The Nietzsche Archive (
German: ''Nietzsche-Archiv'') is the first organization that dedicated itself to archive and document the life and work of the philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philology, classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche bec ...
, all sourced from
Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the philosopher's sister.
The Nietzsche Archive was founded in 1894 in
Naumburg, Germany, and found a permanent location at
Weimar
Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...
. Its history until the middle of the 20th century was closely tied to its founder and chief for many years,
Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the philosopher's sister. Though from its inception the archive came under much criticism for doctoring, or even forging, documents to support certain ideological purposes, the Archive was, until the end of the Second World War, a location of central importance for Nietzsche's reception in Germany. In the
GDR it was affiliated with the (''National Research and Memorial Sites of Classical German Literature in Weimar''), and formally dissolved in 1956. Its holdings were made accessible for western researchers, most notably
Mazzino Montinari, who replaced the dubious old Archiv's Nietzsche editions with new ones.
In the GDR, however, Nietzsche was still a forbidden author, with all of his works being banned.
Since
German reunification
German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic and the int ...
, the archive's holdings are in possession of the , now called the
Klassik Stiftung Weimar. The archive's domicile, the ''Villa Silberblick'', is now a museum.
History
Objectives
Elisabeth Förster planned the establishment of a Nietzsche Archive after returning to Germany from Paraguay in the Fall of 1893. The purpose of the archive was to collect resources to keep them from being scattered and to secure a monopoly over their value—not unusual at that time.
From the beginning of the 1890s, the reception of Nietzsche's works in the German-speaking world grew enormously. The Nietzsche Archive attempted to attain the legal rights of interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche and his philosophies in public discussions. Not only did Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche's biographies serve these discussions, but also a multitude of journals and newspaper articles which came from the archive and the surrounding areas. Förster-Nietzsche had already collected documents from her admired brother since her youth and then began to buy up all of his mail correspondences for a substantial sum. These letters were therefore also published directly and indirectly by the archive alongside Nietzsche's works. Another reason for the publishing frenzy from the archive and its monopolization of Nietzsche's work might also have been to earn large profits from them.
References
External links
Nietzsche ArchiveFriedrich Nietzsche College
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Libraries in Germany
Friedrich Nietzsche
Buildings and structures in Weimar
Culture in Weimar
Libraries established in 1894