In the program "Report - Mainz" on 28 February the Waldorf schools in Germany were put in connection with the locking out of handicapped, racism, anti-Semitism and the legitimisation of Holocaust. Innumerable Waldorf parents, pupils and teachers looked at the program with amazement and indignation.

Since some years, small groups of hard-headed anti-Waldorf missionaries, try to "enlighten" politicians, media and ministrys about the "scandal" of Waldorf schools. 

One is a small group of ideologists from the Eco-left scene (like the journalist and co-founder of Ökilinx Peter Bierl), who have found a new enemy-picture in anthroposophy and Waldorf education.

Another consists of dogmatic atheists from the "International Association of agnostics and atheists"; "Internationalen Bund der Konfessionslosen und Atheisten" - IBKA - (like the primary school teacher Reinhard Wiechoczek, founder of "Initiative for criticism of anthroposophy"; "Initiative zur Anthroposophie-Kritik" - IzAK).

A third groups consists of some dissatified former Waldorf parents, and lately the former Waldorf pupil Samuel Althof (Founder of "Children of Holocaust"; "Aktion Kinder des Holocaust", see below). In the near future courts probably will be faced with the task to draw the line between free formation of opinion and incitement against people.

Here is an extract of a comment by the Waldorf schools on the Report-program. The full comment can be found at   www.waldorf.net/report.htm. The comments are made by Dr. Detlef Hardorp, spokesman for the Waldorf schools in erlin-Brandenburg. (The comments are in blue, the Report-program in gray and indented.)

"Since some time also Jewish parents increasingly take their children out of Waldorf schools. That is reported by the spokesman for a Swiss citizen's initiative, that for years has taken an interest in what happens at Waldorf schools.

(voice) Samuel Althof, "Aktion Kinder des Holocaust", Basel: 
"Since ca 2 years we are told stories from Germany about anti-Semitic incidences at Waldorf schools. These incidences are of different kinds, they partly have the form of violence against children, but they also have the form of verbal violence: You should not be a Jew, you should stop learning Hebrew."

Comment: Before there was a Jewish school in Berlin, the Rudolf Steiner school often had Jewish pupils, among them also Evelyn, daughter of Heinz Galinski, then chairman of the Central Jewish Council in Germany. "All pupils had to take religious lessons", she says today, "the Rudolf Steiner school insisted on it".

As part of her school duty, Evelyn visited the Jewish religious lessons at the Jewish community. "Never did I in the Rudolf Steiner school ever hear even the faintest whisper of anti-Semitism", she remembers, "on the contrary. My father chose the school because of the great tolerance that characterised everyone at the school."

She called me few days after the broadcast of the "Report"-program. She considers the program to be propaganda of the worst kind. What she found most unpleasant in the program was the contribution by the former Waldorf pupil and former psychiatric assistant Samuel Althof, Basle. Evelyn Hecht-Galinski wanted to get to the bottom of his assertions. She called him up and asked him to describe at least one anti-Semitic incident at a Waldorf school. Althof refused to do that with the motivation that the reports "only were verbal". When asked further questions, he hang up.

"In general: Don't go to the religious education in Judaism,"

Comment: At Waldorf schools, the choice of religious teaching is wholly and completely up to the parents respectively the pupils. Of course their choice is respected.

"the Holocaust was a necessity to get rid of karma, the victims were necessary, and with that the Holocaust is legitimized."

Comment: That is an insult to Waldorf schools. The Shoa was one of the most unbelievable horrors in world history, that was only possible because people were prepared to let go of their humanity and consciousness of their responsibility under the dictate of a state power, that also forbid all free culture, including Waldorf education. 

The most outrageous thesis', that Mr Althof here puts forth is of course not represented or defended at any Waldorf school. On the contrary: Waldorf education has from its start made it its task to support the individual in man in such a way that it leads to people who are able to learn and cooperate with other people throughout life, something to which man is predisposed in his deepest being. Rudolf Steiner intensively argued against stereotyping in education.

"Racism and anti-Semitism in Waldorf education? A retrospect. 1919 Rudolf Steiner founds a school for the children of the workers at "Waldorf-Astoria-cigarett-factory". That is reason it is called Waldorf. For this, Steiner developed a new education. The basis for this is to this day - anthroposophy. Thereby, reincarnation and karma play an important part."

