104. The Nietzsche Archive and its Accusations Against the Previous Editor A Revelation

I. The publication of Nietzsche's works

It is probably known in wider circles that there is a Nietzsche archive in Weimar, in which the manuscripts left behind by the unfortunate philosopher are kept, and which is managed by the sister of the ill man, Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. For a number of years, a complete edition of Nietzsche's works has also been in the process of publication, which reached its twelfth volume in 1897. The first eight volumes comprise all the works that had already been printed before Nietzsche fell ill, as well as the Antichrist, which was available as a completed work at the time of his illness. The following volumes are to contain the estate, namely earlier drafts of the writings that were later completed in a more perfect form, and drafts, notes etc. on works that remained unfinished. The four volumes of Nietzsche's estate that have been published to date contain everything from Nietzsche's estate that was written up to the end of 1885. No new volume of the edition has appeared since 1897.

A Dr. Ernst Horneffer has just appeared with a brochure: " Nietzsche's Doctrine of the Eternal Second Coming and its Previous Publication" (Leipzig, C. G. Naumann), in which he explains the reasons why nothing of Nietzsche's works has appeared in such a long time, and why the 11th and 12th volumes have been withdrawn from the book trade. This brochure by Dr. Horneffer and a book that has also recently been published are the reason why I am taking the opportunity here to say something about the way in which the Nietzsche Archive handles the dissemination of the achievements of the thinker who was so tragically afflicted. Unfortunately, I will be forced to include some personal details in this essay. I do not like to do so. But in this case, the personal is certainly part of the matter, and the experiences I have had with the Nietzsche Archive are suitable for shedding light on how the people in charge deal with the estate of one of the most remarkable personalities in modern intellectual history.

The second publication I mentioned above is a German translation of the French book: "La philosophie de Nietzsche" by Henri Lichtenberger. The translation was done by Friedrich von Oppeln-Bronikowski. Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche mentions this in her preface. The translator himself also told me so. Nevertheless, the book bears the words on the title page: "Die Philosophie Friedrich Nietzsches von Henri Lichtenberger. Introduced and translated by Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche." But that is only incidental. The main thing is that in her introduction, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche makes this shallow, superficial presentation of her brother's teaching the official interpretation of his world view, so to speak. Anyone who has only an inkling of Friedrich Nietzsche's great intentions must be deeply offended when he sees that the responsible guardian of the estate takes this book under her special protection. For connoisseurs of Nietzsche's ideas, I need say nothing more about this book. It is one of the many Nietzsche publications that one puts aside with a smile after reading a few pages. You will believe me when I say that I do not oppose this work of art out of personal animosity, because my own writing on "Nietzsche as a fighter against his time" is not only described as "significant" by Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche on the first page of her introduction, but is also praised by Henri Lichtenberger himself in the course of his presentation. I will not say another word about Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's "Introduction". It is like everything that is said about her brother by this woman; and I will unfortunately be forced to deal with it in the following.

Horneffer's writing is written for the purpose of characterizing the previous editor of the Nietzsche edition, Dr. Fritz Koegel, as a scientifically incompetent person who has made this edition badly, indeed, who has made so many gross mistakes in editing the 11th and 12th volumes that these volumes had to be withdrawn from the book trade. Horneffer goes so far as to claim: "It is a bad fate, but a truth that cannot be suppressed, that Nietzsche also encountered this: he first fell into the hands of a scientific charlatan." I do not have to defend Dr. Koegel. He may do that himself. But the matter at issue here is a matter of public interest. And someone who knows things from close observation, as I do, must say what he has to say.

I note from the outset that it is not true what has often and now again recently been reported in the newspapers that I myself was ever Nietzsche's editor. I must state this untruth here all the more because Richard M. Meyer in his recently published literary history of the nineteenth century refers to me as Nietzsche's editor, although he should actually know that this is untrue, because he is a frequent visitor to the Nietzsche Archive and a friend of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche. This is just a sample of the carelessness with which books are written today. Even though I was never a Nietzsche editor, I did spend a lot of time in the Nietzsche Archive and got to know Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche well enough. The following remarks will prove this.

But I have also observed Dr. Fritz Koegel at work; I have discussed countless Nietzsche problems with him. I know him and also know what happened when he was dismissed from the Nietzsche Archive and I know how it came about that the further publication of his works was taken away from him. Before I proceed to the presentation of the true facts, I would like to comment on the official statement given by Dr. Ernst Horneffer of the Nietzsche Archive.

