After 1945, the victorious Western Allies sought to "denazify" the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900].
Rather than attack the philosopher directly, they attacked via his sister, Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche [1846-1935] since her life overlapped the Third Reich in Germany.
The claim was that Elisabeth, who became the editor of her brother's works in the Nietzsche Archive she set up in 1894, had falsified his work, forged texts and letters.
All this done to explain away the fact that the defeated Axis Powers found inspiration in Nietzsche's works.
The Allied contention was that the fascists would not have found anything to agree with in Nietzsche if his sister hadn't 'falsified' his work.
Of course, this was all Allied propaganda in the West [in the East of Europe, the Allies just banned Nietzsche - but the East had little interest in pretending to be liberal].
However, it has had the effect of creating a post-war Nietzsche "rehabilitation" industry, which has actually falsified Nietzsche since the 1950s.
They have done what they accused Elisabeth of doing!
Here are the result of some exchanges I've had with those who believe the Allied Denazification Propaganda [which seems to be the majority of readers today]:
Some letters are accused of being faked by Elisabeth, such as January 25, 1888.
Of course, this letter would be deemed to be "not a letter" in the post war period of de-nazification. Simply because it contradicts the demonisation of Elisabeth.
Many today, without historical sense, will say yes! Elisabeth forged the letter to contradict the accusation she was a 'nazi' and that her brother hated her for it!
But think: when that letter was first published, between 1900-09, no one was accusing her of being hated by her brother for being a nazi. No one was accusing her of being a Nazi as the Nazis didn't exist then. This was before WWI *and* WWII.
So why would she forge such a letter.?
She had nothing to contradict then.
She refers to this particular letter during her vast biography of her brother too:
"In the seventies, when candidates for matrimony were proposed to him [her brother], he demanded above all 'intellectual qualities,' but later on, in the eighties, he would not hear of intellectual ladies as helpmates. In 1888, when I spoke highly of one such lady, he wrote to me: 'for me, much intellect in a woman is still very little, and as a rule this so-called "intellect", which imposes only on superficial men, is simply a piece of absurd pretentiousness. Nothing is more wearisome than an intellectual goose of this sort, who doesn't even know how boring she is ...' ...."
[Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche The Lonely Nietzsche, 1913 p 312-3]
The letter is also in 'Selected Letters of FN;, translated by A Ludovici, edited by Oscar Levy, published in 1921.
It wasn't challenged in all that time because Elisabeth had not been scapegoated then.
I have no reason to doubt the letter.
On supposedly faked letters in general, ask yourself:
Was the letter hand-written or typed [Nietzsche sometimes used a typewriter].
Did Nietzsche dictate the letter to Gast?
Is the original extant?
If not, when did it disappear?
Was anything stolen from the Nietzsche Archive by Allied troops and plunderers in 1945- ?
As I said, when she published the letters [1900-9] Nazism didn't exist. Hitler was still a boy then. No one was accusing her of antisemtism then. She had no reason to forge a letter.
Nor was her position in the Archive in any danger. As Nietzsche's sister, her position was unassailable. She had no need to falsify anything: she was the philosopher's sister - she had the legal right as inheritor.
She had no motive to falsify anything.
Her main motive would be to make sure that everything she did for the Archive was above board.
There is no evidence that Elisabeth falsified anything.
All editors make mistakes. But a mistake is not a forgery.
Aren't you suspicious that the accusations come after WWII in the wake of the denazification programme in occupied Germany?
I have set out my case. Now you set out yours:
when were the forgeries 'discovered' and by whom?
what kind of forgeries are we talking about?
what evidence is there of a forgery?
Without that evidence and information, I will just assume that the Collected Works that were published at the turn of the 20th Century are the real McCoy as they were not challenged until after the advent of the denazification programme.
On the section 3 of Wise in the Montinari edition of EH. Did Elisabeth falsify this?
No - that page was a last minute addition that Nietzsche posted to his printer when he was in the throes of madness.
Elisabeth was quite open about a loose sheet with a passage of something like this on it. She mentioned it in her great biography of Nietzsche, 1913.
By all accounts, Nietzsche posted various sheets like this to his printer, as well as the start of his 'letters of madness' on December 30th - 31st, 1888.
Four days later he collapsed [4th Jan 1889].
When the printer received these sheets in the post for Ecce Homo, Nietzsche had already become insane and they were discounted as being the work of his madness, like his last letters to which they were contemporary.
Also, they were not in the right format to have been added to he print run either.
But Elisabeth was still in Paraguay at this time, and so had nothing to do with this.
She returned to Germany in December 1890.
Nevertheless, Elisabeth tells us about all this, and says that on one sheet Nietzsche had made "attacks against my husband, my mother and myself."
The pages were destroyed, one presumes, by the printer.
The printer felt that Ecce Homo [even without the page you refer to] should be held back as the world was not quite ready for it. Overbeck and Elisabeth agreed.
In 1892 the printer gave the manuscript to Peter Gast. [Elisabeth went back to Paraguay in 1892 to tie up loose ends, returning to Germany for good in 1893]
Elisabeth published excerpts of the book to test the waters in the ensuing years, finally releasing it as a limited edition in 1908.
