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Rudolf Steiner’s birthday on the 27th of
February, 1861 - Günter Aschoff
NEW
DOCUMENTARY
EVIDENCE
 In connection with the research
on the burning of the first Goetheanum, (‘Goetheanum’ Nr. 42/2005,
3/2007), Guenther Aschoff had a look through many documents in the
Rudolf Steiner Archives. During this process he could see in
various publications, that the question concerning time of Rudolf
Steiner’s birth had become unclear. Therefore, commissioned by The
Dornach Work- Community concerning Archives and History, he
gathered together all he could find concerning Steiner’s birth date
and birthplace. The result of this research enquiry was that
Steiner’s birthday occurred on the 27th of February and not the
25th of
February.
Rudolf Steiner, Weimar 1896
Contrary to previous publications, Rudolf
Steiner’s father, Johann Baptiste Steiner was not born in Geras on
the 23rd of June, 1. [This information stands also
in The
Course of my
Life, GA (Complete Works) 28, Page 8], but in
Trabenreith, a small village not far away. (1) Rudolf Steiner’s
father was a forest ranger. After his parents had moved to Geras,
Johann Baptiste Steiner went to High School. He then assisted Count
Hoyos as official ranger, and later lived and worked in Horn. There
Johann Baptiste Steiner met the seamstress, Franciska Blie, who was
born on the 8th of May, 1834. In 1858, they decided to
marry. First he had to ask permission from the Count. (2). He
wasn’t allowed to marry because the Count wanted only single
rangers for his service. For that reason, Steiner’s father decided
to work on the new south railroad to be built, the first railway to
Vienna. He was then trained for a position as telegrapher. In May
of 1859 he began his work on the south railroad to Prestranek, by
St Peter, today called Pivka, about 30 kilometres east of Triest.
Prestranek is a small, undistinguished place with a castle, where
the great ‘Lipizzan’ horse breeding for the Viennese royal
horseback riding school took place.
The marriage of his
parents
On the
14th of January, 1860, Johann
Baptiste Steiner was given permission to marry from the district
office in Geras. On the 20th of March, the betrothed
couple had the so-called ‘bride’s examination’ in the Catholic
priest’s office in Horn. At that time their papers were checked as
well as their religious knowledge. After that, the betrothed young
man returned to his work in Prestranek, where he also resided.
Apparently the marriage had to take place at the groom’s village of
residence. It also stands in the wedding book of Horn, under the
8th of May, 1860, that the
marriage took place in the parish of Slavina, appropriate for
Prestranek. Previously it has not possible to ascertain exactly
when the wedding was held. For the wedding, Franziska Blie had to
walk to Vienna by foot to catch the south railway line to
Prestranek. There the two lived until perhaps New Years of
1860-1861, when Johann Baptiste Steiner was transferred to
Kraljevec; there the couple lived in house # 24. Steiner’s father
was always on duty for three consecutive days and nights at the
railway station.
The birth in the train station
of Kraljevec
Now the arrival of the child
was approaching. The birth extended from the 26th to the 27th of
February, 1861. One must assume that the father, Johann Baptiste
had asked Franziska to come to him in the station for the birth, so
she wouldn’t be alone at home. In the station of Kraljevec, there
was a small bedroom and a workroom for the duties of the railroad
officer, as well as a waiting room.(3) Thus Rudolf Steiner was born
on the 27th of February at about 23.15,
in the railroad station at Kraljevec. Rudolf Steiner named this
birth-hour later, either during the Munich Conference, 1907, or
during the conference in Budapest in 1909. The astrologer Alan Leo
gave a lecture at both conferences on the Astrology concerning this
question. So it was that Rudolf Steiner’s birth-time first became
known. (4)
At the birth, those
present were the mother and father, also the stationmaster,
Laurentius Diem and his wife Frau Josefa Jakl, the godmother, as
well as a midwife. The midwife applied bandaging to the navel after
the birth. For some reason, perhaps a poorly bound bandage, there
was a great loss of blood; so the parents decided to call for an
emergency baptism. To carry this out, a baptised Catholic must
speak, ‘I baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit.’ It was already midnight or shortly thereafter, and
those present didn’t want the newly born infant to die without
being baptised.
