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International Nietzsche Studies
Nietzsche's Sister and the Will to Power: A Biography of Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche
Elisabeth F–rster-Nietzsche was two years younger than her brother, Friedrich Nietzsche, and outlived him by thirty-five years. In 1901, a year after Nietzsche's death, she published The Will to Power, a hasty compilation of writings he never intended for print. In Nietzche's Sister and the Will to Power, Carol Diethe contends that F–rster-Nietzsche's own will to power and her desire to place herself, not her brother, at the center of cultural life in Germany are responsible for Nietzsche's reputation as a belligerent and proto-fascist thinker. During the latter part of her life, F–rster-Nietzsche propagated and presided over a Nietzsche cult in Weimar Germany. Many intellectuals believed she had abetted her brother's legacy by bringing his publications to print. But, as Diethe claims, F–rster-Nietzsche's well-known fascist and anti-Semitic ties, as well as her declaration that her brother would have supported the Germans in World War I, have marred Nietzsche's legacy and linked him to political campaigns and ideals he did not actually endorse. Offering a new look at Nietzsche's sister from a feminist perspective, this spirited and erudite biography examines why Elisabeth F–rster-Nietzsche recklessly consorted with anti-Semites, from her own husband, Bernard F–rster, to Hitler himself, out of convenience and a desire for revenge against a brother whose love for her waned after she had caused the collapse of his friendship with Lou SalomÈ in 1882. In distilling the reasons F–rster-Nietzsche betrayed and endangered the reputation of the man she loved best, the book examines the dynamics of their family, Nietzsche's dismissal of his sister's early writing career, and the effects of limited education on intelligent women. Diethe also plumbs the details of F–rster-Nietzsche's brief marriage and her subsequent colonial venture in Paraguay, maintaining that her sporadic anti-Semitism was, like most things in her life, an expedient tool for cultivating personal success and status.
- GenresBiographyPhilosophy
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
3 people are currently reading
54 people want to read
About the author
Carol Diethe
17 books2 followersCarol Diethe was formerly a Reader at Middlesex University.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 11, 2019
Elisabeth was an interesting personality. She was different from her brother, and in some respects she embodied his philosophy better than he himself did. For Friedrich was averse to conflict, which his philosophy painted with heroic tones, while Elisabeth , as shown in the Lou affair and the way she managed the Nietzsche-Archiv, was just the opposite: she loved a "gay, fresh, holy war" as she wrote in a letter to her brother (not contained in this book).
The author paints this portrait of Elisabeth well, that of a person who does not succumb to pain as her brother did, but who is, instead, moved by anger. Despite a matronly exterior, and a certain vulgarity of character, there is something heroic in Elisabeth , a kind of heroism different from that of her brother: he sacrificed a good life and friendship for knowledge; she sacrificed friendship and knowledge for a good life.
I have a few problems with the book, starting with the ideological bias of the author, who's a feminist scholar. She demonstrates that Elisabeth was a girl of artistic and literary gift. On this basis, she tries to argue that an education more rigorous than that which Germany provided to girls of that time could have fully developed Elisabeth's talents and guided her on a different path from the one she took in her late 30s, when she joined the anti-Semitic movement, and later in life, with the rise of the Nazis.
However, much of the German intelligentsia of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was anti-Semitic. Why would a good education have protected Elisabeth from such feelings if that was not the case with so many other people of the day?
In addition, the author herself proves that Elisabeth's anti-Semitism was skin deep. Despite being a solid conservative, her attitude toward the Jews was malleable and pragmatic: unfriendly when she was part of Wagner's circle and later married an anti-Semitic activist from that milieu, but sympathetic after she founded the Nietzsche-Archiv, when the friendship of rich Jews who loved Nietzsche was of value to her.
After the rise of the Nazi party, she worked hard through a biased selection of Nietzsche's texts to demonstrate how his work could serve as a philosophical basis for German ultra-nationalism, but she never attempted to portray her brother as hostile to the Jews.
A good education can sometimes protect from wrong beliefs, but not from opportunism, which was the true flaw of Elisabeth's character.
Moreover, it should be noted that, however great Elisabeth's natural gifts may have been, she never showed much love for learning, as many women of the day did.
