Nietzsche's Sister and the Will to Power

"Elisabeth Forster-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 Nietzsche's Sister and the Will to Power, Carol Diethe contends that Forster-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, Forster-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, Forster-Nietzche'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 Nietzche's sister from a feminist perspective, this biography examines why Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche reckle