On the next day, or the
day thereafter, the baptism was repeated at a church in
Draskovec. The priest on duty, Gabriel Mestritz, registered
the birth and baptism as taking place on the
27th of February, 1861, under the
name ‘Adolphus Laurentius Josephus Steiner’. As the place of
residence he gave ‘Kraljevec 24’. At the end he wrote ‘Gabriel
Mestritz’ for the name of the authorised priest attending to the
baptism.
Why was there a false name in
the baptism registry? The answer is unknown. But in the first
volume of letters that appeared in 1948, as is particularly noted
in the autobiographical lecture of 1913, one sees that the baptism
in church carries the name Rudolf Joseph Laurenz.(5) The notations
from this autobiographical lecture were done by from Carlo Septimus
Picht. After the death of Rudolf Steiner, on the
30th of March, 1925, Picht had
contacted Steiner’s sister, Leopoldine Steiner in Horn and had had
a conversation with her. On the grounds of this conversation,
in which the date of birth was certainly brought up, a short
sentence has resulted: ‘The birth day of Rudolf Steiner had
extended from the 26th to the 27th of February, 1861,
necessitating the emergency baptism. The baptism in church followed
at the Catholic parish of Draskovec, near Kraljevec, under the name
of Rudolf Lorenz Steiner. (The laying of the Foundation Stone for
the St. John-Edifice in Munich had also been expected to be held on
the 27th of February.)
(6)
Confusing
Documentation
During the Threefold
Commonwealth time, Rudolf Steiner was often verbally abused; at
that time he began bearing witness to his Catholic baptism, at
which time he showed his record of baptism to others. In the
lecture of the 8th of June, 1920 for example, he
said at the end, ‘I had as a child good Christian Catholic parents,
and was baptised in Kraljevec on the
27th of February, 1861.’(7) This,
at least indirectly refers to the emergency
baptism.
Thus, the date of the
27th of February was the only
authenticated birth date used by Rudolf Steiner and his parents. At
the time he finished High School in Vienna’s Newtown, his parents
gave, in the record book, the birth date, the
27th of February,
1861.
On finishing High School,
Rudolf Steiner went to Vienna to attend Technical College. He
needed a certificate. The church was the definitive authority,
there being at that time, no civil authority as we know today. How
important the church’s authority was in those days…. Steiner’s
sister, Leopoldine, born in Pottschach, tried to get a certificate
of baptism, but could never obtain one, because the priest had
forgotten to enter her name in the baptism registry. Thus she had
to remain without any identity papers until her death on the
1st of November, 1927.
(8)
Rudolf Steiner’s certificate
of baptism had to be obtained from the parish of Draskovec, which
was appropriate for Kraljevec. One can understand how irritating it
may have been for his parents having received the document in
Neudoerfl, only to discover the incorrect first name written, as
well as the incorrect birthplace. There it was written ‘Kraljevec
24’ instead of ‘the railroad station’ as well as the office and the
name of ‘Gabriel Mestritz’. The parents then went to the priest
Johann Widder in Neudoerfll and pleaded with him to prepare a new
copy of the baptism certificate; and that Record of Baptism was
received and has remained.
The Two Photographs of the
Baptism Certificate
There exist two photographs of
this newly prepared and corrected baptism certificate: One
comes from the1st of February, 1914, when Rudolf Steiner asked Max
Benzinger to photograph it; the second comes from the years 1918 to
1920, from the so called Threefold Commonwealth time, when Rudolf
Steiner was beset and confronted with desolate abusive suspicions.
At that time, the certificate of baptism was again photographed by
Benzinger. From that photograph, there were even copies given to
those members who attended the Threefold Commonwealth lectures. So
they had at hand a proof of Rudolf Steiner’s place of origin and
Catholic education. (9)
On the photograph of the
1st of February, 1914, almost
everything was successfully deciphered, except for a couple of
places with small additions which are approximately deciphered.
From this photograph, one can clearly see that the parents had the
first name Adolphus changed to Rudolf, and the birthplace changed
to ‘Railroad Station Kraljevec’, carried out by the priest in
Neudoerfl. To the godparents ‘Lorenz Diem and Josefa Jakl’ they
also added ‘Stationmaster’. And after the names of the baptising
priest and the office, one can distinguish that there stands,
‘Baptism witnessed’ that is, both parents and godparents attested
that an emergency baptism was needed and they carried it
out.
The second photograph from
1918 /20 shows that the baptism certificate as being so illegible
that the decisive spots where birth and baptism should stand are
not distinguishable, unless one has knowledge of what could
possibly be written there. But in the next gap one can
clearly see a‘25’. As one can infer from the
photo of 1914, this number refers to the birth in the year 1861.
