Elizabeth Forster Nietzsche

 

 

From: Oxsan
Date: 07 Feb 2002
Time: 18:41:46

I ran across a bit literary/philosophical trivia the other day while reading Samuel Rosenberg's outstanding book, "Naked Is The Best Disguise". Rosenberg had been sent on assignment to Rosenlaui, Switzerland to investigate why Tenzing Norkay, the Sherpa guide who with Sir Edmund Hillary, was the second man (some say the first) to set foot atop Mt Everest, was taking elementary mountain climbing lessons from the Swiss at Rosenlaui and reputedly not doing too well at it.

While at Rosenlaui Rosenberg was told a story by the innkeeper that if true would make a dandy small bit in a movie about Nietzsche's life. The story goes that philosopher/poet Friedrich Nietzsche came to the inn in 1877 on medical leave from his teaching post at a university only some 60 kilometers away. Nietzsche was sick and in a melancholy mood. He was only thirty-three years old. He had written a piece of music which he called "Improvisations on a Hymn of Solitude" and one afternoon while all alone in the library of the inn played this song with such competence and verve that he was reduced to tears. He fervently wished that someone had heard him play and he told his sister when he returned home "that the angels would have come to listen".

The innkeeper then showed Rosenberg Nietzsche's signature in the hotel register and gave him a mimeographed press release made by Frau Elizabeth Forster Nietzsche at the time of her release of her brother's biography after his death. The press release recounted the story I have told above but added:

"My brother's remark that his improvisation on the piano had not been heard was in error. He did not know until a few days later that a very remarkable listener had been outside the door of the library and had heard the playing and had been very deeply moved. The listener on the other side of the door was the Emperor of Brazil"

Rosenberg asked to see also the signature of Dom Pedro (his full name was Pedro de Alcantara Joao Carlos Leopoldo Francisco Xavier de Paula Leocardio Miguel Gabriel Rafael Gonzago). The innkeeper told him that alas Dom Pedro did not sign the register nor was there any other trace of his presence at Rosenlaui.

Rosenberg doubts the story of the press release by Elizabeth because of her extremely unsavory reputation regarding her stewardship of the body of Nietzsche's work. Nietsche died in 1900 and Elizabeth took upon herself the de facto position of literary executor. She reputedly made wholesale revisions in her own hand on many original manuscripts by Nietzsche to include anti-Semitic material and also to put his works more in line with her own newly-adopted philosophy of National Socialism. But Rosenberg does admit that the story may be true. He says, "liars sometimes tell the truth". He has made a detailed study of the life of Dom Pedro and found no mention of Nietzsche or of Rosenlaui.