Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche

Therese Elisabeth Alexandra Förster-Nietzsche (July 10, 1846 Röcken, Germany, - November 8, 1935 Weimar, Germany), who went by her second name, was the sister of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the creator of the Nietzsche Archive in 1894.

Förster-Nietzsche was two years younger than her brother. Both were children of a Lutheran pastor in the German village of Röcken bei Lützen. The two children were close during their childhood and early adult years, but grew apart when Elisabeth in 1885 married Bernhard Förster, a former high school teacher who had become a fanatic anti-Semitic agitator. [See e.g. Nietzsche, "Nice, end of December 1887: Draft of letter to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche":

::"In the meantime I've seen proof, black on white, that Herr Dr. Förster has not yet severed his connection with the anti-Semitic movement. [...] Since then I've had difficulty coming up with any of the tenderness and protectiveness I've so long felt toward you. The separation between us is thereby decided in really the most absurd way. Have you grasped nothing of the reason why I am in the world? [...] Now it has gone so far that I have to defend myself hand and foot against people who confuse me with these anti-Semitic canaille; after my own sister, my former sister, and after Widemann more recently have given the impetus to this most dire of all confusions. After I read the name Zarathustra in the anti-Semitic Correspondence my forbearance came to an end. I am now in a position of emergency defense against your spouse's Party. These accursed anti-Semite deformities shall not sully my ideal!!" [http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/nlett1887.htm Nice, end of December 1887: Draft of letter to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche] ] Förster planned to create a "pure" Aryan settlement in the New World, and had found a site in Paraguay which he thought would be suitable. The couple persuaded 14 German families to join them in the colony, to be called "Nueva Germania", and the group left Germany for South America on February 15, 1887.

The colony did not thrive. The land was not suitable for German methods of farming, illness ran rampant, and transportation to the colony was slow and difficult. Faced with mounting debts, Förster fatally poisoned himself on June 3, 1889. Four years later, his wife left the colony forever, and returned to Germany. The colony still exists.

Friedrich Nietzsche's mental collapse occurred in 1889 (he died in 1900), and, when his sister returned for good, he was an invalid whose published writings were beginning to be read and discussed throughout Europe. Förster-Nietzsche took a leading role in promoting her brother, but distorted parts of his philosophy, especially through her edition of Friedrich's posthumous fragments under the name of "The Will to Power". [ Martin Heidegger, 1930s courses on Nietzsche (parts of which have been published under the name "Nietzsche I" (1936-1939), ed. B. Schillbach, 1996, XIV, 596p. and "Nietzsche II" (1939-1946), ed. B. Schillbach, 1997, VIII, 454p. — note that these publications are not the exact transcription of the 1930s courses, but were done post-war), and Mazzino Montinari, 1974 (Montinari made the first complete edition of Nietzsche's posthumous fragments, respecting chronological orders, whilst Elisabeth Förster's edition was partial, incomplete and was arbitrarily ordered, as had Heidegger already noted. Montinari's edition has provided the basis for all further scholarship on Nietzsche's work). ]

In 1930, Förster-Nietzsche, a German nationalist and antisemite, became a supporter of the German National Socialists. After Hitler and the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the Nietzsche Archive received financial support and publicity from the government, in return for which Förster-Nietzsche bestowed her brother's considerable prestige on the régime. Förster-Nietzsche's funeral in 1935 was attended by Hitler and several high-ranking National Socialist officials.

Footnotes

References

* Diethe, Carol, "Nietzsche's Sister and the Will to Power", Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003. (A biography of Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche)
* Macintyre, Ben, "Forgotten Fatherland: The Search for Elisabeth Nietzsche", New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1992.

External links

*cite book
title=Das Leben Friedrich Nietzsche's
author=Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche
year=1895
publisher=C. G. Naumann
isbn=
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=HwzF0ysafNAC&pg=PA3&dq=Elisabeth+F%C3%B6rster-Nietzsche&as_brr=1#PPP9,M1
*cite book
title=Das Leben Friedrich Nietzsche's
author=Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche
year=1897
publisher=C. G. Naumann
isbn=
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=9zMfbQiscx8C&pg=PA1&dq=Elisabeth+F%C3%B6rster-Nietzsche&as_brr=1#PPP7,M1
* [http://www.fabula.org/revue/document3755.php Entretien autour de Friedrich Nietzsche et son temps]