1 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
Audioguide for English adults
NIETZSCHE ARCHIVE
2 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
Inhalt
TITLE ...................................................................................................... AUDIOGUIDE-NUMBER
Welcome ................................................................................................................................... 325
Exterior design (portal) .......................................................................................................... 326
Former dining room
Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche ........................................................................................... 327
Second level ................................................................................................................. 12
Cultural and political change .......................................................................................... 328
The work of the Archive ................................................................................................. 329
Second level ................................................................................................................. 13
Library and lecture room
Interior design ................................................................................................................. 330
Second level ................................................................................................................. 14
Room use ........................................................................................................................ 331
Second level ................................................................................................................. 15
The philosopher Nietzsche ............................................................................................. 332
Second level ................................................................................................................. 15
Study for archivists
Interior design ................................................................................................................. 333
The Nietzsche family ...................................................................................................... 334
3 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
Welcome to the Villa Silberblick!
The renowned German philosopher Frie-
drich Nietzsche spent the last three years
of his life in this house, until his death in
summer 1900.
Until the end of the Second World War,
this was also the home of the Nietzsche
Archive – which, for nearly forty years,
was run here by Nietzsche’s sister, Elisa-
beth.
Today, the former Archive rooms on the
ground floor are open to the public.
The tour leaflet also includes the numbers
for the audio guide. Simply key in the
number and press play to hear the com-
mentary. The audio tour lasts approximate-
ly twenty minutes. If you listen to all the
background commentaries as well, the tour
takes around half an hour.
Before we go into the rooms, though, let’s
start by taking a look at this impressive
entrance.
It’s best viewed from outside – so when
you are in front of the house, just key in
326.
325: Welcome
4 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
Portal
326 Exterior design
Villa Silberblick – named after the hill
above Weimar – was given its present
form between 1902 and 1903.
The refurbishment included adding on
this distinctive entrance, designed by the
Belgian architect Henry van de Velde.
The attractive bronze handles on the en-
trance door are a fine example of his love
of dynamic sinuous lines.
The work on the house was commis-
sioned by Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche,
sister of the renowned philosopher Frie-
drich Nietzsche. She had moved into the
house together with her Nietzsche Ar-
chive some years before, in 1897. The
house had been bought as a venue for the
Archive’s work by Meta von Salis, a
wealthy benefactor from Switzerland
who also wrote one of the first books
about Friedrich Nietzsche.
The inscription over the entrance – also
designed by van de Velde – is rather mis-
leading today, since the Nietzsche Archive
as such no longer exists.
At the end of the Second World War, Ger-
many was divided into four Allied zones,
and Weimar was in the Soviet zone of oc-
cupation. Since the entire East Bloc regard-
ed Nietzsche as a proponent of an
‘irrational’ philosophy paving the way for
the rise of the Nazis, the Soviet administra-
tion were quick to shut the Archive. After
further discussion, they also removed the
inscription.
During the East German era, the villa was
refurbished a number of times and used as
a guest house for the “National Research
and Memorial Institutions in Weimar“, the
predecessor of today’s Klassik Stiftung
Weimar.
Only after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 was
the lower floor restored to its condition in
1903 and opened as a museum – and the
inscription replaced over the entrance.
Since 1999, the upper floor has housed the
Kolleg Friedrich Nietzsche, an institution
for philosophical and academic research.
Every year, the Kolleg invites well-known
intellectual figures here – such as Peter
Sloterdijk or Slavoj Žižek – to reflect on
present and future philosophical issues.
5 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
Former Dining Room
327: Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche
The photo on the first exhibition panel
shows, on the right, a mature woman in a
black dress looking directly into the cam-
era. This is Elisabeth-Förster Nietzsche,
Friedrich Nietzsche’s sister. For over forty
years, she was not just the head of the Nie-
tzsche Archive, but its life and soul.
The founding of the Archive is closely
linked to the dramatic development of Nie-
tzsche’s illness.
On 3 January 1889, Nietzsche suffered a
mental collapse in Turin. Afterwards, his
mental and physical state was so unstable
that he required care for the rest of his life.
On the next panel, there are, at the top left,
two photos of Nietzsche taken during his
illness. He spent over year in a clinic in
Jena before, in May 1890, his mother Fran-
ziska took him to her home in Naumburg
to look after him herself.