Dr. Fritz Koegel is a man of artistic ability and true scientific spirit. He has a deep understanding of Nietzsche's world view. I disagree with him on some points, and we have had many a controversy. He did the Nietzsche edition with ever-increasing enthusiasm. He worked like a man who, in the course of his ongoing work, lives through the problems fully and recreates them in his mind. Since he was busy with the estate volumes, he has informed me in detail about almost every step of his work. I never studied Nietzsche's manuscripts myself. We only discussed individual matters. I had no official relationship with the edition, only a friendly one with Dr. Koegel. I still have to remember the hours in which we talked a lot about the most enigmatic part of Nietzsche's teaching, about the "eternal return" of all things. There are only scanty hints of this idea in the completed Steps. We impatiently awaited the time when Koegel would come to work on the "Wiederkunfts" papers. The first of these papers date from 1881, and Koegel has now published them in the ı2nd volume of the edition. And this publication provides Dr. Horneffer's main point of attack and allegedly the main reason why Dr. Koegel was stripped of his editorship.

Koegel found notes in a manuscript notebook by Nietzsche, written down in the summer of 1881, which refer to the "Eternal Second Coming". There are 235 aphorisms. The same notebook also contains a disposition by Nietzsche for a book entitled "The Second Coming of the Same". Koegel has now said to himself: Nietzsche wanted to "compose a book according to this disposition. The aphorisms represent the content of this writing in a completely unorganized sequence and in an unfinished form. This is because Nietzsche has abandoned the drafting of this work. We therefore only have its content before us in an unfinished form. Nietzsche soon turned to other works. Since the estate is to give a picture of Nietzsche's intellectual development and for this purpose is also to contain the unfinished writings, Dr. Koegel naturally had to print the unfinished "Wiederkunft des Gleichen" in an appropriate form. The disposition was there and 235 aphorisms in quite arbitrary succession, as Nietzsche had thought of the individual points of the disposition. Koegel went through the aphorisms, which was natural, assigned to each point of the disposition what was intended for it, and sought a thread of thought for the individual sections so that the aphorisms formed a coherent whole as far as possible.

Now Dr. Horneffer, Koegel's successor, is getting to grips with it. He explains that most of the aphorisms did not belong to the "Eternal Reappearance" at all, but that it was initially about the "Zarathustra", whose first flash of inspiration in his thought process Nietzsche records in the same booklet. Only a few, namely 44 aphorisms, belonged to the "eternal thought of return". Horneffer recently published these 44 aphorisms as a "supplement" to his brochure. Furthermore, he accuses Koegel of not having understood the content of the doctrine of the "eternal return" and therefore proceeding in a completely absurd manner when assigning the individual aphorisms to the points of the disposition. Another of Horneffer's assertions is that "Nietzsche's plan to write a prosaic essay on the return of the same, as Koegel imagines it, could only have existed for a very short time, that it never existed." Excuse me, Dr. Horneffer, you are writing something quite outrageous. What do you actually mean? Did the plan only exist for a short time, or did it never exist? You seem to think it was the same thing. Then allow me to question your common sense. If the plan existed for a short time, then it was Dr. Koegel's duty to record the form it took in accordance with the layout of the estate. If it never existed, then of course nothing could be published as a "return of the same". Because then the aphorisms belong to other writings. Dr. Horneffer manages the sleight of hand of claiming in two consecutive lines both that he has passed and that he has not passed.

