Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke

Peter Staudenmaier (February 24th, 2004):
... On Evola, I recommend the recent book by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (a fan of Steiner, by the way): "Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity". Chapter three is all about Evola.

Valentina Brunetti (February 25th, 2004):
GEEE ! People, Goodrick-Clarke a fan of Steiner???
This sentence is very helpful in orde to throw more light over Charlatanmaier's mind. If he calls "fan" a professor who has only been trying to gain a certain kind of objectivity in his work about the issue, we can easily see what, on the contrary, Don Pedro's preconcieved bias against RS (under his "aplomb mask") are.
Tks for this penalty kick,Pedro!!

Tarjei Straume (February 25th, 2004):
I wouldn't say that. In the book I read, he ascribed to him egoistical, self-serving motives for major career decisions. But he was taken aback by the sheer vehemence of the attacks against Steiner and thought such attacks and hatred inexplicable and totally undeserved and uncalled for. And he did not include Steiner's anthroposophical ideas as a part of the so-called voelkisch tradition, which Peter does. Perhaps that's why Peter calls Goodrick-Clarke a fan of Steiner.

Peter Staudenmaier (February 25th, 2004):
I don't consider Steiner part of the voelkisch tradition (though other historians do, such as Helmut Zander), but I do think there were important areas of overlap between Steiner and many voelkisch thinkers. Steiner himself was an admirer of Friedrich Lienhard, a major voelkisch author and one of the leading lights of "idealistic antisemitism", as Uwe Puschner calls it.
The reason I describe Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke as a fan of Steiner is that Goodrick-Clarke wrote the preface to the book Rudolf Steiner: Essential Writings, and his discussion of Steiner there is entirely positive.

Daniel Hindes (February 26th, 2004):
Isn't Goodrick-Clarke the acknowleged expert on the occult origins of National Socialism? What do you make of the fact that he doesn't consider Steiner to be among the occultists who exercised influence on the development of National Socialism?

Peter Staudenmaier (February 26th, 2004):
I partly agree with him. I don't think that Steiner importantly influenced people like Rosenberg. I think that the range of ideological common ground between the various esotericist factions of the Nazis and early anthroposophy are not due primarily to direct influence of one on the other, but to shared philosophical and cultural roots. I think that Steiner's ideas did influence people like Darre, Seifert, and so on. I think that a number of early anthroposophists also found several aspects of Nazism appealing.