German section of the Theosophical Society

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Theosophical Society in the hall of the Munich Congress, 1907

The German Section of the Theosophical Society (DSdTG) is a theosophical organization and part of the Theosophical Society Adyar (Adyar-TG).

founding

The DSdTG emerged from the German Theosophical Society . Its members founded the DSdTG in Berlin on October 19, 1902, in the presence of Annie Besant , who later became President of Adyar-TG , who delivered the deed of foundation signed by Henry Steel Olcott . The society was directly subordinate to the headquarters in Adyar and had about 100 members at that time. At the suggestion of Wilhelm Huebbe Schleiden , Rudolf Steiner was elected Secretary General on October 20, 1902. His later wife Marie von Sievers became his secretary.

Differences in teaching

According to Annie Besant's ideas, Steiner should spread the Hindu- tinged doctrines of the Indian -oriented Adyar-TG in Germany at that time . However, Steiner was looking for a correspondence between theosophical teaching and Western traditions and, above all, German science. He pushed the Indian forms back further and further and replaced them with German terms and Western practice. Above all, Hermetic , Kabbalistic , Neoplatonic and from 1905 Rosicrucian thoughts came more and more into the foreground of the DSdTG under Steiner. These ideas also appeared in the teachings of the Adyar-TG, but they only represented a part of the Adyar-teaching building, which is strongly interspersed with Indian traditions.

Already after a short time the first tensions arose due to these different interpretations, both between Steiner and Besant, as well as within the DSdTG itself. Two camps formed in the DSdTG, the majority sympathized with Steiner, a smaller group gathered around the respected Hübbe -Schleiden, who continued to support Besant. Regardless of this, Steiner continued on the path he had chosen, and from around 1907 he rejected the doctrines of the Adyar-TG practically completely in favor of his teaching. When the Messia cult of Jiddu Krishnamurti, proclaimed by Besant on January 11, 1911, and the Order of the Star of the East were rejected by Steiner, the gap widened even further.

A theosophical congress planned for September 1911 in Genoa , which Steiner intended to use as a stage for his teaching, was canceled by Besant, who wanted to prevent this. On December 16, 1911, Steiner and his supporters founded the "Association for Anthroposophical Work" at the general assembly of the DSdTG. Organizationally, this was located within the DSdTG and served as a meeting point for Steiner's followers in society. From September 1912, secret meetings took place within the framework of the "Association for Anthroposophical Work" with the aim of separating from Besant. Finally, on December 8, 1912, the board of the DSdTG called on all members, in the spirit of Steiner, to resign from the "Order of the Star of the East", otherwise they would be excluded from society. Since only parts of the Besant supporters around Hübbe-Schleiden had joined this order from the start, this amounted to an exclusion of the Besant supporters. Subsequently, on December 11, 1912, Annie Besant was asked to resign in a telegram. Thereupon, in a letter dated January 14, 1913, the DSdTG excluded from the Adyar-TG by withdrawing the deed of foundation. The letter arrived in Berlin on March 7, 1913, and the de facto separation was also de jure.

Separation and start-up

Under Steiner's leadership, the Anthroposophical Society was founded on December 28, 1912 , the constituent general assembly took place in Berlin on February 2 and 3, 1913, and this date has since been kept as the official founding date. The majority of the members of the DSdTG, around 2,400, went over to the Anthroposophical Society with Steiner. Wilhelm Hübbe Schleiden remained loyal to Besant and thus to the Adyar-TG, and the latter authorized him by means of a new foundation deed to re-establish the DSdTG, which now strictly followed the doctrines of the Adyar-TG. However, the most outstanding members had left with Steiner, the new society only numbered around 320 people and was no longer really gaining momentum.

After Hübbe Schleiden initially acted as general secretary of the new DSdTG, Johannes Ludovicus Mathieu Lauweriks was elected as ordinary general secretary in May 1913 , but Hübbe-Schleiden remained the most important figurehead of the downsized society. As early as 1914, because of the outbreak of the First World War, there were German national protests against the Dutchman Lauweriks and he had to hand over the general secretariat to Sixtus von Kapff , a German neurologist. After Annie Besant blamed Germany for the outbreak of war, the number of people leaving the DSdTG, which had already shrunk due to the war-related failures, increased. With Hübbe-Schleiden's death on May 17, 1916, the DSdTG also disintegrated.

After the end of the war, Axel von Fielitz-Coniar (1888–1975) revived the DSdTG and headed it as General Secretary until 1928, when Johannes Maria Verweyen took over this office. After Verweyen resigned from the post in 1934, Eignolf von Roeder headed the DSdTG until 1937 . Banned by the Gestapo from 1937 to 1945 , the organization was only able to reconstitute itself slowly after the end of the Second World War . Today the seat of the Theosophical Society Adyar in Germany eV is Berlin. There are currently eight boxes in operation - Berlin, Bremen, Düsseldorf, 2 × Hamburg, Hanover, Lebach and Munich.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated March 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. → Life path → Theosophy → History of the Adyar-TG Germany  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jmverweyen.de
  2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. → Contact  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.philosophia-esoterica.net

literature

  • Norbert Klatt: Theosophy and Anthroposophy, new aspects of their history from the estate of Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden (1846-1916) with a selection of 81 letters . Klatt, Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-928312-02-2 .
  • Günther Wachsmuth: Rudolf Steiner's earthly life and work, from the turn of the century to death, the birth of spiritual science, a biography . Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach 1964.
  • Gerhard Wehr : Rudolf Steiner, life, knowledge, cultural impulse. Diogenes, Zurich 1993, ISBN 3-257-22615-2 .

Web links