Some years later, Elisabeth-Förster Nie-
tzsche founded the Nietzsche Archive, and
took over the management and conserva-
tion of Nietzsche’s papers. She collected
Nietzsche’s manuscripts, numerous note-
books and loose papers, as well as over a
thousand letters.
Such was her zeal for collecting her broth-
er’s papers that today there is hardly any
other 19th century figure in Germany
whose work and life has been so thorough-
ly documented and researched. The Ar-
chive had the exclusive rights to publish
Nietzsche’s works until 1930, when the
copyright expired.
In Wilhelminian Germany, Elisabeth
Förster-Nietzsche was one of the few
women in such an influential position –
only comparable to Cosima Wagner in
Bayreuth.
However, there are a number of issues con-
nected to her earlier life – and to find out
more, just key in 12.
6 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
Second level 12: Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and ‘Nueva Germania’
In her late thirties, Elisabeth Nietzsche
married Bernhard Förster, a high school
teacher. Förster professed radical national-
ist beliefs, and was fanatically anti-Semitic
– so much so that he even claimed that
Christ, as the Son of God, must have been
a ‘pure’ Aryan.
One year after their marriage, Elisabeth
and Bernhard Förster moved to Paraguay
to found a colony with a small group of
like-minded supporters. Their ‘Nueva Ger-
mania’ – ‘New Germania’ – colony was
supposed to be a refuge for members of the
so-called ‘Aryan race’. From the outset,
Friedrich Nietzsche took a very critical
view of his brother-in-law. In 1887, he
wrote from Venice to his mother in Naum-
burg:
“The news from Paraguay is really very
cheering; but I still have not the slightest
wish to settle in the vicinity of my anti-
Semitic brother in law. His views and mine
are different: – and I do not regret this.”
When the colony was facing financial ruin
in 1889, Bernhard Förster committed sui-
cide. For a time, Elisabeth Förster-
Nietzsche tried to raise the funds to save
‘Nueva Germania’. But four years later,
she returned to Europe, where an entirely
new ‘project’ was now waiting for her. In a
letter in 1894, she wrote:
“And so I must bid farewell to these colo-
nial affairs – from now on, another great
task in life will be commanding all my
time and energy, namely, caring for my
dear and only brother, the philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche, protecting his works
and the description of his life and thought.”
7 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
Former dining room
328: Cultural and political change
The history of the Nietzsche Archive was
strongly influenced by a radical change in
its political and cultural direction.
The third information panel displays a pho-
to of the opening of a Rodin exhibition in
Weimar in 1904. Rodin was then part of
the avant-garde movement, and pushing
back the boundaries of sculptural works.
The guests at the exhibition included Elisa-
beth Förster-Nietzsche, third from the left,
wearing a hat and dark dress. From around
1900, she succeeded, together with friends
such as Harry Graf Kessler, in attracting
European avant-garde art to Weimar. Now,
a steady stream of the pioneering writers
and artists of their age passed through the
Nietzsche Archive, from Rainer Maria Ril-
ke to Gerhart Hauptmann, Thomas Mann,
Max Klinger and Edvard Munch.
Thirty years later, the picture is very differ-
ent. Those who then met in these rooms
were vehemently opposed modernist art –
and democracy. As early as the mid-1920s,
the Archive cultivated contacts to Benito
Mussolini, an enthusiastic reader of Nie-
tzsche. And in 1932, Elisabeth Förster-
Nietzsche also got to know Adolf Hitler,
who was a welcome guest over the next
years. The display case on the opposite
wall shows three photos of Hitler visiting
the Archive in 1934.
At that time, the Nazis were determined to
reinterpret Nietzsche as the Third Reich’s
intellectual mentor, and enthusiastically
adopted individual words and phrases from
his works which fitted their new ideology,
whether the ‘will to power’, the
‘Übermensch’ or ‘master morality’. After
Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche’s death in
1935, the Archive was managed by Max
Oehler, who unequivocally shaped it to
buttress Nazi propaganda – even though
scholars believe that Hitler had hardly read
any of Nietzsche’s writings.
