MADAM – Jim Watson’s letter titled “Steiner’s views on race like the Nazis” (February 18) is such an outrageously mendacious misrepresentation that if Steiner were alive today, you would almost certainly be the subject of legal proceedings.

Any mature approach to democratic freedom necessitates responsibly pursuing at least a modicum of factual accuracy when speaking of such grave issues as racism.

Sadly, Mr Watson’s letter falls woefully short in this regard.

Let’s consider some factual history, rather than unsourced innuendo and attempts at smearing someone in no position to defend himself.

In the early 1920s, Steiner and his anthroposophical movement were subject to vicious attacks and hatred from Germany’s right-wing National Socialists, including from Hitler himself.

Thankfully, we have the historical record of the National Socialist magazine, Volkische Beobachter, as incontrovertible evidence of this.

First, many years before Britain’s own shameful appeasement of Hitler, Steiner bravely emphasised very early the forces of destruction in the Hitler movement, even being subject to a failed assassination attempt in May 1922.

In the movement’s magazine, we read Hitler writing on March 15, 1921, of Steiner “wanting to destroy the normal state of mind among the nations”.; And on May 25, 1922, we read of “the crippled forms of Steiner’s thinking”, of Steiner being a “German-hating charlatan”, and that “Sewer is a word that suits Herr Steiner’s environment very well”.

Any attempt to smear Steiner by association with Nazism is therefore both wilfully scurrilous, and comprehensively refuted by the historical evidence.

Finally, a recently published book by historian Robert Rose, Transforming Criticisms of Anthroposophy and Waldorf Education: Evolution, Race and the Quest for Global Ethic, devotes several hundred pages to painstakingly debunking the myth of Steiner’s alleged racism; and my own detailed article refuting this scurrilous allegation can be found online at southerncrossreview.org/74/house-racism.html Readers are invited to draw their own conclusions on the matter, rather than relying upon smear and carefully orchestrated innuendo.

Dr Richard House

Educational Consultant

Stroud