From the photo from 1918/20, of which copies were passed out, one
could come to the misunderstanding that according to the baptism
certificate, the birth took place on the
25th. There are two letters from
Eugenie Bredow to Rudolf Steiner, which come from the year 1921, in
which she refers to the birth date of the
25th of February, 1861. (10) One
must therefore assume that this date
‘25th’ was spoken about amongst
various people.
This is Rudolf Steiner’s newly
made, baptism certificate from 1879: the first photograph from Max
Benzinger (from the 1st of February, 1914 (above) and
the second photo from Max Benzinger (?) from 1918/1920
(underneath), kept in the Rudolf Steiner Archives – (almost
completely deciphered): a copy of the newly prepared baptism
certificate from 1879, by Guenther
Aschoff.
Various
uncertainties
Now Rudolf Steiner himself may
have also become somewhat uncertain, because he knew from his
parents that he had been baptised in church – and, this could not
have taken place on the day of his birth. Therefore he believed for
some time that his birthday must have been on the
25th. This problem had became
clarified at the latest by the 3rd of October 1923 , when
Steiner went for the last time to visit his sister Leopoldine in
Horn, also to speak about his birth and to clear up some questions.
At this time Rudolf Steiner had begun to write his autobiography,
The Course of My
Life. On the following draft
for the beginning of his autobiography, probably before 1923, there
is written on a piece of paper, ‘My birth falls on the
25th of February, 1861. Two
days later I was baptised.’ (11) From this one can suppose that
Rudolf Steiner knew that he was baptised two days after his birth.
This paper, kept in Rudolf Steiner’s Archives, is the only place
where the 25th of February, 1861 is in
Steiner’s handwriting. This paper was never used anywhere or made
public in any connection. Instead, on the
9th of December, 1923, in ‘Das
Goetheanum’ (‘The Goetheanum’) issue # 18, there appears for the
first time printed: ‘I was born in Kraljevec on the
27th of February, 1861’ – almost
exactly as it appears in the autobiographical lecture of the
4th of February, 1913, where
Steiner had to defend himself against untruths.
(12)
Thus one cannot say that
Rudolf Steiner had concealed his true birth date, particularly
because there was nothing so important for him in his whole life as
honesty. Concerning esoteric students - as well as, for
members of the FM (the Mystica Aeterna) - one knows that they were
given the most stringent requirements in relation to
truthfulness. So one can hardly assume that someone who had
such requirements to fulfil would have given a false date on
purpose.
So it makes sense to suppose
that Rudolf Steiner was born on the
27th of February, 1861. On all the
other documents – concerning the Technical College in Vienna, or
the Archives in Weimar, or those relating to his time in Berlin –
as well as on all the registration forms he had to fill out when
visiting his parents in Horn, there always stands the
27th of February, 1861 as his
birth date.
The Connections to World
History
What thoughts come to one
about this date the 27th of February? Here it can only
be briefly mentioned, in what great connection the birth of Rudolf
Steiner stands. On the 27th of February, 1784, the Count
of St, Germain died in Eckernfoerde. 11 times 7 years later Rudolf
Steiner was born. The meaning of this number is spoken about in
Rudolf Steiner’s cycle about The Gospel of St.
Matthew. Rudolf Steiner describes in
the lectures from 4th and
16th December, 1904, that the
Count of St. Germain was an incarnation of Christian Rosenkreutz.
(12) His connection to this individuality has been thoroughly and
often described, also how closely connected this individuality
waswith Steiner and with what he had to do in his
life.
Karl Koenig pointed out more
unusual information in (‘The Correspondence’) ‘Mitteilungen’ of
1955, rising out of the German Anthroposophical Work, (Easter,
1955, p. 64) published under the title, ‘The Year -
1860 Before and - 1860 After
The Mysteryof
Golgotha’. There he mentions a lecture
from the 6th of February, 1920; (13) where
Steiner explains that the knowledge of reincarnation had ‘died out’
after the year 1860 BC- before The Mystery of Golgotha.
