Historyof the Mahle Foundation

HISTORYOFTHEMAHLEFOUNDATION FOUNDINGTHEFUTURE MAHLEFOUNDATION HISTORYOFTHE Title: Hermann and Ernst Mahle in front of the architectural model of the plant in Bad Cannstatt (1938) HISTORYOFTHEMAHLEFOUNDATION FOUNDINGTHEFUTURE 2 Cart made of light metal from Mahle (1946) CONTENTS 3 1 THEHISTORYOFTHEMAHLEFOUNDATIONANDITSPROJECTS FOUNDERSANDESTABLISHMENTOFTHEMAHLEFOUNDATION .......................................... Page 6 Two very different brothers in the service of one idea ............................................................ Page 11 Piston progress for non-engineers ................................................................................. Page 12 2 THEFILDERCLINIC AKEYPROJECTOFTHEMAHLEFOUNDATION Pioneers of anthroposophic medicine in Stuttgart ................................................................ Page 18 From the association to the clinic – years of intensive preparation ................................................ Page 18 The art of healing with mind, heart and hands – how does anthroposophically orientated medicine work? ..... Page 22 Opening and the first 15 years ...................................................................................... Page 24 Anthroposophic medicine must be learnable and teachable! ...................................................... Page 26 1990–2015 – years of conversion and expansion ................................................................... Page 27 3 MAHLEFOUNDATION ALARGENUMBEROFCOMMITMENTS HEALTHANDMAINTENANCE Medicine ........................................................................................................... Page 34 O Mistletoe – a pharmaceutical challenge ......................................................................... Page 34 O Clinics ............................................................................................................ Page 36 O Proof of efficacy and pharmaceutical legislation ................................................................ Page 38 O 4 : 1 – the Health Quotient ...................................................................................... Page 39 O Orthopaedagogy ................................................................................................ Page 40 O Teaching ......................................................................................................... Page 40 O Nursing .......................................................................................................... Page 41 LEARNINGANDEDUCATION Waldorf education and youth training ............................................................................. Page 44 O Teacher training and educational research ....................................................................... Page 44 O Support for individual schools ................................................................................... Page 46 O Freie Interkulturelle Waldorfschule in Mannheim ............................................................... Page 46 O Youth training .................................................................................................... Page 48 O Waldorf education – origin and aims ............................................................................ Page 49 AGRICULTUREANDFOOD O Biodynamic farming ............................................................................................. Page 52 ARTANDCULTURE O Eurythmy and art exhibitions .................................................................................... Page 58 INSTITUTOMAHLE “Country of the future” – the MAHLE Foundation in Brazil ........................................................ Page 62 4 ATTACHMENT FUNDINGAMOUNTS ............................................................................................. Page 64 TIMELINE .......................................................................................................... Page 65 LEGALNOTICE ................................................................................................... Page 66 THEHISTORY OFTHEMAHLEFOUNDATION 1 ANDITSPROJECTS THEHISTORY OFTHEMAHLEFOUNDATION ANDITSPROJECTS 6 FOUNDERSANDESTABLISHMENTOFTHEMAHLEFOUNDATION It sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale. When Ernst and Hermann Mahle sought to answer the question of “Why the MAHLE Foundation?” in September 1965 they wrote: “Once there were two brothers who in 1914 went to war with their two older brothers, like many millions of others. When they returned, the eldest brother had been killed, the father had died, the Kaiser had fled and the king had been deposed. In their homeland, the prevailing conditions were hunger, civil war and extremes on the left and right of the political spectrum. There was nothing else to do but to become creative, knuckle down and rebuild.” And indeed, Ernst (1896–1983) and Hermann Mahle When the brothers returned from the First World (1894–1971) lived according to this motto. Hermann War, the “seminal catastrophe of the 20th century”, joined the Cannstatt company of Hirth-Versuchsbau they had the distinct feeling that creativity, knuck- (prototyping) – which at the time had fewer than ling down and rebuilding alone would not be suffi- 10 employees – in 1920 as a businessman, and Ernst cient for a decent future. They were looking for in 1922 as a graduate engineer from the Technical new, genuinely groundbreaking ideas when their University of Stuttgart. Although Hellmuth Hirth attention was drawn to Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), had sold the company in 1926 to the powerful I.G. who held numerous lectures in Stuttgart after the Farben Group, the brothers succeeded in 1932 in war. These were not (yet) about the topic of Wal- acquiring half of the company each. This was due to dorf education, anthroposophical medicine or bio- their commercial and technical prowess, as well as dynamic agriculture, but Steiner was initially actively the stroke of luck that piston construction and involved in matters of the “threefold social organism”. similar commercial activities were not among the core business areas of the chemical and pharmaceutical I.G. Group. Gustav Siegle House in Stuttgart (before the Second World War) Even so, the Cannstatt company already had 220 employees at the time, and produced about 500,000 pistons per year. With the takeover, the brothers laid the foundation for today’s MAHLE Group, whose history cannot be written here, but a sub- stantiated account of which can be read else where. (History of MAHLE GmbH: “Future meets the past · 1920–2014”, Stuttgart 3rd edition 2014). However, this only partially answers the question of “why”. What motivated the two Mahle brothers, and what were the motives on which their Foundation was based? previous page: Hermann and Ernst Mahle (1938) Rudolf Steiner (1919) He spoke at works meetings at Bosch, Daimler-Benz Liberty should prevail above all in the cultural field, and the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory, but also for example, in press freedom and the freedom of publicly at the Gustav Siegle House where the Mahle expression, i.e. a free spiritual life. brothers heard him. What lay behind Steiner’s idea of the “threefold social organism”? Equality must primarily apply in the right to vote and before the courts, i.e. equality in legal life. Rudolf Steiner took the view that the grand and inspiring ideals of the French Revolution, namely Fraternity should come into play in economic life, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, are absolutely justi- according to Steiner. fied – but each principle in its own field: 8 On the one hand, he had in mind a meaningful inter- employees, the customers – and therefore indirectly action between production, trade and consumers for society. After they left their companies, these in the sense of an “association” – a notion that should continue to be managed by capable succes- appears today in “Fairtrade”, for example. In terms sors who did not necessarily have to be the heirs. of industry, Steiner suggested that the means of Steiner advocated a “Third Way”, which ran between production, e.g. the ownership of factories, should bureaucratic state socialism and an inefficient com- be “neutralised”. The means of production should, mand economy on the one hand, and purely profit - according to Steiner, be available in all cases to oriented capitalism and the arbitrariness of the those who not only meaningfully operate them on owners on the other. The previous contradiction the basis of their skills, knowledge and experience, between capital and labour should be overcome in but who would also best develop them further for this way. the future. These new types of entrepreneurs would work virtually as trustees for their companies, the Unfortunately, Rudolf Steiner said nothing about how his targets of neutralising capital and fiduciary company management and succession could be achieved in concrete terms and in a legally correct manner. Steiner did not mention the Carl Zeiss Foundation in Jena, which had already been success- fully in operation for two decades during his lifetime, even though its founder Ernst Abbe (1840–1905) held viewpoints which certainly resembled his own. Ernst and Hermann Mahle were enthusiastic about Steiner‘s social ideas and tried to orient the management of their thriving company along those lines. After the Nazi dictatorship and the Second World War, the even greater disasters of the 20th century, they set about the task of neutralising their corpo- rate capital, which was to be “a small step towards the threefold social organism”.

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