User:Reidb117/Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche

Therese Elisabeth Alexandra Förster-Nietzsche (10 July 1846 – 8 November 1935) 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. Their father was a Lutheran pastor in the German village of Röcken bei Lützen. The two children were close during their childhood and early adult years. Her brother took to calling her Llama throughout their lives because he felt that the description of the load bearing, saliva spitting, stubborn animal fit her well. However, they grew apart in 1885 when Elisabeth married Bernhard Förster, a former high school teacher who had become a prominent German nationalist and antisemite. The wedding occurred on May 22nd, 1885 so that they could be married on the birthday of close friend Richard Wagner. Notably, Fredrich Nietzsche was not at the wedding.

As his caretaker, Förster-Nietzsche assumed the roles of curator and editor of her brother's manuscripts. She reworked his unpublished writings to fit her own ideology, often in ways contrary to her brother's stated opinions. Through Förster-Nietzsche's editions, Nietzsche's name became associated with German militarism and National Socialism, while later 20th-century scholars have strongly disputed this conception of his ideas.

Later in life, she became a member of the Nazi Party. When she died in 1935, Adolf Hitler attended her funeral.

Nueva Germania
Bernhard 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 fourteen German families to join them in the colony, to be called Nueva Germania, and the group left Germany for South America on 15 February 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 committed suicide by poisoning himself on 3 June 1889. Four years later his widow left the colony forever and returned to Germany. The colony still exists as a district of the San Pedro department.

Nietzsche Archive
Friedrich Nietzsche's mental collapse occurred in 1889 (he died in 1900), and upon Elisabeth's return in 1893 she found him an invalid whose published writings were beginning to be read and discussed throughout Europe. Förster-Nietzsche took a leading role in promoting her brother, especially through the publication of a collection of Nietzsche's fragments under the name of The Will to Power.

Affiliation with the National Socialist party
In 1930, Förster-Nietzsche, a German nationalist and antisemite, became a supporter of the National Socialist Party. After Hitler 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 German officials.