{"id":57277,"date":"2024-04-18T15:18:20","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T13:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/?p=57277"},"modified":"2024-04-18T15:18:27","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T13:18:27","slug":"the-most-unforgettable-thing-was-his-eyes-felix-heinemann-and-rudolf-steiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/the-most-unforgettable-thing-was-his-eyes-felix-heinemann-and-rudolf-steiner\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Most Unforgettable Thing Was His Eyes\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u201d Felix Heinemann and Rudolf Steiner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Not many people who got to know Rudolf Steiner before the turn of the century followed him on the path to anthroposophy, but Felix Heinemann (1863\u20131935) was one who did.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Heinemann was born into a Hamburg merchant family and trained for a career as a publisher and bookseller. In 1896, together with Otto Neumann-Hofer (1857\u20131941), he took over the then-popular magazine Romanwelt<\/em> [World of Novels] from the Cotta publishing house, which kept him fully occupied alongside his own publishing house, Vita. He later wrote in his memoirs about \u201cRudolf Steiner and the Magazin f\u00fcr Literatur<\/em> [Magazine for Literature]\u201d: \u201cIt is therefore understandable that I only listened with half an ear when one day Otto Neumann-Hofer suddenly asked me whether we wanted to take over the Magazin f\u00fcr Literatur<\/em>.\u201d<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Heinemann asked: \u201cHow much annual subsidy would I have to provide for this?\u201d And, \u201cIf we take over the magazine, can you guarantee me that I personally won\u2019t accrue any extra work, and promise me that the communication with the chief editor\u2014by the way, who is that?\u2014the editorial team, the authors, the printers, and the suppliers will be exclusively your responsibility?\u201d Regarding the editorial chief, Otto Neumann-Hofer named \u201ca \u2018certain Dr. Rudolf Steiner.\u2019 He is one of the most significant minds and one of the greatest experts among the new generation. His versatility is just as admirable as his thoroughness. The editorial leadership of the paper could remain entrusted to him without hesitation or restriction. Nor would I need to waste any time with him personally: he is a night worker, and I, a day person\u2014we would hardly meet. I just don\u2019t want to let my usual love of order have too much of a say because Dr. Steiner has his own views on this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Felix Heinemann was reassured by this information but later regretted: \u201cOne could have been so close to Rudolf Steiner, during his most important years of development, without having any understanding of his future world significance, without the time and the opportunity to become one of the first of his students to walk the path of the future among his followers!\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. A human age passed before I succeeded\u2014and against what obstacles!\u2014to find my way back to Rudolf Steiner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worldly Hermit<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

At first, however, Neumann-Hofer was \u201cunfortunately correct: Rudolf Steiner \u2018cost me little time.\u2019\u201d But, \u201cas the most decisive head of the publishing house,\u201d Heinemann had to meet the editorial chief, at least once, in person. \u201cOne lunchtime (my early morning hours did not come into consideration for Rudolf Steiner), Otto Neumann-Hofer introduced him to me.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. What an impression Rudolf Steiner made on me is clear from the fact that today, despite everything, I could still paint a picture of him from that time. To express it paradoxically, [the impression] was that of a worldly hermit. The most unforgettable thing was his eyes, unusually large, deep black, looking beyond the present into a distance, mysterious to us and, to a certain extent, painfully familiar to him, and more than the eyes, the gaze and the way of looking. Human beings speak so often of the eye and are not conscious of the difference between the eye and the gaze. The sharp, tired lines that outlined Steiner\u2019s eyes in the last Dornach years were not yet present then. A great force streamed out from them, an enspirited willpower, already worked through to perfection at that time, but less easy to grasp through the tighter fabric of the younger head than in the manifold fine lines that we know from the carpentry workshop.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. It was entirely self-evident that Rudolf Steiner lived and worked in accordance with his personality. He did not use the editorial offices and their equipment. He was a \u2018home worker\u2019 .\u00a0.\u00a0. and his manuscripts migrated in self-determined freedom from him to the printers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Odyssey to Switzerland<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Not much is known about Felix Heinemann\u2019s life; only a few documents on his path through life have been found. He married the Italian countess Raffaela Paulucci delle Roncole.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The married couple lived in Berlin, where two children were born to them.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Felix Heinemann joined a masonic lodge there in 1901; he was later appointed privy councillor. He supported the theater magazine Die Scene<\/em> [The Scene] and financed the purchase of the bow and arrow collection of the ethnologist Leo Frobenius (1873\u20131938) for the Museum of Ethnology in Hamburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, Heinemann pursued a diplomatic and political career that saw him travel mainly, again and again, to Italy during the war years and afterward.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> All he himself ever wrote about this time was: \u201cThere may not be many private individuals who have looked so deeply and so painfully behind the scenes of these world events. After a veritable odyssey, I landed in Switzerland.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On March 12, 1917, still in Berlin, he once again wrote to Rudolf Steiner; on August 14, 1920, now living in Lucerne, he followed up: \u201cMy esteemed Herr Doctor, a very old acquaintance, who has long sought a reunion with you, and wrote, as well, but received no reply from the much-claimed and thus excused, is thus contacting you again today. With more success?