8 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
Former dining room
329: The work of the Archive
On the wall in the small niche to the left of
the windows, you can see a copy of a draft
letter that Nietzsche wrote in Venice in
1884. In it, he expressed his concern over
how his intellectual legacy would be treat-
ed:
“Who knows how many generations will
have to pass to produce a few human be-
ings who will recapture in feeling, in all its
depth, what I have done! And even then,
the thought still terrifies me how unquali-
fied and totally unsuited people will one
day invoke my authority.”
Nietzsche wrote these lines to a good
friend, the Swiss writer Malwida von Mey-
senbug. But take a closer look at this dupli-
cate – and especially the salutation at the
top. This does not read ‘Liebe Malwida’,
but ‘Liebe Schwester’ – ‘Dear Sister’!
In other words, Elisabeth-Förster Nie-
tzsche manipulated the letter to make it
look as if Nietzsche had written to her –
turning the letter into the alleged proof that
she was the sole legitimate custodian of
Nietzsche’s literary estate.
This manipulated letter was also included
in the first major edition of Nietzsche’s
complete works, compiled here in the Ar-
chive in 1913. This letter stands as one of
the many examples of how uninhibited
Elisabeth-Förster Nietzsche was in manip-
ulating her brother’s papers – first and
foremost, his letters. In the five volumes of
Nietzsche letters published under her aus-
pices, not only did she change the name of
the person her brother wrote to, but reor-
dered or shortened the content of many
individual letters – or left letters out alto-
gether.
The best known example of Elisabeth-
Förster Nietzsche’s very questionable ap-
proach to her work in the Archive is a
book entitled The Will to Power. This col-
lection of aphorisms was compiled posthu-
mously from Nietzsche’s notebooks – and
to find out more, just key in 13.
9 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
Second level 13: “The Will to Power”
Around 1885, Nietzsche began to draw up
his plan for a larger systematic work. His
working title for it was The Will to Power,
and Nietzsche made drafts and notes for it
until 1888, when he finally gave the project
up. Some of these writings were integrated
into his later works, primarily The Twilight
of the Idols and The Antichrist. The rest of
his preparatory notes were scattered
throughout his papers.
After Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche founded
the Archive, one of her main aims was to
ensure the publication of this ‘major work’
which, she felt, clearly showed how her
brother had developed a major philosophi-
cal system.
Nietzsche himself would hardly have sub-
scribed to his sister’s goal. Even in The
Twilight of the Idols in 1888, he noted:
“I mistrust all systemizers and avoid them.
The will to a system is a lack of integrity.”
Nonetheless, from 1901, the Nietzsche Ar-
chive published various books under the
title The Will to Power. These were always
collections of texts and aphorisms from
Nietzsche’s unpublished notebooks and
papers. The best-known edition was is-
sued in 1906, and contained over 1000
aphorisms in four volumes – and here be-
low there is a facsimile of an early edi-
tion. Today, scholars do not regard these
compilations as genuinely part of Nie-
tzsche’s own oeuvre. They only follow
Nietzsche’s own documented plans to a
limited extent, have been manipulated by
the editor’s additions to and reorganiza-
tion of the texts. In places, they even pre-
sent Nietzsche’s lecture notes as apho-
risms.
This situation is serious enough in itself,
but is further heightened by the profound
influence of the different editions of Will
to Power on the reception of Nietzsche
down the years. Moreover, even today,
there is no exact critical comparison of
the Nietzsche Archive editions and Nie-
tzsche’s original plans.
10 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
Library and lecture room
330: Interior design
The main library and lecture room – the
room you are now in – was in a part of Vil-
la Silberblick extensively refurbished by
Belgian architect Henry van de Velde in
the years between 1902 and 1903. Here,
van de Velde created a Gesamtkunstwerk -
a synthesis of the arts – where every artis-
tic detail of the room is harmonised: the
built-in shelves and furniture, the fabric
covers, the stove, the vases, the piano –
everything was designed by van de Velde
himself. The elegant lines and curves char-
acteristic of his style are evident, for exam-
ple, in the sofa and display cabinet above
it. For van de Velde, the line was:
“…a vital force spontaneously breaking
out of us, soaring and sinking back, gliding
and coiling forwards, raising us up and
transporting our soul into a state only oth-
erwise awakened by singing and dancing.”