Another problem I have with the author's approach is the way she treats the Lou affair: Nietzsche was a fool in love; Elisabeth, a jealous liar; and Lou, a girl of enormous genius who left a trail of broken male hearts wherever she went.
As Rudolph Binion's Lou biography shows, the picture is much more complex than that. Lou von Salomé lied about Nietzsche's marriage proposals to her, and also about how their friendship came to end: he broke it, not she as Lou said later. Moreover, much of what Elisabeth told Nietzsche about Lou and Paul Rée's conduct was true, and she unmasked some of Lou's tales already in the biography she wrote about her brother in the 1900s.
That Lou, a free spirit, is generally an easier figure to sympathize with than Elisabeth, a (as the author puts it) "provincial bigot" who later made common cause with the European far right, is no excuse to produce such a one-sided portrait of both these women: of the former as a larger-than-life heroine who only did harm accidentally, and of the latter as a narrow-minded mental dwarf whose petty feelings got the best of her.
The end of the book has as an appendix a little novel written by Elisabeth. Now, the writing itself is not the fruit of some great originality and the characters and their feelings are all petty-bourgeois. However, as Diethe says, it was not a bad choice on Elisabeth's part to use the life she knew as material.
In addition, the novella has some virtues, starting with psychological sophistication, and contains many sly and shrewd observations. My favorite is when the narrator says that nothing displeases the philosopher more than to apply his theories to his immediate reality, as the theory is never quite right when tested against individual people and facts. Despite the fact that, when she was managing the Nietzsche-Archiv, Elisabeth presented herself to the reading public as her brother's first disciple in all senses, it is possible that she did not have a very high opinion either of her brother's thought or of philosophy in general, at least when she wrote the story.
What appears of Elisabeth's personality in the text, is also interesting. To begin with, although she was such a conservative woman, she seems to have had doubts about the traditional expectations that German society imposed on women. The main character of the story, Nora, who undoubtedly represents Elisabeth herself, avoids with contemplative stubbornness the fate that her nagging mother wants to impose on her, that of marrying a good man as soon as possible.
Nora, as a 30-year-old woman, is already past her prime according to the judgments of the time, and so she is the target of both her mother's tirades and the condescension of the matrons of the local society, who gossip about her. Surely that says something of Elisabeth's state of mind and how she perceived her standing in society, for she must have composed this story shortly after the Lou affair, when she was already in the mid-30s (therefore even older than Nora) and still single.
As much as she loves to study, Nora, however, does not shun the domestic life. She cohabits with her brother and provides for the needs of the home, which seems to be a source of great contentment to her. The whole story shows this bias: the happiest homes are those headed, not by husband and wife - whose life is marked more by conflict and incompatibility - but by brother and sister, who form a large number of the households in the novella, all full of complicity and familiarity between the "couple".
It is true that the main couple of the story, Georg and Nora, are not siblings. But Georg, a philologist-turned-philosopher, obviously represents Nietzsche, and Nora, as said before, represents Elisabeth herself. So, even here it is the love between brother and sister that which Elisabeth's little écrit celebrates.
Elisabeth and Nietzsche's relationship has been the subject of incestuous rumors for decades (see the literary hoax "My sister and I"). It is, however, very unlikely that this love was conscious on Elisabeth's part - or, for that matter, requited on Nietzsche's. But the novella indicates that there is a kernel of truth to the story.
As Diethe says, this feeling no doubt gave Elisabeth the impetus to dedicate herself to the Nietzsche-Archiv throughout the second half of her long life, especially as brother and sister were at such different points (ideologically and geographically) when Nietzsche's sanity expired its last breath.
The author paints this portrait of Elisabeth well, that of a person who does not succumb to pain as her brother did, but who is, instead, moved by anger. Despite a matronly exterior, and a certain vulgarity of character, there is something heroic in Elisabeth , a kind of heroism different from that of her brother: he sacrificed a good life and friendship for knowledge; she sacrificed friendship and knowledge for a good life.
I have a few problems with the book, starting with the ideological bias of the author, who's a feminist scholar. She demonstrates that Elisabeth was a girl of artistic and literary gift. On this basis, she tries to argue that an education more rigorous than that which Germany provided to girls of that time could have fully developed Elisabeth's talents and guided her on a different path from the one she took in her late 30s, when she joined the anti-Semitic movement, and later in life, with the rise of the Nazis.
