialistic era will be like an interlude when the new Spirit Sun begins to shine for humanity." (May 3rd 1919)

This Spirit Sun will be the true light for the new millennium.

_______________


Notes to the Introduction

1 Otto Friedrich, Blood and Iron – From Bismarck to Hitler – The von Moltke Family's Impact on German History, New York 1995.

2 Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August, New York 1962

3 See the essay by Jens Heisterkamp on page 130 of this book.

4 Trevor Ravenscroft, The Spear of Destiny – The Occult Power behind the Spear which pierced the side of Christ and how Hitler inverted the Force in a bid to conquer the World, York Beach, Maine, 1982. – Ravenscroft was a pupil of W. J. Stein (1891 – 1957), who was a student of R. Steiner and friend of D.N. Dunlop.

5 For example what he brings forth about the alleged meeting of Stein with Hitler, must be regarded as pure fiction. Likewise 80% of what he has to say about the "Moltke Communications", quoted by Friedrich. See below chapter 8 of the introduction.

6 Tuchman, op. cit.

7 C.G. Harrison, The Transcendental Universe, Six Lectures on Occult Science Theosophy, and the Catholic Faith, Hudson, New York 1993. – See particularly lecture two in which we read about the people of Russia: "The Russian empire must day that the Russian people may live (...) We need not pursue the subject further than to say that the national character will enable them to carry out experiments in Socialism, political and economical, which would present innumerable difficulties in Western Europe." Harrison also speaks of "the next great European war". (Italics T.H.M.)

8 George Brandes, see R. Steiner, The Karma of Untruthfulness, Vol. I, lecture of 4th December 1916.

9 In the German volume I of this book we published parts of notes by Lieutenant Colonel Hans von Haeften (1870–1937) who was Moltke's adjutant at the outbreak of the war. These notes with the Title "Meine Erlebnisse aus den Mobilmachungstagen 1914" ("My experiences during the days of mobilization", typescript, 38p.) have never been published in full. For future historians they will be a another key document in connection with the question of the war guilt. Already the following passage with a verbatim quotation of Moltke's own words gives the lie to all false statements about an absolute long term determination on the part of Germany to provoke the War: "Tomorrow noon [July 31st 1914] the decision about war or peace will be taken. The Chancellor [Bethmann-Hollweg], the Minister of War [Falkenhayn] have to report jointly at His Majesty. But before I will advise His Majesty the general mobilization, I want to wait for a third confirmation about the Russian mobilization. I expect it tomorrow morning, at the same time with the information from Vienna, whether the Austrian-Hungarian Army is going to be mobilized or not. Though there is hardly any hope anymore that peace can be maintained." (Haeften, p. 28, italics by the editor. The document is to be found in the Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, Freiburg im Breisgau, Sign N 35/1).– (To this whole question see also notes 55 – 57 of Part One and note 66 of Part Two)

10 See e.g. the foreword by R. Lissau to Steiner's lectures The Karma of Untruthfulness, Vol. II. London 1992.

11 See the essay by Johannes Tautz, p. 9, and note 16.

12 See p. 9, note 17.

13 See also Foreword to this book.

14 Rudolf Steiner, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds – How it is achieved, chapter "Control of Thoughts and Feelings".

15 Friedrich, op. cit. p. 283ff.

16 The corruption of the East has to do what was outlined in the so called "Will of Peter the Great". See R. Steiner, The Karma of Untruthfulness, Vol I; L. Polzer-Hoditz, Das Testament Peters des Großen. Der Kampf gegen den Geist, Dornach 1989. Th. Meyer, Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz – Ein Europäer, Basel 1994. – A representative of the true slavic nature is Demetrius.

17 A similar distinction should be made for the "materialistic" West. We could there speak of the Rhodes or Wilson layer in contrast to the Wicliff or Shakespeare or Emerson layer. – Whatever is said about the Western people in a critical sense in these documents should be looked at from the point of you of such a distinction. For, of course, in a man like Emerson, we meet the highest and most significant spirituality in the West. But, as little as in Central Europe the impulses of Goethe or Steiner have hitherto become really relevant for the outward social-political structure, as little can this be said of the impulses of an individuality like Emerson for the American West.

18 See R. Steiner, The Fundamentals of the Social Question ..

Bibliographical Note: See References on p. 292 and notes 77 ff. on p. 299f.
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