The wall directly opposite the sofa is deco-
rated with a massive golden ‘N’ – and the
same logo was emblazoned on the station-
ary and matchboxes laid out for the use of
visitors: an early example of ‘corporate
identity’.
The monumental Nietzsche bust is one of
the few objects not designed by van de
Velde. The bust, emerging from a soaring
square base, is the work of the Leipzig
sculptor Max Klinger. This style of bust
was often used in ancient Greece to portray
the gods. This large-than-life portrait im-
pressively illustrates just how much, in
around 1900, Nietzsche was stylized as a
prophet of new age. Elisabeth Förster-
Nietzsche skilfully promoted the cult
around her brother by making the Archive
a pilgrimage site for his numerous disci-
ples.
This was also why she wanted to have the
modern, sophisticated interior designed by
Henry van de Velde – and if you would
like to know more about this multi-talented
Belgian artist, just key in 14.
11 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
Second Level 14: Henry van de Velde
Henry van de Velde was born in Antwerp
in Belgium in 1863. He was a multi-
talented artist whose designs embraced all
areas of life, from houses to furniture,
clothing, jewellery and lamps – and even
interiors for large steamers and railway
carriages. His credo was that high quality
art and craftwork could positively influ-
ence both individuals and everyday life.
Originally, van de Velde studied painting
but, from 1892, increasingly turned to the
applied arts. In particular, the houses and
interiors he designed proved very popular
with intellectuals and artists in Germany.
Thanks to his success there, he moved to
Berlin in 1900. But van de Velde only
stayed for eighteen months in the German
capital, then a booming city of two million
people.
In 1902, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and
Harry Graf Kessler were instrumental in
bringing van de Velde to Weimar – as the
Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar’s artistic ad-
visor for the trades and industry. Van de
Velde’s remit was to support businesses in
the region in all design issues with the aim
of increasing sales. His work was a re-
sounding success. By 1915, he had negoti-
ated contacts for several million gold
marks for businesses in Thuringia, and es-
pecially in Weimar.
In Weimar, van de Velde enjoyed the most
productive period in his life, and was not
only much in demand as a designer and
architect, but also as a teacher. In 1906, he
founded the School of Arts and Crafts –
whose successor organisation, some years
later, was the famous Bauhaus school of
design.
But with the outbreak of the First World
War, the mood in Weimar changed dramat-
ically. As a Belgian, van de Velde was re-
garded as an ‘enemy alien’ and was the
subject of such hostility that he left Wei-
mar in 1917, emigrating to Switzerland.
12 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
The end wall of the new library and lecture
room – designed by van de Velde – con-
tains the heart of the Archive – a safe. The
fireproof and theft-proof safe is set behind
the desk, elegantly integrated into the over-
all design of the room. This is where Nie-
tzsche’s original handwritten manuscripts
were stored. The built-in shelves next to it
primarily displayed Nietzsche’s personal
reference library. Today, Nietzsche’s man-
uscripts and his personal collection of
books are in the Goethe and Schiller Ar-
chive, and the Duchess Anna Amalia Li-
brary.
At the same time, this room also became
the venue for an exclusive salon – perfectly
reflecting Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche’s
own idea of a ‘living Archive’. Innumera-
ble lectures, literary teas and matinees
were held here. There were also musical
soirees, with concerts given on the piano
designed by van de Velde. The season’s
highlights included the annual festivities to
mark Nietzsche’s birthday and the day of
his death.
The circle brought together by Nietzsche’s
charming sister in these rooms was a very
select group. It may have only included
carefully chosen friends and a few mem-
bers of court society, but they regularly
welcomed renowned guests – for instance,
with Gerhart Hauptmann and the poet Stef-
Library and lecture room
331: Room use
an George reading from their latest works.
The composer Richard Strauss also paid his
respects after he had finished his 1896 tone
poem Also sprach Zarathustra – Thus
Spoke Zarathustra.
Finally, the Archive also served as the
main meeting point for a group of friends
intent on turning Weimar into a centre for
modern art. The two leading figures in this
group were Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche
and Harry Graf Kessler – and for more on
this circle and the idea of a ‘New Weimar’,
just key in 15.
.
13 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
Harry Graf Kessler, the wealthy and cos-
mopolitan son of a banker, was a particu-
larly frequent visitor to Villa Silberblick.