However, much of the German intelligentsia of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was anti-Semitic. Why would a good education have protected Elisabeth from such feelings if that was not the case with so many other people of the day?
In addition, the author herself proves that Elisabeth's anti-Semitism was skin deep. Despite being a solid conservative, her attitude toward the Jews was malleable and pragmatic: unfriendly when she was part of Wagner's circle and later married an anti-Semitic activist from that milieu, but sympathetic after she founded the Nietzsche-Archiv, when the friendship of rich Jews who loved Nietzsche was of value to her.
After the rise of the Nazi party, she worked hard through a biased selection of Nietzsche's texts to demonstrate how his work could serve as a philosophical basis for German ultra-nationalism, but she never attempted to portray her brother as hostile to the Jews.
A good education can sometimes protect from wrong beliefs, but not from opportunism, which was the true flaw of Elisabeth's character.
Moreover, it should be noted that, however great Elisabeth's natural gifts may have been, she never showed much love for learning, as many women of the day did.
Another problem I have with the author's approach is the way she treats the Lou affair: Nietzsche was a fool in love; Elisabeth, a jealous liar; and Lou, a girl of enormous genius who left a trail of broken male hearts wherever she went.
As Rudolph Binion's Lou biography shows, the picture is much more complex than that. Lou von Salomé lied about Nietzsche's marriage proposals to her, and also about how their friendship came to end: he broke it, not she as Lou said later. Moreover, much of what Elisabeth told Nietzsche about Lou and Paul Rée's conduct was true, and she unmasked some of Lou's tales already in the biography she wrote about her brother in the 1900s.
That Lou, a free spirit, is generally an easier figure to sympathize with than Elisabeth, a (as the author puts it) "provincial bigot" who later made common cause with the European far right, is no excuse to produce such a one-sided portrait of both these women: of the former as a larger-than-life heroine who only did harm accidentally, and of the latter as a narrow-minded mental dwarf whose petty feelings got the best of her.
The end of the book has as an appendix a little novel written by Elisabeth. Now, the writing itself is not the fruit of some great originality and the characters and their feelings are all petty-bourgeois. However, as Diethe says, it was not a bad choice on Elisabeth's part to use the life she knew as material.
In addition, the novella has some virtues, starting with psychological sophistication, and contains many sly and shrewd observations. My favorite is when the narrator says that nothing displeases the philosopher more than to apply his theories to his immediate reality, as the theory is never quite right when tested against individual people and facts. Despite the fact that, when she was managing the Nietzsche-Archiv, Elisabeth presented herself to the reading public as her brother's first disciple in all senses, it is possible that she did not have a very high opinion either of her brother's thought or of philosophy in general, at least when she wrote the story.
What appears of Elisabeth's personality in the text, is also interesting. To begin with, although she was such a conservative woman, she seems to have had doubts about the traditional expectations that German society imposed on women. The main character of the story, Nora, who undoubtedly represents Elisabeth herself, avoids with contemplative stubbornness the fate that her nagging mother wants to impose on her, that of marrying a good man as soon as possible.
Nora, as a 30-year-old woman, is already past her prime according to the judgments of the time, and so she is the target of both her mother's tirades and the condescension of the matrons of the local society, who gossip about her. Surely that says something of Elisabeth's state of mind and how she perceived her standing in society, for she must have composed this story shortly after the Lou affair, when she was already in the mid-30s (therefore even older than Nora) and still single.
As much as she loves to study, Nora, however, does not shun the domestic life. She cohabits with her brother and provides for the needs of the home, which seems to be a source of great contentment to her. The whole story shows this bias: the happiest homes are those headed, not by husband and wife - whose life is marked more by conflict and incompatibility - but by brother and sister, who form a large number of the households in the novella, all full of complicity and familiarity between the "couple".
It is true that the main couple of the story, Georg and Nora, are not siblings. But Georg, a philologist-turned-philosopher, obviously represents Nietzsche, and Nora, as said before, represents Elisabeth herself. So, even here it is the love between brother and sister that which Elisabeth's little écrit celebrates.
Elisabeth and Nietzsche's relationship has been the subject of incestuous rumors for decades (see the literary hoax "My sister and I"). It is, however, very unlikely that this love was conscious on Elisabeth's part - or, for that matter, requited on Nietzsche's. But the novella indicates that there is a kernel of truth to the story.
