How do we approach history? How well do we understand the causes of the events that define our time? Important questions like these inspired the initiative to bring a new performance at the Goetheanum of Albert Steffen’s The Tragedy of Peace.
The project has arisen on account of the surprising potential of a play involving the suprasensible, along with the wish to pay tribute to its author, Albert Steffen. But even more than that, it is about bringing the audience to encounter active spiritual forces and relationships of destiny that guide history in concrete, specific events. The goal is to gain a contemporary view on these ideas and experiences through the medium of the stage in order to find a new way to ask questions about our own time. What follows is a summary of a conversation between director Sighilt von Heynitz and Albert Steffen Foundation co-worker Alessandra Coretti about the project, the birth of the idea, its relevance today, and the work to bring it to the Dornach stage.
The Project
It’s a cold morning in early December, and Sighilt von Heynitz visits me at House Hansi, headquarters of the Albert Steffen Foundation [Albert Steffen-Stiftung] in Dornach. Albert Steffen lived and worked here for nearly thirty years. It’s wonderful to be able to speak together in this very room. We, the Albert Steffen Foundation, are delighted about the intention to bring a drama by Steffen to the stage and are looking forward to supporting Ms. von Heynitz’s project.
Her idea for this came about as part of the One Hundred Years of the Drama Course festival last summer, 2024, when classic and modern plays were featured at the Goetheanum. Unfortunately, nothing by Albert Steffen was performed. Why aren’t his works performed these days? This question stimulated Sighilt von Heynitz to read more, and The Tragedy of Peace [Friedenstragödie] is the play that really spoke to her. It’s a prose drama in five acts from 1936 dealing with the end of World War One. The scenes include depictions of the discussions on the Fourteen Points of US President Woodrow Wilson for the establishment of peace in Europe, the founding of the League of Nations, and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919—a moment of decisive importance for the further development of history. The tragedy is experienced in the impossibility of realizing real world peace after the catastrophe of world war. Woodrow Wilson’s personal tragedy plays out in parallel: despite his positive views, the president becomes the unconscious representative of a worldview heralding disaster for the world (instead of the intended peaceful order) due to his entirely abstract mental pictures that are unconnected with the reality on the ground.
The characters on the stage are well-known historical figures: Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, Vittorio Orlando, Colonel Edward House, and others.
Not a Political Drama
During the war and up until 1920, Albert Steffen was in Munich, where he kept a close eye on political events. After the First World War, it soon became clear that the longed-for peace between nations (as the Treaty of Versailles was supposed to guarantee) was nothing more than an illusion, almost a kind of waiting room for even worse disasters already on the horizon. Albert Steffen saw this clearly. In 1935, while he was still working on The Tragedy of Peace, Rudolf Steiner’s writings and the Anthroposophical Society were banned by the National Socialist Party in Germany. Steffen was, therefore, the chairman of an institution that was undesirable in his neighboring country of Switzerland. Even so, Steffen emphasized that The Tragedy of Peace was not a political drama. This is important to understand. Already in 1932, while in Budapest, he wrote in his Travel Diary (p. 65): “There’s no need to become political when talking about the disaster caused by politics. Spirit is a higher authority than politics. It’s absurd for the latter to presume to censor the former. Looking around with open eyes and saying what you see is a task that cannot be avoided as a representative of the will for peace.”
However, peace can also turn out to be a tragedy. Rudolf Steiner repeatedly drew attention to this—new plans could have brought about the threefolding of the social organism but, particularly due to the influence of President Wilson, such extreme conditions developed that the Second World War was already nascent.
Yesterday and Today
In the third scene of the fourth act, a passive observer remarks how Wilson’s originally good inspiration turned into something evil. “What a journey from the founding day of the League of Nations to the peace treaty at Versailles. The President had to give up one point after another, even though he had worked for all of them. How can he face himself now?” The US president bore a heavy responsibility for the tragedy of failed peace. The drama takes us through different phases of his inner life, beginning with blind euphoria for his peace plan to the gradual setting-in of disappointment. Unprocessed karma overwhelms his soul, which plunges repeatedly into dreams and visions. He experiences these shocks unconsciously while his much-loved first wife, Ellen, and second wife, Edith, the first lady, offer him spiritual protection and earthly help. Shortly before his death, however, Wilson undergoes a transformation and ultimately comes to the knowledge that his actions were harmful and driven by forces of destruction.
