Bibliograph

Forgotten fatherland, the search for Elisabeth Nietzsche, Ben Macintyre

Type

Label

Forgotten fatherland, the search for Elisabeth Nietzsche, Ben Macintyre

Language

eng

resource.biographical

contains biographical information

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Forgotten fatherland

Oclc number

25551354

Responsibility statement

Ben Macintyre

Sub title

the search for Elisabeth Nietzsche

Summary

In 1886 Elisabeth Nietzsche, sister of the famous philosopher, and friend of Richard Wagner, traveled with her husband, Bernhard Forster, and a select group of blond-haired, blue-eyed Germans to the remote Paraguayan wilderness to found an Aryan colony she called Nueva Germania. In Forgotten Fatherland Ben Macintyre tracks down the descendants of this early racial experiment, still living in Nueva Germania and breeding among themselves. Many have maintained the language, customs, and ideals that first brought their ancestors over from Europe more than one hundred years ago. But Elisabeth Nietzsche's story does not end in Paraguay. A supremely dominating woman, she returned to Europe to take control of both her brother and his work until his death, and beyond. It was she who largely wrote Nietzsche's posthumous "masterwork," The Will to Power; invested Nietzsche with her own proto-Nazi views; and invented and organized the semi-mythical cult of his philosophy, projecting it into the new order emerging in war-torn Europe. Admirer of Mussolini, mentor to Hitler, she died just before the outbreak of the Second World War and was given a full Nazi funeral, attended by a tearful Fuhrer. Forgotten Fatherland re-creates the bizarre history and atmosphere of Nueva Germania, and contains startling revelations about the last days of Josef Mengele. A remarkable work of investigative journalism, shot through with Waughian wit, Forgotten Fatherland will necessitate major reevaluations of the life and posthumous reputation of one of the most influential thinkers of the nineteenth century, and provides an illuminating portrait of a woman whose influence on the history of the twentieth century can only now be fully understood

Table Of Contents

Asunción Docks, Paraguay, 15 March 1886 -- Terra incognita -- Up the creek -- The white lady and New Germany -- Knights and devils -- Elisabeth in Llamaland -- Will to power -- Mother of the fatherland -- Nueva Germania, March 1991

Classification