As Diethe says, this feeling no doubt gave Elisabeth the impetus to dedicate herself to the Nietzsche-Archiv throughout the second half of her long life, especially as brother and sister were at such different points (ideologically and geographically) when Nietzsche's sanity expired its last breath.
June 28, 2019
A solid read that would have been much better if the author did not insert herself and her annoying radical feminist revisionist bs into the narrative so often! Regardless a elucidating read on how Nietzshe's sister twisted his work and thought to the point that Nietzshe came out sounding like a member of the SS which is truly tragic considering the real Nietzshe despised antisemitism and militarism and even didn't care for his fellow Germans to much.
July 5, 2024
Poor Elisabeth; her brother wrote books in which he advocated slavery, eugenic exterminations, called Jesus "an idiot", and praised Cesare Borgia. Kurt Eisner described his early bohemian admirers as types of people who "boast about syphilis to prove their manhood". Elisabeth spent a large part of her life trying to popularize him as a more conventional right-winger, and despite her "mediocre cast of mind", she apparently managed to tarnish his otherwise stellar reputation and derail Western academic philosophy for decades. What an impressive woman!
Elisabeth’s life was quite uneventful, with the most important episodes related to her brother. I can’t say that I learned much from this book about her that I haven’t already found in his biographies. Her life seems full of blank periods; the book does not provide many details about her political and other opinions prior to World War I. She then turns into an agitator, which Diethe finds shocking, although it is quite reminiscent of numerous German intellectuals. Her antisemitism and nationalism are mostly presented as quite shallow, an opportunistic adaptation to her environment rather than a deep, long-lasting personal conviction. Diethe is very fond of speculating about her emotional life, making many claims about Elisabeth’s feelings towards her brother and others without providing concrete evidence. In some cases, it is at least obvious that she is speculating, such as when she applies cutting-edge tools of Freudian psychoanalysis to explain some of the family relationships.
Like other authors who wrote on the subject, Diethe is very vague about what exactly Elisabeth altered in her brother’s works, although she uses some very strong phrases such as "enormous damage" and "wreak havoc". Sure, Elisabeth was dishonest, forging letters and documents, but most of that seems to have more to do with her vanity and financial struggles than with her brother’s philosophy. What drastic changes did she make to turn him from a respectable advocate of slavery and war into a disreputable fascist? There is no clear answer, beyond the fact that she arranged and published his unfinished, stylistically unpolished notes. Considering Elisabeth’s supposedly decisive impact, more evidence and arguments would be expected. Diethe briefly concludes that Der Wille zur Macht was somehow drastically different from Nietzsche’s previous works and was misused by Heidegger for philosophical and political ends. Strangely, she then observes that Der Wille zur Macht was not a bestseller and that most readers actually preferred Nietzsche’s earlier works. Elisabeth also wrote books and articles about her brother, for which she was given an honorary doctorate and was nominated for the Nobel Prize. However, Diethe portrays her as a rather mediocre woman, making it hard to imagine how she managed to impose her amateurish, incorrect interpretations on numerous writers and academic philosophers who studied Nietzsche’s oeuvre. She was supposedly instrumental in popularizing Nietzsche among German nationalists, downplaying his previous anti-German rants, but that is also quite doubtful. Mussolini was also a great admirer; obviously, fascists of all nations could find inspiration in Nietzsche, with or without Elisabeth’s guidance.
Diethe also notes that Elisabeth actually tried to moderate some of her brother’s attitudes, such as his views on women. There is a whole chapter about German feminism in which Diethe expresses her disappointment that Elisabeth, being a willful, independent woman, held conservative attitudes and belittled other emancipated women. Ironically, as a show of feminist solidarity, Diethe constantly blames poor Elisabeth for everything bad about Nietzsche and his legacy, without much evidence, as if he did not personally publish some obviously far-right and shocking opinions. For someone who criticizes Elisabeth for dishonesty and shallowness, Diethe is also very unfair when simplifying and overlooking Nietzsche’s complex attitudes towards war, Jews, and other topics. Another amusing part is when Diethe wonders whether the reason Elisabeth turned to praising Hitler was because she lacked proper education. We can only imagine what kind of moderate, pacifist, philosemitic lady she might have become if she had the opportunity to attend something like a modern Western university. The most bizarre part is when Diethe melodramatically speculates that jealous Elisabeth "conducted a vendetta against Nietzsche for having once dared to love Lou by turning Zarathustra into a Fascist ideologue".
