{"id":60762,"date":"2024-10-24T22:32:40","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T20:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/?p=60762"},"modified":"2024-10-24T22:32:45","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T20:32:45","slug":"otto-erich-hartleben-and-rudolf-steiner-part-2-in-berlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/otto-erich-hartleben-and-rudolf-steiner-part-2-in-berlin\/","title":{"rendered":"Otto Erich Hartleben and Rudolf Steiner\u2014Part 2: In Berlin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The friendship with Otto Erich Hartleben that began in Weimar continued in Berlin. It offered Rudolf Steiner the opportunity to empower himself with a perceptive grasp of the sensory world.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

When Rudolf Steiner took over the editorship of the Magazin f\u00fcr Litteratur<\/em> [Magazine for Literature] in 1897, he was given the condition \u201cthat Otto Erich Hartleben should sign and work as co-editor,\u201d as he had a name in the circles associated with the magazine. However, Hartleben\u2019s activities were essentially just limited to lending his name. He himself confessed in his diary in an entry dated July 27, 1897: \u201cI don\u2019t quite see where I could put my hand to it yet, I\u2019m also lazy as usual.\u201d<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> However, Hartleben was happy to take on the task of introducing Rudolf Steiner to the various circles of Berlin bohemians from the middle of 1897; among other things, they regularly visited the \u201cCriminal\u2019s Table\u201d founded by Hartleben.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou Stole a Sunday from My Sweet\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In turn, Hartleben used Rudolf Steiner, who was living alone at the time, as a kind of postillon d\u2019amour<\/em> [postman of love]. He had met his childhood sweetheart Ellen Birr again in 1896. In order to arrange a date with her Otto Erich, whom she could not write to at home because of Selma Hartleben, \u201cEllen, my child\u201d now sent letters and telegrams to Rudolf Steiner. This led to a mishap at the beginning of April 1898, which also illustrates the situation of Rudolf Steiner\u2019s \u201ccrisis year.\u201d Hartleben waited in vain one Sunday for news of his beloved (or for the messenger) and, when both failed to materialize, he wrote her a crude letter. But soon, the situation became clearer: When her telegram reached Rudolf Steiner, he hadn\u2019t been at home. He \u201chad forgotten his keys, went to the caf\u00e9 with W [Eduard von Winterstein (original editor\u2019s note)], \u2018got home\u2019 drunk on Sunday, didn\u2019t even see your telegram lying there (he \u2018got home\u2019 at 3 o\u2019clock on Sunday afternoon!).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And because he was then too late with the corrections for the Magazine for Literature<\/em> to send them off, he drove himself \u201cSunday night to Weimar\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0where the magazine will be printed on Monday.\u201d \u201cMonday 11:45 a.m.,\u201d he returned from Weimar, \u201cand finally discovered your telegram from Saturday afternoon on Tuesday morning! A sleight of hand\u2014how?\u201d Hartleben was very depressed that his lover and he \u201chad to lose a day of happiness like this.\u201d Rudolf Steiner apologized in the postscript to the letter: \u201cPlease, don\u2019t be angry with me, I want to be good and not do it again. Yours, Rudolf S[teiner].\u201d<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following day, Hartleben wrote a poem about the dawdling friend:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Rudi Steiner
An old and haggard man sits in purgatory
and wails, while flames of fire, ever anew,
writhe around his bones with unending fury:
Good God, from whence have these flames flew,
These torments under my sinful, pitiful posterior?
For which debt am I condemned its due?