Such an organized mind is a fine prerequisite for the editor of a Nietzsche edition! This gentleman immediately reveals himself in all his greatness. He undertakes to prove in individual cases that Koegel has assigned the wrong aphorisms to the individual points of the disposition. In all of these cases Dr. Horneffer shows that he does not know what is important in these aphorisms; and that his opinion that the aphorisms do not belong in the relevant section is based only on his total lack of understanding. Let me pick out a few cases. Horneffer takes the 70th aphorism listed by Koegel and claims that it says: "that morality can only be understood physiologically. All moral judgments are judgments of taste. There is no such thing as healthy or unhealthy taste; it always depends on the goal." Koegel assigns the aphorism to which these words belong to the chapter "Incorporation of the passions". Horneffer says: "This is an independent, self-contained thought from the field of morality; I am at a loss to understand how this can be brought under the heading of the incorporation of the passions." I believe that Mr. Horneffer has run out of understanding, for he has never had any understanding of the aphorism at all. Horneffer simply omits what is important, namely, that man errs in his judgment of the value of food, because instead of looking at its usefulness as nourishment, he is guided by taste. It is not what nourishes better, but what tastes better that man wants to enjoy. He is therefore on the wrong track with his passion; he has incorporated a misguided passion through various conditions. Because of this sense, the aphorism belongs in the chapter "Incorporation of the passions". Another example. Horneffer claims: "Aph. 33, 34, 35 state that we unjustifiably despise the inorganic, although we are very dependent on it." To this he makes the remark: "I do not know how this is connected with the fundamental errors and their incorporation." Horneffer doesn't know because, again, he doesn't know what the aphorisms mean. Well, I will tell him. Nietzsche speaks of the fact that we hold the inorganic in low esteem, that in explaining our organism we take too little account of the inorganic in it. "We are three quarters a column of water and have inorganic salts in us." If we do not take this into account, we are subject to a fundamental error. We believe that the organic does not require consideration of the inorganic in order to explain it. That is why these aphorisms are rightly placed here. Another "achievement" of Dr. Horneffer is the sentence: "We read Aph. ı2ıı and 122 that we should not be tolerant, in Aph. 130 that egoism need not always be interpreted badly. It is really incomprehensible what caused Koegel to bring this and similar things under the incorporation of knowledge." Yes, it is incomprehensible to Dr. Hornefler because he again has no idea what is important. Otherwise he would have written in Aph. ı2r: "Truth for its own sake is a phrase, something quite impossible." What this means is that man gives himself over to the error of striving for the truth in order to know it; whereas it is quite different, quite selfish reasons that cause him to do so. The belief in "knowledge for its own sake" is thus incorporated.

So one could prove to Dr. Horneffer in every single case that he only accuses Koegel of having brought the aphorisms under false points of view because he - Horneffer - understands absolutely nothing of the meaning of these aphorisms.

But with Mr. Horneffer's logic there is a huge problem. At the beginning of the "Eternal Return" manuscript, Nietzsche speaks of the fact that man is compelled by the conditions of life to form false conceptions of things. Such ideas do not correspond to the facts, because the right concepts would be less conducive to life than the wrong ones. It is not at all important to man whether an idea is true or false, but whether it is life-sustaining, life-promoting. And Nietzsche remarks that the most primitive ideas, such as subject and object, like and like, free will, are such false ideas, but they are necessary for life. In truth, there are no two equal things. The idea of equality is therefore false. However, it helps us to apply the concept of equality in our considerations. According to Nietzsche, we do this not only with the most primitive ideas, but even more so with the complicated ones. Nietzsche only mentions the primitive ones in order to say: see, even the simplest, most transparent ideas are false. How does Dr. Horneffer interpret this? He says: "So only the most primitive concepts are meant by these basic errors, which were formed in ancient times." He accuses Koegel of also bringing more complicated ideas under the term "incorporation of basic errors". The new Nietzsche editor cannot even read Nietzsche.