\u201d<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> He now immersed himself \u201cin Steiner\u2019s writings more consistently than before and sought personal contact with him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Equals<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And yet, it was probably not until February 1924 that the requested conversation took place in Dornach: \u201cNo speech is able to convey the tone with which Rudolf Steiner received me. It seemed as if no time at all had elapsed between those old Berlin days and the present. I felt deep gratitude for the welcome\u2014as equals\u2014that he bestowed upon me, but I also accepted it as a gift and later often had the opportunity to observe that Rudolf Steiner was this heart-winning way, inherently, out of his innermost nature. Even though the Anthroposophical Society is expressly apolitical, this does not prevent the fact that Rudolf Steiner possessed the deepest insight into politics, its means and aims, and thought about this important area of life from the look-out of spiritual scientific knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A stimulating exchange now evidently set in between the two, as is witnessed by the many letters from Felix Heinemann in 1924 and 1925 and the two letters in return.<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Felix Heinemann repeatedly visited Dornach and went to the lectures of Rudolf Steiner, and there were a few occasions for conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meanwhile, he again had to manage difficult assignments in Rome. \u201cIt is a difficult abstinence for me that I have to be away from Dornach for so long. But, I have still to fight through this battle here, against a real hell. Perhaps I will know in eight days whether I will triumph or fall by the wayside.\u2014My thoughts are with you and your work, morning to night.\u201d <\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between Dornach and the World<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

From September 1924, he seriously contemplated moving to Dornach in order to wholly and entirely stand at the disposal of Rudolf Steiner as a co-worker. What, on his side, Rudolf Steiner hoped for from him can be seen from his letter of December 31, 1924: \u201cThe whole structure of the Goetheanum administration must remain as it is now. For one can only do that for which one has people to do it. In particular, the financial administration must remain wholly in the same form, i.e., cared for by me alone. I couldn\u2019t work any other way.\u2014But that is precisely why I would greet it with pleasure if you, my dear Mr. Heinemann, could devote your circumspection and way of working to the cause. We need a lot of financial inflow in the near future in order to prevent the building from stalling. This can only be obtained if someone who is a man of the world mediates the relationship between anthroposophy and the world. Entirely matter-of-fact, reckoning on the understanding of human beings. That, you could do. But only if you are mainly in Dornach. Then, the widest possibility for further activities will result for you.\u201d<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On February 15, 1925, Rudolf Steiner wrote that Heinemann\u2019s letter prompted so many questions in him \u201cthat it is impossible for me at this moment to write to you what I have to write to you. My health is still wholly labile, and I have to pick out the moments when I may risk doing more than what the technical side of building and the most needful from the administration currently demand of me.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. So, don\u2019t be cross with me if I don\u2019t reply to your letters until the next few days. It will certainly happen then.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u2014With the warmest regards, also rooted in old memories, wholly yours, Rudolf Steiner.\u201d Felix Heinemann assured him on March 12: \u201cAs far as I have become and still remain a master of circumstance, I always hold myself ready to attempt the work that you wish me to do and for which you should believe me capable.\u201d And from Heinemann\u2019s last letter, on March 25, 1925, we learn that G\u00fcnther Wachsmuth had written to him that Rudolf Steiner wanted to speak to him, \u201cbut would have to wait and see\u201d when he could \u201carrange it.\u201d It never came to pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Possible Delay<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When one knows how few people Rudolf Steiner received on his sickbed, one can surmise how important contact with Felix Heinemann was to him. And one asks themselves: What did he want to talk to him about? Clearly, he was hoping for important impulses from this man, who brought with him great world experience and the will to commit himself wholly to the cause of anthroposophy. Felix Heinemann intimates the basic tenor of the conversations that took place: \u201cAnd since Rudolf Steiner was convinced or knew that practical and theoretical experience had matured me to the comprehension of his views, he thus opened to me comprehensive insights, filled with deep concern, the basic tone of which came to its final notes in the fear of a possible delay, about which may perhaps, at some time, be discussed elsewhere.\u201d<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On March 1, 1927, Felix Heinemann moved to Arlesheim, where he died on May 23, 1935.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Translation <\/strong>Joshua Kelberman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not many people who got to know Rudolf Steiner before the turn of the century followed him on the path to anthroposophy, but Felix Heinemann (1863\u20131935) was one who did. Heinemann was born into a Hamburg merchant family and trained for a career as a publisher and bookseller. In 1896, together with Otto Neumann-Hofer (1857\u20131941), he took over the then-popular magazine Romanwelt [World of Novels] from the Cotta publishing house, which kept him fully occupied alongside his own publishing house, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9190,"featured_media":57808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11473,8846,8847],"tags":[11479,11477,11480,11478,8814],"class_list":["post-57277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-rudolf-steiner","category-history","category-portrait","tag-12-en","tag-2020-22-en","tag-en-2024-16","tag-marginalien-zu-rudolf-steiners-leben-und-werk-en","tag-musings"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}