Nietzsche’s Sister and The Will to Power
The story of the mysteriously devious Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, also known as “the lama”
This is the story of one of the most despised women in German history, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Her crime: forgery. Her victim: the world-famous philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, her brother. Research on the two siblings today shows a picture of the two, which seems rather creepy.
Although she has idolized her brother all her life, there have always been rifts between the two. Whenever his interest turned to another woman, she tried to stop it by spinning a web of lies and intrigues. She cared for her brother and nursed him. As the administrator of his written estate, she set about using penknife and ink to ensure that her own Nietzsche image was propagated as the only valid one. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and Friedrich Nietzsche needed each other but also took advantage of each other.
To him, she was a great housekeeper, nurse, and side-kick to look down on. He must have been well aware that he could not have prevailed in high society with his health issues and anxiety if it weren’t for her support. For her, his philosophy and writing were the tickets to leading an independent life, which at the time wasn’t really in the cards for women.