Comment: At most in the background as a possibility for Waldorf teachers to think out of a perspective from which it is not common to view man. It is completely free for the individual teacher to choose how to deal with it. The world view, in which man originates as a chemical coincidence in cosmos and returns to dust when dying has not yet inspired any pedagogy. And even when materialism was the only truth, we don't need any thought police that stigmatises dissidents. 

"With the help of anthroposophy and Waldorf education man should reach a higher spiritual level in his next life."

Comment: This sentence is confused. Through Waldorf education man should become at home on Earth, able to handle conflicts and take initiatives with enthusiasm and an inventive mind. The tasks are here on Earth, not somewhere beyond it.

His standpoint in relation the ideal of races and nations he himself gave expression to, for example on 26 October 1917:

(voice, quoting Rudolf Steiner , leader of the first Waldorf school):
"Someone still of the 14th century, speaking of the ideal of races, of the ideal of nations, spoke out of the developing qualities of human development. But someone, who nowadays speaks of the ideal of races and nations and belonging to a tribe, speaks of decaying impulses of humanity. And if he believes that these so-called ideals constitute progressive ideals, when speaking of them, he is saying something that is untrue. Because through nothing will humanity bring itself more into decay, than if the ideals of races, nations and blood were to continue.(GA 177, lecture of Oct 26th, 1917)

"Heiner Ullrich is soon starting the first empirical study of Waldorf schools." 

Comment: There already exist a number of empirical studies of Waldorf schools. One of the last was by Dirk Randoll, co-worker at the German Institute for International Pedagogical Research (Deutschen Institut für Internationale Pädagogische Forschung) and was published 1999 by Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung (Science and education Publishing company) under the title "Waldorfpädagogik auf dem Prüfstand. Auch eine Herausforderung an das öffentliche Schulwesen? Mit einer vergleichenden Untersuchung zur Wahrnehmung von Schule durch Abiturienten aus Freien Waldorfschulen und aus staatlichen Gymnasien" ("Waldorf education on the test bench. Also a challenge to the public school system? With a comparative study of how students at Free Waldorf schools and state high schools experience their schools)

"He wants to observe teaching as it is practised. But already now, he demands more plurality in the education of Waldorf teachers. Less Steiner could mean,

(voice) Heiner Ullrich, educationalist, University of Mainz: 
"... that one once and for all could get rid of nationalistic, racist, anti-Semite preconceptions in this education"

Comment: Heiner Ullrich called me on the phone on 1 March and told me that the quoted half sentence by him stood in no connection with the context in which it was put by Mr Friedler. As educationalist he is interested in the further development of Waldorf education. We were in complete agreement that Waldorf pedagogics can do completely well without all the time returning to Steiner. During the two hour conversation he (Ullrich) did not say that Steiner was a nationalist, racist or anti-Semite. His broadcast statement was related to the notebooks. Insofar as they contained nationalistic, racist or anti-Semitic preconceptions it would be motivated "once and for all" to get rid of them. If that was the case at a Waldorf school it would be meaningful to report it to the school in question, the national working cooperation (?), the Ministry in question or the Association of Waldorf schools, to make it possible to take action against it. The anonymous assertions about  teachers without name at schools without name to which the Report-program limited itself, are of no help.

Dr. Ullrich expresses his opinion on the Report-program fully in a letter to Walter Hiller, secretary at the Association of Waldorf schools.

An extract:

"The contribution by Mr  Friedler (TV-reporter of the program) and his colleagues is not a contribution to investigative journalism. I find it rather to be consistently biased. It admittedly starts from single wholly criticizeable phenomena of the practice at school and from some amazing sentences by Rudolf Steiner, but evaluates Waldorf education in its totality, among other things through the choice of "signs", in a negative way and thereby insults its basic humanist goal.

"Through the biased line of reasoning and the very rough shortening of interviews the program has not contributed to a differentiated experience of the Waldorf schools and their growing pedagogical importance, but only created new stereotypes respectively strengthened old ones. It puts Waldorf schools in a corner where they do not belong, neither in history, nor in the present. The Report-program has neither contributed to the continued development of Waldorf edcuation nor to the intensification of the dialogue between the pedagogically interested public and the Free Waldorf schools, in which I since long have been engaged."