But back to the 'all important' sheet that was said to be destroyed.
Miraculously, the communist Montinari [who began a new critical edition of Nietzche in the 1950s as appointed by the anti-Nietzschean East German authorities], "found" the destroyed sheets in 1969.
How convenient!
Given that Elisabeth described the sheets years before, it would be easy to conjure them up years later when all those involved - Elisabeth, Gast, Overbeck, the printer Naumann, are dead.
The story was that Gast held on to the sheets, and they were discovered by Montinari in his literary remains. Gast died in 1918.
Even if these are the actual sheets, they should be viewed as writings of Nietzsche's insanity, like his last letters.
And if they really are the sheets, then it proves that Elisabeth didn't destroy them!
Nor did Elisabeth hide their content as she referred to them in her book on her brother of 1913.
Once again, Elisabeth is being slandered for no reason at all. The sheets are back in certain editions if people want them. Elisabeth didn't destroy them and referred to them in her book on Nietzsche published in 1913.
Also, in the last days of his madness and final collapse, Nietzsche wrote many strange things about many other people. This has no bearing on Nietzsche's relationship with Elisabeth when he was sane.
What's the issue?
Why does Elisabeth have to take all this?
Without her we wouldn't have Ecce Homo!
Don't Karl Schlechta and Mazzino Montinaro claim that Elisabeth was a forger?
Karl Schlecta was a member of the Nazi Party who worked at the Nietzsche Archive in the 1930s. He was an active and enthusiastic Nazi.
So why doesn't he also get accused of being a nazi antisemite?
Is it because after the war he denigrated Elisabeth, and somehow managed to create his own edition of Nietzsche's works to replace the Nietzsche Archive edition?
How did a Nazi thrive in occupied Germany during denazification?
I think we can see the agenda a mile off.
In Italy we have an active Communist Party member, Montinari, making a new Italian edition of Nietzsche's Collected works!
Once again, just after WWII.
Notice a pattern yet?
Of course these imposters will claim that the edition they are replacing is "faked"! Just as Kaufmann and Hollingdale did in the English speaking world after WWII.
Same patter, same scam.
So why can't you answer my questions about the letter?
You are just repeating what the establishment tells you is true, but without knowing why.
Here are the questions again:
when were the forgeries 'discovered' and by whom?
what kind of forgeries are we talking about?
what evidence is there of a forgery?
But isn't the modern view that Elisabeth was a forger?
Absolute lack of evidence.
Where is the evidence that Elisabeth "falsified" her brother's work?
She was Nietzsche's heir as his closest relative and carer! She had no need to justify that: it was a legal absolute.
Of course I have looked at the accusations: they are baseless.
That's why you can't assert them in your own words.
The coup was the Denazification programme. Schlechta, Montinari and Kaufmann all rode in on the tails of that programme. Although they called it "rehabilitation", as though Nietzsche was a criminal serving his sentence in a soft prison.
The pre-war editions which were true to Nietzsche's principles, had to be replaced by 'rehabilitated' democratic, liberal, socialist friendly editions.
And yet in the English speaking world, for example, the pre-war Levy edition [authorised by Elisabeth] is still in print [albeit piecemeal now] because it is superior to the parasitic denazification editions of Kaufman, Hollingdale etc.
Levy and his translators were all Nietzscheans - Zimmern was a friend of Nietzsche. But Kaufman, Hollingdale - like Montinari - were all anti-Nietzscheans.
Elisabeth didn't falsify her brother's work - she *saved* her brothers work!
Thanks to her we have The Collected Works of Friedrich Nietzsche.
The Nietzsche Archive was founded in 1894, its founder and chief Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche [died 1935]. The Archive in Weimar was, until the end of the Second World War, a location of central importance for Nietzsche's reception in Germany.
After WWII Weimar was part of East Germany [GDR]. The Nietzsche Archive was formally dissolved in 1956. Its holdings were made accessible for western researchers, most notably the Italian Communist Mazzino Montinari, who replaced the Archiv's Nietzsche editions with new ones.
In the GDR, however, Nietzsche was still a forbidden author, with all of his works being banned.
So while West Germany [and therefore The West] sought to "rehabilitate" Nietzsche, East Germany banned Nietzsche because the Communist authorities recognised Nietzsche as a precursor to Nazism.
Both East and west had one thing in common: Elisabeth was to be a scapegoat.
With the fall of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany, the rehabilitated Nietzsche wins. But that is not the real Nietzsche.
The real Nietzsche is Elisabeth's Nietzsche: the Nietzsche of the Weimar Archive.
The falsification of Nietzsche occurred *after* 1945.
Any mainstream editions of Nietzsche published after 1945 are falsifications.
The true editions are those published before 1935.
Post-1945 "rehabilitation" = falsification.
Nietzsche went insane in early 1889 after putting his final book Ecce Homo to the printer in late 1888.
Elisabeth was still in Paraguay then.
In those days it took three months for a letter to get from Germany to Paraguay.
Elisabeth returned to Germany in 1890 by which time Nietzsche was insane and unable to write anything.
Elisabeth returned to Paraguay in 1892 to tie up any lose ends.
Elisabeth returned to Germany in 1893.
During that period of 1888 to 1893, Nietzsche's mother, Overbeck, Gast, Naumann et al had access to Nietzsche's work.
To apply some order to her brother's material, Elisabeth formed the Nietzsche Archive in 1894.
Due to her offices, Nietzsche's work was gradually put under one roof and some order applied to it. She worked tirelessly.
Many of the great intellectuals of the time flocked to the Archive, Heidegger and Thomas Mann amongst them.
Nietzsche's mother died in 1897.
In 1921, Jena University awarded Elisabeth an honorary doctorate (h.c., or honoris causae)
For a woman in that era, her achievements were immense and inspired Martin Heidegger's massive work and lectures on Nietzsche in the 1930s.
Elisabeth died in 1935 but the Archive carried on.
At the end of World War Two, defeated Germany was subject to a denazification programme. The Archive was in the eastern part of the occupation, where Nietzsche's works were actually banned.
In the post-war period the campaign to paint Elisabeth as a falsifier of Nietzsche's work was begun as part of that denazification programme..
The woman who had been lauded by the great intellectuals of the pre-war period and given an honorary degree, was now the victim of scapegoating propaganda.
Still today, useful idiots - who haven't read a word that Elisabeth wrote - parrot this propaganda.
But the joke is this: her editions are still the best. The post war editions have the fingers of democrats, liberals, socialists, anarchists, egalitarians and feminists all over them.
Nietzsche would have smelt their decay.
To get the true Nietzsche, don't touch anything of Nietzsche's done after 1935 [the year of Elisabeth's death].
Someone claims there are "sources" - such as Peter Gast - which prove that Elisabeth was a forger.
There are two sources in Nietzschean philosophy:
You and Nietzsche.
If you can't put things in your own words or Nietzsche's words, then you have no sources.
You are literally resourceless.
You are not Peter Gast, Peter Gast is not Nietzsche.
Gast [real name Heinrich Koselltz] too has been accused of 'doctoring' Nietzsche's w8ritings, so why do you trust him?
Gast fell out with Elisabeth and had an axe to grind. He cannot therefore be considered a source in relation to this issue. What you post above is little more than spiteful gossip. It proves nothing.
Why would you use a man with Gast's reputation?
A philosopher wanting to prove something false would follow the basic dictum: who, what, when, where and why?
Show a passage you think Elisabeth falsified. Quote it from the real source [Nietzsche]. Then tell me how it was falsified.
Tittle-tattle from former disgruntled employees is not a source.
Nietzsche is the source.
You are your own source.
Speak in your own words if you know no Nietzsche.
The fact is that Nietzsche's most important books were published by him during his lifetime, from The Birth of Tragedy to The Twilight of the Idols.
From this vast range of authenticated publications we can assess the posthumous works, notebooks and so forth.
It isn't that difficult.
So let's see your own evidence - in your words or Nietzsche's.
If you can.
The great irony in all this is that Elisabeth fell out with others in the Archive because she was so scrupulous about keeping everything exact and genuine. She shared this trait, like many others, with her brother, who drove his publishers insane with a similar fastidiousness.
And those she upset by this [as most are] even tried to forge 'drafts' of Nietzsche 'letters' to wound her.
Yes, it was Elisabeth's refusal to 'falsify' Nietzsche that made her enemies.
Of course it is a typical black propaganda technique to turn a target's own virtues against them in reverse fashion.
Elisabeth the scrupulous would be accused of being unscrupulous!
Ridiculous!
But that's how the traditional enemies of the truth always work.
But she left enough in her own writings for us to know that she was always on the side of her brother, and did all she could to make sure his work would remain for posterity.
As this era of ugly 'rehabilitation' draws to a close, and the work of the original Archive once more comes into sharp focus, we who know the genius of Nietzsche will steadfastly reject the lies of the slanderers and the plunderers and the usurpers.
Elisabeth, like the Persian, spake the truth, and aimed straight
Just as the denazification of Nietzsche after 1945 dawned on me: - 'rehabilitation' in the West, and banning in the East ...
Just as the real and deceptive characters of Schlechta, Montinari, Kaufmann and Hollingdale et al, came to light - after very little digging ...
Another revelation hove into view:
Around the same time, the early 1950s, was published the forgery, 'My Sister and I'.
Now it all made sense.
In the West they attack Nietzsche through his sister. Published by the criminal Samuel Roth,
'My Sister and I' was part of a clearly orchestrated campaign to smear Elisabeth and Fritz.
Kaufmann's rebuttal of the book was done to make him look like the leading Nietzsche scholar, while stoking controversy about a book that should be ignored by all scholars.
Once I looked into Roth and the others involved in that fake, I saw the same pattern: accuse your victim of being what you are.
But Elisabeth is innocent: it is her accusers who are the falsfiers and the fakers.
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