Hans-Hasso von Veltheim


Hans-Hasso Freiherr von Ludolf Martin Veltheim Ostrau was a German Indologist, Anthroposophist, Far East traveler, occultist and author.

Family

He came from an old Lower Saxon nobility, which was first documented in 1106, and was the son of the royal Prussian lieutenant colonel and landowner Veltheim von Franz, laird of Ostrau, Saxony-Anhalt and large-Weissandt and Anhalt ducal chamberlain, and whose first wife Klara Herbertz.
Veltheim married 7 October 1916 in Leverkusen Hildegard Duisberg, daughter of Johanna Seebohm and Carl Duisberg, Director General of IG Farben. The marriage was divorced on 28 January 1924 in Berlin. His daughter Michaela died on 11 February 1940 as a result of the birth of his grandson, her son Michael.

Friends

Veltheim attracted worldwide friendship networks and his celebrity garnered him many contacts. The writer Hermann Kasack, the philosopher Hermann Graf Keyserling and the Berlin Chief Rabbi Leo Baeck were counted amongst his friends. He devoted himself to Eastern culture, anthroposophy, occultism and spirituality. He was known to Wilhelm Behrens. He was a friend of the poet Sir Muhammad Iqbal from their student days in Munich. The baron happened to visit Iqbal the day before Iqbal died, in India.

Life

Veltheim was squire to Ostrau, Saxony-Anhalt Weissandt and large, private scholar and Knight of Honor of the Order of Saint John. He obtained his Ph D on Burgundische Kleinkirchen bis zum Jahre 1200,. The castle Ostrau, up to Expropriation 1945 in family property, was used by him in the late 1920s and early 1930s and extensively renovated in the subsequent period, in particular, for various meetings of anthroposophists used, such as a synod of the Christian Community in 1935, as these already Prohibition was threatened. Because of his escape from the Soviet occupation zone, he was unable to vote until 1990 in it for this purpose-built grave-altar-chapel of the castle church.

Works