Dr. Horneffer presents some more bogus reasons for his assertion that Koegel's compilation of the "Eternal Return" aphorisms is incorrect. There is another disposition in the manuscript booklet, which Horneffer considers to be a disposition on Zarathustra, because the information under this disposition is supposed to refer to the "first flash of Zarathustra thought": "Sils-Maria August 26, 1881". Under the above-mentioned disposition of the "Wiederkunft des Gleichen" it says "Anfang August ı88ı in Sils-Maria". Horneffer now claims that the disposition of August 26th gives "moods with which the various chapters of a work are to be written." Certainly; Horneffer has to admit that. The first point of this disposition, for example, is entitled "In the style of the first movement of the ninth symphony. Chaos sive natura. "Of the dehumanization of nature. Prometheus is forged against the Caucasus. Written with the cruelty of Kratos, "the power;." So are the other points of this disposition. At the same time, however, Dr. Horneffer says: "The whole character of this disposition proves its belonging to Zarathustra." But this is one of the worst assertions that I have come across in the entire Nietzsche literature. For nothing indicates that the Disposition belongs to the Zarathustra; according to its entire content, however, it can only belong to a work that is not the Zarathustra, for it does not contain the main idea for the sake of which the Zarathustra is written: the idea of the superman. Rather, it contains the "eternal return" as the main idea, which is only mentioned temporarily in Zarathustra. Nietzsche quite obviously deviated from a planned main work on the "eternal return" because the "superman" became the focus of his thoughts, and this prompted him to write Zarathustra. The words "Gaya Scienza" (Happy Science) can also be found in the "Wiederkunft" booklet. Horneffer says: "Thus it follows from external and internal characteristics that this booklet is a preliminary work of happy science ... .. In the happy science at the end of the fourth book and thus at the end of the original work in general - the fifth book was only added later - Aph. 341 expresses the thought of the eternal return." For Dr. Hornefler, this is the "obvious" thought. For any other, better logical mind, this is by no means the obvious thought. For the last manuscript of the "happy science" was written in January 1882, which Nietzsche therefore calls the "most beautiful of all Januaries". Why should he not have used thoughts from a manuscript notebook that corresponds to a work planned and abandoned in August of the previous year? This is, of course, the "obvious assumption" for any logical person. It is not the case for Dr. Horneffer. But he has something else to say in support of his opinion. In a letter that Peter Gast "only recently made available to the archives", Nietzsche wrote to him from Sils-Maria on September 3, 1883: "This Engadin is the birthplace of my Zarathustra. I have just found the first sketch of the thoughts connected with it; below it is written "At the beginning of August 1881 in Sils-Maria, 6000 feet above the sea and much higher above all human things." Now this sentence is not even under the disposition that Horneffer thinks belongs to Zarathustra; it is under the disposition that undoubtedly belongs to a work on the "Return of the Same" - for this disposition is so titled. It therefore follows from this passage in the letter that Nietzsche was mistaken. He remembered that the idea of Zarathustra had taken root in him in the summer of 1881, found the remark in the old notebook, glanced at it, and believed that the words underneath referred to Zarathustra. Dr. Horneffer, however, does not look at the disposition fleetingly, but very closely, and also believes that the words refer to Zarathustra. In his case, it is not an error of memory, but something else.

II On the Characteristics of Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche

The first signs that Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche wanted to bring about a change in Dr. Fritz Koegel's relationship with the publisher of the Nietzsche edition came to light very shortly after the latter's engagement in the autumn of 1896. A few days after this engagement to a lady from Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's circle of friends, the latter told me that this engagement was causing her difficulties. She did not know how she should arrange Dr. Koegel's position so that she could provide support for his marriage. From this point on, I, who was in contact with both Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche and Dr. Koegel, found myself in a real crossfire. There were constant arguments between the two, and when I spoke to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche I had to listen to all sorts of strange allegations about Dr. Koegel; when I met Dr. Koegel, I heard constant bitter complaints that he could not explain Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's behavior towards him in any other way than that she wanted to force him out of his position in one way or another. I tried to reassure both sides and found my situation quite disgusting. At that time I came to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche twice a week. She had let me give her private lessons on her brother's philosophy. I would certainly never have spoken about these private matters if they had not been suitable for giving the public a more accurate picture of the qualities of the director of the Nietzsche estate than can be obtained from the official and official announcements of the archive that appear today. What I am presenting is suitable to show in which hands Nietzsche's writings are. And one has a right to know something about this today, since Friedrich Nietzsche's teachings exert such a great influence in the present. The private lessons I had to give Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche taught me one thing above all: that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche is a complete layperson in everything concerning her brother's teaching. She does not have any independent judgment about the simplest of these teachings. The private lessons taught me something else. Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche lacks all sense for finer, even for coarser logical distinctions; her thinking does not have the slightest logical consistency; she lacks all sense of objectivity and objectivity. An event which takes place today has tomorrow assumed a form in her mind which need have no resemblance to the real one; but which is formed in such a way as she needs it for what she wants to achieve. I expressly emphasize, however, that I have never suspected Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche of deliberately distorting facts or deliberately making untrue assertions. No, she believes what she says at every moment. Today she tells herself that yesterday was red, which was certainly blue. I must say this expressly in advance, for it is only from this point of view that everything I am about to say can be understood.

