"It is not possible to understand the present time if one does not know what kind of reversal has occurred particularly in the last third of the 19th century. Someone still of the 14th century, speaking of the ideal of races, of the ideal of nations, spoke out of developing qualities of human development.

"But someone who nowadays speaks of the ideal of races and nations and belonging to a clan, speaks of decaying impulses of humanity. And if he believes that these so-called ideals constitute progressive ideals, when speaking of them, he is saying something that is untrue. Because through nothing will humanity bring itself more into decay, than if the ideals of races, nations and blood were to continue. 

"Nothing will be a greater hindrance for the further development of mankind than the conservation of the ideals held by earlier centuries, preserved [...] in declarations about the ideals based on nations. The true ideals for the future must be, not what is based on 'blood', but what we find solely in the spiritual world."

Rudolf Steiner, Oct 26th, 1917, in The spiritual background of the external world, The fall of the Spirits of Darkness (GA 177)