He was one of the most colourful figures
in Imperial Germany, and not only a diplo-
mat, writer, art collector and art patron, but
also one the very early Nietzsche disciples.
It was his idea to turn the little town of
Weimar into a flourishing European cul-
tural centre for a third time – after Weimar
Classicism and the age of Wagner and
Liszt.
While Förster-Nietzsche initially sought to
have her Archive build on the fame and
glory of Weimar’s Goethe and Schiller
Archive, the objective was now to trans-
form the town itself into a centre for the
artistic avant-garde. This was also intended
as an answer to Berlin. There, cultural pol-
icy around 1900 was very restrictive, with
Emperor Wilhelm II firmly rejecting all
modern art of whatever kind.
To support their ‘New Weimar’ project,
Kessler and Förster-Nietzsche invited the
Belgian artist Henry van de Velde to the
town in 1902. Through his work in Wei-
mar, van de Velde’s innovative style came
to have a profound and broad artistic im-
pact.
Kessler himself took up an appointment as
the director of the Grand Ducal Museum of
Arts and Crafts in 1903. Thanks to Kess-
ler’s excellent contacts, the museum could
show a series of artists now recognised as
seminal in modernism’s development, in-
cluding, for example, Cézanne, Gauguin,
Monet, van Gogh and Kandinsky.
In this way, Weimar genuinely did become
a centre of artistic renewal in Germany.
But Kessler’s all too ambitious plans soon
had conservative circles in Weimar up in
arms – protesting, above all, against his
programme of exhibitions. In 1906, he was
attacked in the press for allegedly obscene
nude studies by Rodin. As a result, Kessler
exasperatedly resigned from his position in
Weimar. For the time being, the dream of a
‘New Weimar’ was over.
Second Level AG-Nr. 15: New Weimar
14 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
In redesigning the house with the Archive,
Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche also wanted to
create a showcase for her brother. For that
reason, van de Velde built numerous dis-
play cases here in the library and lecture
room. In this rather museum-like space,
the cases with their photographs and mem-
orabilia commemorating Nietzsche’s life
and death, elevate the room to a memorial
for this great philosopher.
In the little gallery over the sofa, for exam-
ple, the second photo from the right shows
Friedrich Ritschl, Professor of Philology.
Ritschl and Nietzsche first met in autumn
1864, when Nietzsche started to study
classical philology and theology in Bonn.
But after just one semester, Nietzsche gave
up theology – he had actually already fin-
ished with Christianity while still at
school.
After just one year in Bonn, Nietzsche fol-
lowed Ritschl to Leipzig and became
Ritschl’s most gifted and favoured student.
And Ritschl also then supported Nie-
tzsche’s appointment to the chair of classi-
cal philology at the University of Basel in
1869. At that point, Nietzsche had only just
turned 25! On the left of the safe, you can
see the doctoral degree certificate he re-
ceived then – even though he had not actu-
ally taken a Ph.D.
In Basel, Nietzsche’s interests increasingly
led him to philosophy and away from phi-
lology. In his view, humankind’s develop-
ment from the ancient world was a history
of the slow decay of western civilization
culminating in the decadence of modern
society. In his view, this decline was due to
centuries of the weak spirit of the west, a
spirit informed by precisely the wrong val-
ues – and here, Nietzsche was thinking
above all of Christianity, which he regard-
ed as an ailing and life-denying value sys-
tem. Fighting decadence, he maintained,
was only possible by a radical renewal of
culture – and initially, Nietzsche put great
hopes in Richard Wagner.
To find out more about Nietzsche and
Wagner, just key in 16.
Library and lecture room
332: The philosopher Nietzsche
15 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
While still a student in Leipzig, Nietzsche
came to know Richard Wagner, who was over
30 years older. The fourth photo on the left in
the portrait gallery over the sofa is the last por-
trait photo of Wagner. Nietzsche was fascinat-
ed by Wagner and his totally innovative style
of opera. From 1869 on, the young Nietzsche
travelled from Basel over 20 times to visit
Wagner in his villa on the shores of Lake Lu-
cerne. The close friendship they developed is
evident in the moving tribute Nietzsche pays in
a letter written for Wagner’s 60th birthday:
“Beloved Master, It is now really two genera-
tions that the Germans have had you – and
there are certainly many who, like […] me,
will celebrate the next Ascension Day as the
day of your descent to earth.”