This is not a good book; it is neither detailed nor informative as a biography and contains many purely speculative parts. It is heavily biased, and the main thesis that Elisabeth did crucial, long-lasting damage to her brother’s philosophy and legacy is not convincingly argued. It is not worth reading for any purpose.
Elisabeth’s life was quite uneventful, with the most important episodes related to her brother. I can’t say that I learned much from this book about her that I haven’t already found in his biographies. Her life seems full of blank periods; the book does not provide many details about her political and other opinions prior to World War I. She then turns into an agitator, which Diethe finds shocking, although it is quite reminiscent of numerous German intellectuals. Her antisemitism and nationalism are mostly presented as quite shallow, an opportunistic adaptation to her environment rather than a deep, long-lasting personal conviction. Diethe is very fond of speculating about her emotional life, making many claims about Elisabeth’s feelings towards her brother and others without providing concrete evidence. In some cases, it is at least obvious that she is speculating, such as when she applies cutting-edge tools of Freudian psychoanalysis to explain some of the family relationships.
Like other authors who wrote on the subject, Diethe is very vague about what exactly Elisabeth altered in her brother’s works, although she uses some very strong phrases such as "enormous damage" and "wreak havoc". Sure, Elisabeth was dishonest, forging letters and documents, but most of that seems to have more to do with her vanity and financial struggles than with her brother’s philosophy. What drastic changes did she make to turn him from a respectable advocate of slavery and war into a disreputable fascist? There is no clear answer, beyond the fact that she arranged and published his unfinished, stylistically unpolished notes. Considering Elisabeth’s supposedly decisive impact, more evidence and arguments would be expected. Diethe briefly concludes that Der Wille zur Macht was somehow drastically different from Nietzsche’s previous works and was misused by Heidegger for philosophical and political ends. Strangely, she then observes that Der Wille zur Macht was not a bestseller and that most readers actually preferred Nietzsche’s earlier works. Elisabeth also wrote books and articles about her brother, for which she was given an honorary doctorate and was nominated for the Nobel Prize. However, Diethe portrays her as a rather mediocre woman, making it hard to imagine how she managed to impose her amateurish, incorrect interpretations on numerous writers and academic philosophers who studied Nietzsche’s oeuvre. She was supposedly instrumental in popularizing Nietzsche among German nationalists, downplaying his previous anti-German rants, but that is also quite doubtful. Mussolini was also a great admirer; obviously, fascists of all nations could find inspiration in Nietzsche, with or without Elisabeth’s guidance.
Diethe also notes that Elisabeth actually tried to moderate some of her brother’s attitudes, such as his views on women. There is a whole chapter about German feminism in which Diethe expresses her disappointment that Elisabeth, being a willful, independent woman, held conservative attitudes and belittled other emancipated women. Ironically, as a show of feminist solidarity, Diethe constantly blames poor Elisabeth for everything bad about Nietzsche and his legacy, without much evidence, as if he did not personally publish some obviously far-right and shocking opinions. For someone who criticizes Elisabeth for dishonesty and shallowness, Diethe is also very unfair when simplifying and overlooking Nietzsche’s complex attitudes towards war, Jews, and other topics. Another amusing part is when Diethe wonders whether the reason Elisabeth turned to praising Hitler was because she lacked proper education. We can only imagine what kind of moderate, pacifist, philosemitic lady she might have become if she had the opportunity to attend something like a modern Western university. The most bizarre part is when Diethe melodramatically speculates that jealous Elisabeth "conducted a vendetta against Nietzsche for having once dared to love Lou by turning Zarathustra into a Fascist ideologue".
This is not a good book; it is neither detailed nor informative as a biography and contains many purely speculative parts. It is heavily biased, and the main thesis that Elisabeth did crucial, long-lasting damage to her brother’s philosophy and legacy is not convincingly argued. It is not worth reading for any purpose.
August 3, 2025
If nothing else, skip to the appendix and do yourself the favor of reading Coffee-Party Gossip about Nora by Elisabeth Nietzsche. (The whole book is interesting but this was definitely the highlight)
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews