Friedrich Nietzsche
Biography
Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher of Also sprach Zarathustra and Jenseits von Gut und Böse, spent the last three years of his life in Weimar without knowing it: his collapse in Turin in January 1889 had ended his writing, and in 1897 his sister Elisabeth brought him to the Villa Silberblick, where she had installed the archive of his papers the year before. He died there on 25 August 1900. The house is the Nietzsche-Archiv today — Henry van de Velde's rooms of 1902 on the ground floor, and an exhibition on the archive's own history, including its part in the Nietzsche cult of the National Socialists.
From Röcken to Basel, 1844–1870
He was born on 15 October 1844 in Röcken near Lützen, a pastor's son. After his father's death the family moved to Naumburg, where he attended the Domgymnasium from 1854; in October 1858 he won a scholarship to the Landesschule Pforta, and the strict classical training there decided his path. He studied at Bonn and Leipzig under the philologist Friedrich Ritschl, and in February 1869 — at twenty-four, without a doctorate — Basel appointed him professor of classical philology, a full professor from April 1870.
Wagner, illness, the wandering years, 1868–1888
He met Richard Wagner in the autumn of 1868 and for a time belonged to the circle at Tribschen. From 1873 his health broke down; Basel gave him a year's leave in 1876 and released him with a pension in May 1879. The ten years that followed were lived out of suitcases — winters in Italy, in Genoa, Rapallo, Nice and Turin, and from 1881 every summer in Sils-Maria in the Engadin, the landscape of the Zarathustra.
The books, 1872–1889
Die Geburt der Tragödie came in 1872, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches in 1878, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft in 1882, Also sprach Zarathustra in four parts between 1883 and 1885, Jenseits von Gut und Böse in 1886 — printed at his own expense — Zur Genealogie der Moral in 1887 and Götzen-Dämmerung in 1889. Ecce homo, written in 1888, was not published until 1908. Almost everything that made him one of the most read philosophers of the modern age was written in those sixteen years, by a man travelling alone with his headaches and his notebooks.
The collapse, Jena and Naumburg, 1889–1897
On 3 January 1889 he suffered a mental collapse in Turin. He was examined in Basel, then observed in the psychiatric clinic of the University of Jena until February 1890, and his mother brought him home to Naumburg and nursed him there for seven years. In 1894, while he was still alive, his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche founded an archive for his papers in Naumburg; in 1896 she moved it to Weimar.
The Villa Silberblick, 1897–1900
After their mother's death in 1897 Elisabeth took the Villa Silberblick on the Humboldtstraße so that she could house and nurse her brother beside the archive. He died there on 25 August 1900, at fifty-five, of pneumonia and a further stroke, without having written a line under its roof, and was buried in the family grave beside the village church at Röcken.
The archive and the house, 1902–today
In 1902, at Harry Graf Kessler's suggestion, Henry van de Velde was commissioned to rebuild and refurnish the villa; the ground-floor rooms he made there are among his finest anywhere. The archive his sister ran in the house became a place of pilgrimage, and the house now devotes an exhibition in its former dining room to what the Klassik Stiftung calls its own contradictory history and to the part it played in the Nietzsche cult of the National Socialists. A visitor sees both in one afternoon: the rooms of the new century, and the history that was made in them.
Questions visitors ask
- Did Nietzsche write anything in Weimar?
- No. His collapse in Turin on 3 January 1889 ended his writing; he came to Weimar in 1897, already incapacitated, and died there in 1900. All of his books were written between 1872 and 1889, most of them on the road between Italy and Sils-Maria.
- Why is Nietzsche connected to Weimar at all?
- Through his sister. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche founded an archive for his papers in Naumburg in 1894, moved it to Weimar in 1896 and, after their mother's death in 1897, brought her brother to the Villa Silberblick to nurse him beside it.
- Where did Nietzsche die, and where is he buried?
- He died in the Villa Silberblick on the Humboldtstraße in Weimar on 25 August 1900 and was buried in the family grave beside the village church at Röcken, where he was born.
- What can I see at the Nietzsche-Archiv today?
- The villa itself, with the ground-floor rooms Henry van de Velde designed in 1902 — among the finest interiors he ever made — and an exhibition in the former dining room on the history of the archive and its role in the Nietzsche cult of the National Socialists.
- Which are Nietzsche's most important books?
- Die Geburt der Tragödie (1872), Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (1878), Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (1882), Also sprach Zarathustra (1883–1885), Jenseits von Gut und Böse (1886), Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887) and Götzen-Dämmerung (1889); Ecce homo, written in 1888, appeared in 1908.
- Was Nietzsche a professor?
- Yes — of classical philology at Basel, appointed in February 1869 at twenty-four without a doctorate, a full professor from 1870, until ill health made him give up the chair in 1879.
Notable Works & Achievements
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Beyond Good and Evil
The Gay Science
On the Genealogy of Morality
Twilight of the Idols
Human, All Too Human
Connected Places in Weimar
Humboldtstraße 36, 99425 Weimar
The Villa Silberblick: the only building in Weimar he ever lived in, where he died on 25 August 1900, and which housed the archive his sister ran until 1950.
Jorge-Semprún-Platz 5, 99423 Weimar
The presentation treats him as the intellectual precursor of the modernism it exhibits; he spent his last years in Weimar, at the Villa Silberblick.
Weingarten 18, 06618 Naumburg (Saale)
The house he grew up in from 1858 and was nursed in again after his 1889 collapse, before his sister took him to Weimar.
Historical Context
His three Weimar years, 1897 to 1900, are the closing act of the decades between Goethe's death and the end of the monarchy.
Goethe died in 1832, and Weimar had to work out what a town does after its golden age. It decided to keep going, and the answer took eighty-six years — the era the Klassik Stiftung Weimar calls the Silver Age. Music replaced literature as the thing Weimar was for, two royal patrons paid for it, and the schools they founded outlived the monarchy that funded them.
Read more about this period →Quick Facts
1844
1900
German
Events
Events
Two days a year — International Women's Day and the Buß- und Bettag
The third of the figures the guided tours follow — the late arrival among them.
Historical figures
Historical figures
1846–1935 • archivist • editor • publisher
Her brother, whom she brought to Weimar in 1897, nursed until his death in 1900, and whose papers she then edited and in part forged.
In Weimar's history
Around Weimar
East
He grew up in the house on the Weingarten from 1858 and was nursed there again after his 1889 collapse, before Weimar.