In 1872, Nietzsche published his first key
work, entitled The Birth of Tragedy. On the
right in the table display case over the safe, you
can see the first two pages of the original man-
uscript. The text is dedicated to Richard Wag-
ner, and opens with a preface to the composer.
In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche writes, only
Wagner’s music is capable of reviving the vi-
tal, mythical perspective on the world found
among the ancient Greeks, and overcoming the
all too rational and lifeless culture in the 19th
century.
Only a few years later, though, there was a
break between Nietzsche and Wagner, and Nie-
tzsche’s admiration turned into enmity. Above
all, he accused Wagner of returning to Christi-
anity in his late work ‘Parsifal’ – the Christiani-
ty which Nietzsche vehemently rejected. Even
after Wagner’s death in 1883, Nietzsche still
continued to write, almost neurotically, about
his former ‘Master’. Even shortly before Nie-
tzsche’s mental breakdown in 1888, he re-
mained unforgiving, and wrote:
“Is Wagner a person at all? Isn’t he rather a
disease?”
Second Level 16: Nietzsche and Wagner
16 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
In 1903, Henry van de Velde also com-
pletely designed the study for the archi-
vists, right down to the last detail – not
only the desk, chairs and cupboards, but
also the leather-covered doors, the wallpa-
per and even the stucco on the ceiling. The
furniture was made by the court master-
joiner Hermann Scheidemantel. Incidental-
ly, during his Weimar years, van de Velde
had all the pieces of furniture he designed
made by Scheidemantel.
In his work, van de Velde sought to create
a total unity of the arts – as is impressively
evident here from the way that even the
picture frames fit perfectly into the room’s
overall design.
Only the bench next to the window was
not part of van de Velde’s original interior
design. Instead, it belonged to Elisabeth
Förster-Nietzsche’s initial furniture in the
house. Van de Velde had it reworked by
Scheidemantel so that it fitted in with the
new style of the furnishings.
Förster-Nietzsche’s friend Harry Graf
Kessler, one of the first visitors to the Villa
Silberblick, had already bemoaned her lack
of a sense of style. He found the house was
decorated in a relatively affluent style, but
without any real sophistication. The red
velvet furniture, family photos, embroidery
work and majolica pottery from South
America were all mixed together, without
any attempt to create an overall aesthetic
impression. It was also Kessler who urged
Förster-Nietzsche to have this mansion
house refurbished by van de Velde. In the
end, the refurbishment cost 43,000 marks –
more than the original cost of the entire
house and garden just a few years earlier.
Study for Archivists
333: Van de Velde design
17 Klassik Stiftung Weimar | Nietzsche -Archiv | 07.2013
The portraits next to the stove show Frie-
drich and Elisabeth Nietzsche’s parents.
Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, their father, was a
Lutheran pastor, and began working in
Röcken, a small village south of Leipzig,
in 1842. He died in 1849, only just 35
years old, from a painful brain ailment. His
widow Franziska Oehler moved with her
two children into the nearby town of
Naumburg. For the next seven years, Frie-
drich Nietzsche grew up in a household of
women, with his mother, sister, grand-
mother and two unmarried aunts.
Throughout his life, Nietzsche had an am-
bivalent relationship to his sister. They had
fierce arguments, but always reconciled
afterwards. His letters to Elisabeth are of-
ten marked by his concern and fondness
for her. But Ecce Homo, his autobiography
written shortly before his mental collapse,
contains some very negative remarks about
her.
When Nietzsche’s mother died in 1897,
Elisabeth took over the care of her brother.
Nietzsche, who was very seriously ill,
spent his last three years in this house, liv-
ing on the upper floor of Villa Silberblick
until his death in summer 1900. Elisabeth
only allowed selected guests such as Ru-
dolf Steiner or Harry Graf Kessler to visit
her mentally deranged brother. In addition,
she was more than meticulous in ensuring
that a worthy image of Nietzsche the phi-
losopher was propagated in public. To sup-
port this image, she also commissioned
portraits of her brother by renowned paint-
ers and sculptors. The famous etching by
Hans Olde on the opposite wall shows Nie-
tzsche a year before his death.
Study for Archivists 334: Nietzsche’s family / Nietzsche iconography