PARAGUAY: Nueva Germanis

I mentioned the plan of Elizabeth and her diplomat husband Bernhard Foerster to open a German colony in Paraguay, to be filled with pure-blooded German stock. The Foersters ran out of money, but no doubt some part of this project survived. Christopher Jones expands this:

"The Aryan/Nietzschean settlement called Nueva Germania, exists to this very day in the jungles of Paraguay on the Aguaraya river northeast of San Pedro Antequera. The town is still populated with the descendants of the original settlers who accompanied Elizabeth Nietzsche and her diplomat/husband Bernhard Forster to Paraguay in 1886. The colony was an experiment in Forster's anti-semitic, vegetarian and cultural theories and quickly went bankrupt. Faced with mounting debt, Forster killed himself and was buried in Asuncion. Hitler sent German soil to Paraguay to be scattered on Forster's grave who had died a "Heldentod" or hero's death for his German fatherland.

In 1992, Ben Macintyre, a Times of London correspondent published a book called, "Forgotten Fatherland" (Macmillan, 256 pp) which chronicled his trip to Nueva Germania and contained an amazing biography of Friedrich W. Nietzsche's sister Elizabeth Forster Nietzsche. (Note in Germany, after having married Forster, this double barrelled name would be reversed;I believe that the Fuhrer allowed the break with tradition).

Macintyre conducted an extensive study of the works of Nietzsche in Weimar and elsewhere and travelled to the colony in Paraguay. What is fascinating however, is his portrait of schwesterchen Elizabeth. I am sure that Alatair Campbell doesn't know her name but in fact she is the great grandmother of all spin doctors. After her brother fell into insanity, according to Macintyre, she completely redirected and in some cases rewrote some of Nietzsche's works to give them the "Reichsdeutsch" touch.

Just as David Pike explained, what didn't fit into the image of philosopher of National Socialism was burnt or thrown in the rubbish. As good as Macintyre's book is, I still feel that this argument about Nietzsche is a little irrelevant. Fact is he wrote the "The Will to Power, The Anti Christ and Thus Spoke Zarathustra" all of which contained elements that were seized upon by fascists to justify their cause. In this respect, Elizabeth the spin doctor had the last laugh. When she died in 1935, Hitler ordered a state funeral.