At a significant moment in the drama, in the second scene of the third act, the president is recognized in his “real form” by a German prisoner. It’s worth noting that Steffen, a citizen of neutral Switzerland, was allowed the possibility of daring to give the defeated country a voice—something a German author certainly could not have done. The German prisoner says that Wilson spoke not of solidarity, but of justice; the Fourteen Points may end the war, “but they cannot begin the peace.” In the eyes of the German prisoner, Wilson, the “peacemaker,” is nothing more than “a great school teacher” (as Rudolf Steiner warned on November 1, 1918), whose “mission” was to order the world according to the supposedly free, modern, and liberal American model.
In his diary, March 23, 1936, Steffen noted: “It’s probably a duty to hand over this work [The Tragedy of Peace] to human beings; not because it would prevent the imminent catastrophe, but because it gives an opportunity to experience it consciously.”
If we look at our present times, with all their complexities, we can easily find connections between issues in The Tragedy of Peace: redefining the relationship between the EU and the US, the concept of neutrality, war, and peace in their relation to the economy.
We have yet to fully process the events following the Second World War. The conflict in Ukraine and the tragic situation in the Middle East can also be seen as consequences of everything that human beings have failed to truly understand and thereby redeem—and this will have consequences, as it did a hundred years ago. In Europe, “Wilsonism,” with all its abstract ideas, is on the rise again today.
The art of theater cultivated by Albert Steffen can actually help us to take a more conscious, unbiased, and non-political view.
A Good Star
The world premiere of The Tragedy of Peace took place on October 31, 1936, at the Basel Stadttheater and was celebrated with great acclaim. The “unusual piece”—“unusual on account of its subject matter, its dramatic form, its ultimate intentions” (according to the introductory words of director Werner Wolff on Oct. 10, 1936, on Radio Basel)—immediately aroused great interest and admiration for its relevance to the times. It was soon performed in Bern and St. Gallen to similar acclaim. Not only was the drama unusual but, for a poet like Albert Steffen, so was the response from the public (not just in Switzerland), as numerous positive reviews from November 1936 attest: “The combination of realism and the spiritual world . . . was immensely captivating” (Berner Bund); “[This drama] not only allows us to see through the past but can also awaken a great impulse for the future through the transformation of the hero that we witness” (Basler Nachrichten); “Will we one day see The Tragedy of Peace in Paris?” (Figaro).
Why was such a well-received play by Albert Steffen not performed on the stage of the Goetheanum? We know that Marie Steiner wanted to stage selected scenes. But we also know what demands she placed on her directorial work. We can assume that Marie Steiner didn’t have the opportunity to cast all the roles with suitable actors at the time. It’s actually not known why the drama wasn’t staged at a later time. So, all the greater is our hope that we will be able to make up for this loss with a production in 2026 (on January 25, see below). The success of this project would mean a great deal for several reasons. The building of the Goetheanum was born out of the intention to establish a House of the Word. Moreover, an important task of anthroposophy is the enrichment of cultural life through the knowledge of spiritual science. The performance of a drama by Albert Steffen would meet both of these criteria and in the most beautiful way. As in the past, the means to realize such important (and courageous) projects are not immediately available today. The necessary financial support can make the step to the stage possible—and thus provide living substance for many. The Albert Steffen Foundation is very grateful to accept any donations to support a production of The Tragedy of Peace.
Albert Steffen writes in his afterword to The Tragedy of Peace: “This tragedy is not political. The play was written purely out of humane intentions. I wanted to depict a representative contemporary in order to draw attention to the enigmatic face of the present, which, like a symptom of world history, is documented in the fact that January 25th, the founding day of the League of Nations, is also the commemoration of the conversion of Saul to Paul. Humanity is in danger of missing the impulse of Christ, the central event of world history, which is wholly present and alive today. The Tragedy of Peace is meant to help awaken our contemporaries from their nightmare.”
Translation Joshua Kelberman
Image World premiere Stadttheater Basel 1938: “The Division of the Middle East” (Act 4).