After that time, one had intimations or feelings about it, but, the
knowledge of reincarnation was no longer existent. It was a service
of Karl Koenig to make this fact about reincarnation known. Now, it
is remarkable, that in the year 1860 after the turning point of
time, Rudolf Steiner’s parents decided to marry, and that Rudolf
Steiner was then born, as the one who was able to bring the new
knowledge about reincarnation in all its relationships. This period
of time before 1860, encompassed 100 moon-nodes (from the
1st of January, 0001, after
Golgotha, until the 20th of December 1859). One could
therefore say, as Karl Koenig does in his essay, that the year 1860
belongs to the important dates of Rudolf Steiner’s biography. And
so one can understand the riddle of why his parents decided to
marry under such adverse conditions.
The next important date, the
year 1897, in which Steiner left Nordoerfl to attend the Technical
College in Vienna, is also the time in which the new certificate of
baptism was recorded, and the Age of Michael began. Other important
dates concerning human history come into connection with Rudolf
Steiner’s life. They are: the year 1899, the end of the Age of
Darkness or ‘Kali Yuga’; and the year 1909, The Beginning of the
Perception of the Etheric Christ, as well as 1910, the year in
which for the first time Rudolf Steiner speaks about this
Perception of the Etheric Christ on the
12th of January, in Stockholm. It
is also noteworthy that on the
22nd of January, 1910 Rudolf
Steiner’s father died, during the above period of time. From
these signs one can see in what meaningful connections to World
History, the birth of Rudolf Steiner
occurred.
All of this, and indeed, that
which Rudolf Steiner said in his lectures, brings evidence to bear,
that the 27th of February, 1861 was his
date of birth.
Footnotes
1. Found in the letter from
Marco Baldini, Vienna to Guenther Wachsmuth, from the
3rd of September, 1962,
Goetheanum Archives. Confirmation from the copy “Registry of
Births’.
From Trabenreith, and
‘Weddings’ from Horn on the 20th of March
1860.
2.See Christoph Lindenberg:
Rudolf Steiner – Eine Chronik, (Rudolf Steiner- A
Chronicle), Stuttgart, 1988, P
25.
3. At that time the House
number #96, in the year 1961, # 7, See Hildegard Gerbert:
Kraljevec, in Newsletter from the
10th of October,
1965.
4. See Alan
Leo: How to Judge a
Nativity, London, 1909, p. 247; There
the Ephemeris was reckoned for the only time
23:15.
5. See Rudolf Steiner:
Briefe
1,
(Letters
–1), Dornach, 1948, p.241
f. Only appears in the issue from
1948/1955!
6. See Christoph Lindenberg:
Rudolf Steiner- A
Chronicle, Stuttgart,
1988.
7. See Rudolf
Steiner: Die Anthroposophie und ihre
Gegner,
(Anthroposophy and its
Counterforces)1919 –1921 (GA 225b)
p.255.
8. As recorded by Leopoldine
Steiner from her last year of life 1927. Probably written by
Margaret Karner, who cared for her before her death. The copy is
found in the Goetheanum Archives.
9. As described in GA 255b),
p.459.
10. Printed in: (Thoughts for
Rudolf Steiner’s 50thDeath-day) ‘Zum Gedanken des
50. Todestags Rudolf Steiner’s’. Contributions to Rudolf Steiner
Gesamt Ausgabe (Rudolf Steiner’s Complete Works. #49-50/1975,
p.5.
11. See Rudolf Steiner:
(Testimonials) Selbstzeugnisse Dornach,
2007, p.73. Perhaps Rudolf Steiner wanted to bring the exoteric and
the esoteric together in this first outline. Indeed he later
decided to add certain things to it (Notations) Anmerkungen, in the
way it is expressed in the letter to Marie Steiner on the
13th of December, 1923. (In Rudolf
Steiner/ Marie von Sivers: (Letters and
Documents),
Briefwechsel und
Documente 1901- 1925, (GA
262))
12. Siehe Footnotes 11, p.
14.
13. See lecture from the
5th of September, 1910 (GA
123).
14. See Rudolf Steiner:
(The Temple Legend and the
Golden Legend)
DieTemplelegende und die
Goldene Legende (GA
93).
15. Rudolf Steiner:
(Spiritual andSocial
Transformations in the Evolution of
Mankind)
Geistige und Sozial Wandlungen
in der Menschheitsentwickelung GA
196).
Recorded by Michaela
Spaar.
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Translated by Katherine
Rudolph at the request of The Anthroposophical Society in Australia
(Victorian Branch), 2011.
From
Das Goetheanum Nr 9
09
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