Soon after Dr. Koegel's engagement, Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche used my presence in the Nietzsche Archive during a private lesson to tell me that she had doubts about Dr. Koegel's abilities. She held him in high esteem as an artist and "aesthete", she said, but he was not a philosopher. Therefore, she could not imagine that he was capable of editing the last volumes of the edition in which the "Umwertung aller Werte" was to be published. She thought that I, being a philosopher and fully initiated into Nietzsche's circle of thought, should be consulted on the edition. She also gave details of how she envisioned my future relationship with the Nietzsche Archive. I did not attach any particular importance to such a conversation and such information from Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche. For I knew her and knew that she wants this today and that tomorrow and that it is quite pointless to argue seriously with her if such an argument involves some logic. I only said that what she was saying had no meaning at all, because Dr. Koegel was the editor of the Nietzsche edition by contract. There could be no question of a declaration on my part that I was prepared also to become editor, because such a declaration would be meaningless if a discussion had not first taken place with Dr. Koegel. It should be noted here that I not only gave my consent to the publication of Nietzsche's writings not at that time, but also proceeded from the point of view that with the contracts between Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche and the publisher of the Nietzsche edition, which I knew, such a commitment on my part would have been nonsense. Now I knew Dr. Koegel's irritability and bitterness in those days. He had been driven into an almost pathological state of agitation by Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's unbelievable behavior. I knew that in this situation he could no longer bear to hear about the completely pointless conversation between Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche and myself. Besides, there was no point in telling him about it, as it had been completely fruitless. I therefore asked Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche to give me her word that this conversation would never be discussed. She gave this word. That was on a Saturday. Dr. Koegel's sister was staying with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche at the time. On the following Tuesday, Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche said the following to her. I had agreed to publish the "Umwertung aller Werte" together with Dr. Koegel. She, the sister, should ask Dr. Koegel whether he would agree to this. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche did not say this to Dr. Koegel himself, who in the meantime had repeatedly visited the Nietzsche Archive, but had his sister tell him. Thus, Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche not only spoke of the conversation three days later; she communicated the result in a completely false form. This peculiar view that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche had of a given word was often mentioned afterwards. And Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche expressed this view of hers in an unsolicited letter to me on September 23, 1898 in the following way: "I believed that the promise (it was not just a promise, but a pledged word) was only valid for the interim period before I proposed the whole arrangement to Dr. Koegel. Koegel the whole arrangement, for of course, when I offered a second editor, I had to say who I had in mind and that the prospective one would agree." Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche therefore believed that she no longer needed to keep a word she had given on the following Tuesday. Dr. Förster-Nietzsche finds it natural that, when offered a second editor, she said that I had accepted, although this was not correct, and although anyone with a logical mind must have thought, given the contractual circumstances, that first things had to be sorted out with Dr. Koegel before a second editor could be discussed. Since there were no objective reasons for appointing a second editor to Dr. Fritz Koegel, a promise on my part could only have been interpreted as a plot against him. Everything that Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche said in the conversation on December 6 was not an attack on what he had achieved up to that point, but only the very vague assumption, not justified by anything factual, that Dr. Koegel would probably not be able to produce the volumes following ı2 alone. So that I would not appear to Dr. Koegel as an intriguer, Mrs. Elisabeth Förster had to be induced to declare explicitly in front of witnesses and in Dr. Koegel's and my presence that I had not given a promise. She also explained this. Later she wanted to blur the unpleasant impression that such a statement had made on her. That is why she has been telling and spreading the story ever since: a conversation took place on December 6 and she denied this conversation out of consideration for me. Due to her lack of logical discernment, she doesn't seem to realize what was important. What mattered was not whether she had spoken to me at all on December 6 about Dr. Koegel and her intentions with him, but the fact that I did not give a promise. I did not make such a commitment because I tried to make it clear to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche that any commitment on my part would be an understanding in view of the existing contractual relationships. I was also unable to make a commitment because it was my firm conviction at the time that it was only personal reasons that prompted Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche to make a change with regard to Dr. Koegel. To this day, nothing has shaken this conviction in me. I consider everything later put forward as factual to be merely a mask intended to make an objective goal originally pursued by Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche purely for personal reasons - the removal of Dr. Koegel from the editorship - appear to be an objectively justified action due to Koegel's alleged incompetence.