God spoke: Ten years atonement must you meet;
You stole a Sunday from my sweet.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Noble Epicureanism<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

During this time, Rudolf Steiner reviewed some of his friend’s pieces in the Magazine for Literature,<\/em> and in 1899, he very subtly characterized Hartleben\u2019s poetry. Among other things, he says: \u201cHis whole personage is attuned to an aesthetically artistic view of the world.\u201d<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Towards the end of 1898, as he gradually overcame his life crisis, he and his circle of friends gradually grew apart. This is already quietly hinted at when Rudolf Steiner writes his review of Hartleben\u2019s one-act cycle Die Befreiten<\/em> [The Freed]: \u201cI know of no depths of worldview that are not accessible to him. But, he gets quite sickly, if it should first take work, in order to get to the depths. He knows the seriousness of life like no other, but he has the gift of taking this seriousness as lightly as possible. I have never met a person in whom I have found such a noble Epicureanism as he is able to realize. He is a man of pleasure, but the pleasures that he seeks must have exquisite qualities. He is not capable of doing anything remotely reminiscent of the common. All that he does has greatness. And his greatness never gives the appearance of importance. He prefers to make a suitable jest when the others begin to become pathetic and attach lead pellets to their speeches, making them difficult to take.\u201d<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the fall of 1899, Otto Erich Hartleben informed Rudolf Steiner that he now definitely wanted to resign from the publication of the Magazine for Literature<\/em>: \u201cI bid you to come to me to agree on the wording of my \u2018resignation.\u2019 Otto Erich\u201d<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> This means that what Hartleben later circulated\u2014and even reported to Elisabeth F\u00f6rster-Nietzsche\u2014that he had resigned because of Rudolf Steiner\u2019s article \u201cDas Nietzsche-Archiv und seine Anklagen gegen den bisherigen Herausgeber\u201d [The Nietzsche Archive and Its Accusations against the Previous Editor] was not true.<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dedication in the second edition of the Goethe Breviary <\/em>in 1901, already mentioned in the previous marginalia,<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span> should perhaps also be seen in this context as a conciliatory gesture by Hartleben.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the great success of his comedy Rosenmontag<\/em> [Rose Monday], Hartleben was able to buy a villa on Lake Garda, Italy, where he lived from then on with Ellen Birr and, in 1904 founded a Halkyonian Academy for Unapplied Sciences in Sal\u00f2 [Halkyonische Akademie f\u00fcr unangewandte Wissenschaften zu Sal\u00f2<\/em>], whose members included a number of his old friends. But, he died on February 11, 1905, at the age of 40, after suffering a hemorrhage\u2014probably a consequence of his lifelong excessive consumption of alcohol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happened after his death was in keeping with his love of irony and satire. The wake took place in his wine cellar. During the course of the long night, it occurred to the guards that they should help themselves to the rich supply, as the dead man was no longer able to. So the next day, the drunken guards stumbled with the coffin, which tried to slip out of their hands several times, to the boat that was to take the body across Lake Garda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hartleben had ordered that his head should be buried in Germany and his body in Italy. This imposed the unpleasant duty of separating the head from the torso on a Munich doctor friend of his. With the head under his arm, the doctor returned to an osteria [small wine caf\u00e9], as he later told Max Halbe. He \u201cplaced the newspapered package next to him on the table and ordered a fiasco [flagon] of fiery red. A lively discussion quickly got underway with other guests from the table, tempers flared, pithy Italian fists thudded on the wooden tabletop, the mysterious parcel bounced back and forth a few times, and sprang under the bench with one leap. The guests of the osteria set about looking for it, and lo and behold, the wrapping paper had come loose, and Otto Erich\u2019s head was staring at the cheerful group of revelers with a last sympathetic, satirical smile. At least that\u2019s how Dr. Lehmann\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. believed he could interpret the expression of his departed friend. Perhaps he was right.\u201d<\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experience of the Abyss<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Rudolf Steiner met Otto Erich Hartleben at a time in his life when he realized that he was lacking something, namely, that he could not easily connect with the physical world.<\/span>11<\/sup><\/a><\/span> He began, especially in his last Weimar period, to turn consciously to what the sensory world had to say\u2014without always looking at the spiritual background at the same time. With regard to one particular aspect, he could find no better guide than Otto Erich Hartleben, who was so resolutely devoted to the sensual side of life. In the last Weimar period and the first Berlin period, Rudolf Steiner allowed himself to become completely involved for a while until he had immersed himself in this world and gotten to know it thoroughly. This became a test for him, an experience of the abyss, which he had to overcome step by step in the years around the turn of the century in order to achieve his true mission in life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this, he remained committed to his spiritual concerns during this time\u2014even if they, perhaps, faded into the background for a while. Looking back, in a letter to Anna Steiner dated February 14, 1905, he commented on this side that he could get to know, especially through Otto Erich Hartleben, as follows: \u201cI have never been interested in anything other than spiritual matters. And, if it seemed otherwise, at the time when I was first in Berlin, that is yet but a mistake. At that time, I wanted to honestly get to know the literature of young people. I ought, therefore, not to have involved myself in the dregs of these young people. But that was an honest mistake. And I had to atone for it with some really dirty gossip.\u201d<\/span>12<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Translation <\/strong>Joshua Kelberman
Image <\/strong>Portrait of Otto Erich Hartleben, dated 1901<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The friendship with Otto Erich Hartleben that began in Weimar continued in Berlin. It offered Rudolf Steiner the opportunity to empower himself with a perceptive grasp of the sensory world. When Rudolf Steiner took over the editorship of the Magazin f\u00fcr Litteratur [Magazine for Literature] in 1897, he was given the condition \u201cthat Otto Erich Hartleben should sign and work as co-editor,\u201d as he had a name in the circles associated with the magazine. However, Hartleben\u2019s activities were essentially just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9190,"featured_media":59418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11473,8846],"tags":[11545,11571,8814],"class_list":["post-60762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-rudolf-steiner","category-history","tag-ausgabe-31-32-2024-en","tag-english-issue-43-2024","tag-musings"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60762","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=60762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}