Count and Countess Keyserlingk

Adalbert Keyserlingk, on the death of his father, Count Carl Keyserlingk, wrote of the hostility that his father had endured pursuing his anthroposophic agricultural goals:

“In the years that followed the course, the firms IG-Farben and Kali-Syndikat had grown more and more hostile towards Count Keyserlingk … He died suddenly at the end of December 1928 when Journal of Organic Systems, 6(1), 2011on his way to a conference in Dornach, one might say from a broken heart because of the way things were going”

At that time, IG-Farben and Kali-Syndikat were leading, as well as commercially aggressive, Germanfertilizer companies (Lamer, 1957).

In a requiem to “Count Carl von Keyserlingk”, Meyer (1929, p.38) wrote of the Count, and of another recently departed Anthroposophist, that:“ … the heart of each had broken as day by day they must suffer the pain of all that, out of the spirit of our times, must stand opposed to the ideals they set before them”.

Keyserlingk had been the driving force behind the agriculture course (Vreede, 1929). He was described by Vreede as “one to whom farming itself was a priestly office” (p.38). According to Meyer (1929, p.29): “CountKeyserlingk had realised the dire need for a complete revival of cultural methods”.

John Paull – From Koberwitz to the World – 2011

Countess Johanna Keyserlingk paid a surprise visit to the UK in 1950 just as the AAF and BDA were courting each other. She is perhaps best remembered in the present context through her publication concerning the June days at Koberwitz which is bundled with her son’s recollections. ( Birth of a New Agriculture Koberwitz 1924 : Includes Twelve Days with Rudolf Steiner’ by Countess Johanna Keyserlingk. Published by Clairview Books, 2000 ISBN 10: 1902636074 ISBN 13: 9781902636078)