The conversation between Mrs. Fötster-Nietzsche and myself took place on Saturday, December 5, 1896. All the unpleasant negotiations that followed this event dragged on for many weeks. I expressly note that during this entire time there was never any talk of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche doubting the soundness of what Dr. Koegel had until then worked on for the Nietzsche edition. And Koegel's manuscript of the "eternal return" for the twelfth volume had long since been completed. I knew this Koegel manuscript, but never got to know the documents for it, the Nietzsche booklets. I don't know what Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche knew of the latter at the time, but she knew Koegel's manuscript very well. She often spoke about it and never once during this time expressed any doubt to me that there might be something wrong with it. I have to say this, because in Horneffer's brochure it says: "In justification of Dr. Förster-Nietzsche, who first recognized the unscientific nature of Koegel's work ( as early as autumn 1896)..." So this statement cannot be correct. But how Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche later corrected the whole matter can be seen from a passage in the aforementioned unsolicited letter to me. It reads: "I gave you the manuscript on the Second Coming in October 1896 for examination because I was so concerned about it. You yourself have stated the incoherence of the content on various occasions and justified and mentioned my concern. Nevertheless, you did not say a word to Dr. Koegel about your doubts about the manuscript's status." In this passage everything is incorrect. The matter was like this. During a longer absence of Dr. Koegel from Weimar, Dr. Franz Servaes visited the Nietzsche Archive. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche asked me to read him some of Koegel's manuscript, the "Eternal Return", which was ready for printing. I didn't want to do this unprepared and asked her to leave the manuscript with me until the next day so that I could prepare for the lecture. I didn't read out the whole manuscript, but just a series of aphorisms. By chance, I skimmed over the ones that are now claimed not to belong to "The Eternal Return". Later, in the spring of 1898, when Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche wanted to get in touch with me again, I heard that Mrs. Förster had heard some critics of the now printed "Wiedergeburt" criticize Koegel's work, and that now, after a year and a half, she was thinking of withdrawing the twelfth volume. I said at the time that it was a strange coincidence that those aphorisms were now considered not to belong in the book, which I had skipped at the time because a partial understanding of the basic idea was possible even without reading them aloud. When I first heard of the withdrawal of the volume, I believed that, after examining Nietzsche's manuscripts, quite different errors had emerged than those claimed by Horneffer. I do not know these manuscripts. I am not indifferent to the fact that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche makes the above false assertion regarding an examination of the manuscripts, for she not only addressed the letter mentioned to me, but, as I now know, also communicated its contents to others. I must therefore state: 1) It is not correct that Mrs. Förster expressed doubts to me about the quality of Koegel's work. 2. it is not correct that Mrs. Förster ever gave me Koegel's manuscript to examine. 3. it is not correct that I ever "stated the incoherence of the content".

As a result of the incorrect and inadmissible communication of my conversation with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche to Dr. Koegel's sister, the tension in the Nietzsche Archive grew ever greater. The disputes took on ever broader dimensions. Other personalities were also drawn into the matter. In the course of the whole affair, however, I am convinced that doubts about Koegel's abilities played no role. Mrs. Fötster-Nietzsche's aversion to Koegel grew ever greater. She was initially unable to change Koegel's position due to the existing contracts. He initially remained editor. But Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche made publishing difficult for him in every way. She restricted him in the free use of Nietzsche's manuscripts. This ultimately led to the relationship becoming untenable. One day Dr. Koegel was no longer Nietzsche's editor. Later, friends of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche repeatedly approached me, hinting at the latter's intention to make me editor under certain conditions. I had already foreseen such an eventuality earlier and agreed with Dr. Koegel that if one day his relationship with the Nietzsche Archive became impossible, I would follow any call from Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche. However, I never applied for the editorship, neither earlier nor later. But since the aforementioned friends of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche had always emphasized that I was the most suitable Nietzsche editor, and that it would be a pity if the edition were to fall into less professional hands due to personal disagreements, I decided to travel to Weimar twice, after my arrival had been expressly requested each time by the aforementioned friends of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche by telegraph after they had negotiated with her. The details of the negotiations that now took place are of no interest. I will only mention that during my last conversation with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, she demanded that I write a "simply true" account of the conversation of December 6, 1896 to her cousin as her confidant. A draft of a letter to the cousin in the Nietzsche archive was also attempted in the presence of a third party. I soon saw that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche did not want the truth as I had presented it above, but something else. I went away and said: I want to think things over. But I had the feeling that nothing could be done with this woman. I have never dealt with the matter again since then; I simply wanted to ignore Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche. On Sept. 23, 1898, she wrote me the above-mentioned letter. What else is written in it is just as incorrect as the one passage I mentioned. I left this unsolicited, completely indifferent letter unanswered. Later I learned that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche had seen to the dissemination of its incorrect content.

I would have kept silent even now if I had not been driven to indignation by Horneffer's brochure and by the protection that Lichtenberger's book received: In what hands is Nietzsche's estate.

It could be that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche still has letters from me in which there is something that she could point out against my current assertions. Although I soon recognized Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, I have always taken into consideration that she is Friedrich Nietzsche's sister. Perhaps out of politeness and consideration I have done too much in praising her qualities. Now I declare that this was a great stupidity on my part and that I am gladly prepared to formally retract any praise I may have bestowed on Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche.