Therese Elisabeth Alexandra Förster-Nietzsche (10 July 1846 – 8 November 1935) was a sister of a German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, co-founder and co-leader of Nueva Germania from 23 August 1887 to August 1889 and a curator of Nietzsche Archive from 1895 to her death on 8 November 1935. Förster-Nietzsche was an anti-Semite and an aryanist for most of her life. Along with her husband, Bernhard Förster, she founded Nueva Germania in attempt to create a utopia which demonstrated superiority of German race. The colony was a failure with many people dying from tropical diseases and climate unsuitable for German methods of farming. Berhard Forster committed suicide in 1887 and Elisabeth was forced to hand over Nueva Germania to a consortium. After returning to Germany, she became caretaker to her disabled brother during which she took time to secure rights to Nietzsche Archive. After her brother's death, she rewrote her brother's unpublished manuscripts to include pro-nationalist views. Her forgeries resulted in Nietzsche being wrongly misrepresented as a philosopher of fascism and Nietzsche Archive received funding from the Nazi Party.
Biography[]
Therese Elisabeth Alexandra Nietzsche was born on 10 July 1846 in Röcken, Prussia to a Lutheran pastor Carl Ludwig Nietzsche and Franziska Nietzsche. She was the younger sister of Friedrich Nietzsche. When Elisabeth was christened, she was given the names of the three princesses, Elisabeth, Therese, and Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg, whom her father had tutored before he assumed his pastoral duties in the town of Röcken. After her father father's death in 1849, Elisabeth, her brother and mother had to move in to Naumburg due to financial reasons. The town was predominately staunchly conservative and devoutly Christian and Elisabeth's surroundings shaped her own worldview.
Elisabeth Nietzsche attended Fräulein von Pareskis' private school for young ladies. In 1868, her brother met a famous composer, Richard Wagner, and the siblings would become a part of Wagner's inner circle, with Elisabeth being delighted to be a part of the fame. However, her brother became dissatisfied with Wagner's anti-Semitism, nationalism and self-centerdness and he ended their friendship in 1876, distressing Elisabeth. She blamed Paul Rée, a cynical Jew, for influencing Friedrich and embraced anti-Semitism in Wagner's circles. During Wagner's festival, she was approached by Bernhard Förster who was an anti-semite and a German nationalist. He proposed creation of Nueva Germania in the New World, a purely aryan colony which would demonstrante their racial superiority. The two married on Wagner's birthday, May 22, 1885. The couple spread their idea of Nueva Germania but were quickly ostracized and Förster lost his job due to his anti-Semitism. Upon gathering some followers they traveled with them to Paraguay on February 1886.
What was supposed to be an aryan utopia ended up being a failure. Many people died of tropical diseases and the soil was unsuitable for German methods of farming. On 3 June 1889, Bernhard Förster committed suicide and in August, Elisabeth was forced to give up the ownership of Nueva Germania to a consortium. She attempted to save her husband reputation and wrote Bernhard Förster's Colony New Germany in Paraguay (published in 1991) to present him as a battling Christian hero who has fallen on a foreign field for his belief in the German spirit.
In 1893, she returned to Germany to become a caretaker for her brother, who became an invalid due to his mental illness. She planned to use his growing fame in intellectual circles to raise money for the colony. Thus, she went on to establish herself as his representative and changed her legal name to ''Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche''. She also secured full rights to the Nietzsche archive. In 1897, after the death of their mother, the insane Nietzsche was moved to Villa Silberblick in Weimar and Förster-Nietzsche was delighted by the visits of intellectuals, artists, poets, and aristocrats to the archive. After her brother's death in 1900, she started collecting his unfinished manuscripts which she heavily edited to fit her ultranationalist and militarist worldview. This forged work was published in 1901 under title The Will to Power. In 1932, she met Adolf Hitler who, after becoming the ruler of Germany in 1933, provided her archive with financial support so it would promote Nazism. On 8 November 1935, Förster-Nietzsche was found dead in her bed.