108. Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and her Knight of Comical Form

A reply to Dr. Seidl's “unmasking”

Dr. Arthur Seidl has felt compelled to defend Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche against the allegations I made in an article in "Magazin für Literatur" (No. 6 of the current 69th issue) by "unmasking" me. He uses the following means for this "debunking". He imputes dishonest, even impure motives to my statements. He asserts things off the top of his head about which he knows nothing other than what Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche told him. He accuses me of contradictory statements in my article. He falsifies an account of a fact given by me, either because he is unable to understand what I have written or because he deliberately wants to cast a false light on my actions by distorting them. He invents a new interpretation of the old Heraclitus in order to provide a metaphysical-psychological explanation of the fact that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche calls red today what was blue yesterday. He talks about the errors he found in Koegel's edition of Nietzsche's works. In between he rants.

I will discuss these means of Dr. Arthur Seidl one by one. It is very characteristic of this gentleman's attitude that he accuses me of having written the article about the Nietzsche Archive and about Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche in order to help the "Magazin", which I published "with highly controversial success", by creating a "sensation". If anything within literary philistinism has caused the talk of "controversial success", it is precisely the fact that I run the "Magazin" with the greatest sacrifices, without resorting to journalistic tricks and "sensations", purely from a factual point of view. The philistines would, of course, find it more rational if I made use of all possible gimmicks. I have renounced all successes that could ever have brought me "sensations". Dr. Seidl insinuates, out of a genuinely philistine attitude, that in such an important matter as Nietzsche's I am out for sensationalism. At the end of my article I have clearly stated what my motives were. "I would have remained silent even now if I had not been driven to indignation by Horneffer's brochure and by the protection that Lichtenberger's book has received: In what hands Nietzsche's estate is." There are simply people who cannot believe in objective motives. They transfer their own way of thinking onto others. Nietzsche would say: they lack the most elementary instincts of intellectual purity. I will come back to other motives that Dr. Seidl imputes to me later on.

First of all, it is necessary for me to correct the facts that Dr. Seidl has distorted in the most irresponsible manner, insofar as they relate to the role that I am supposed to have played in the break between Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche on the one hand and Dr. Fritz Koegel on the other. In the fall of 1896, Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche moved with the Nietzsche Archive from Naumburg a.d.S. to Weimar. Around the time of her move, a large part of the German press reported that I was working on the Nietzsche edition together with Dr. Koegel. The author of this untrue note has never been discovered. I was highly embarrassed by it, for I knew Dr. Koegel's sensitivities in this direction. He attached great importance to being named in public as the sole editor of those parts of the edition which he really edited alone. Until then, he had edited the entire edition up to and including the tenth volume, with the exception of the parts edited by Dr. von der Hellen, the second volume of "Menschliches, Allzumenschliches" and the essay "Jenseits von Gut und Böse" in the seventh volume. He also assured me that when Dr. von der Hellen left the Nietzsche Archive, he had received a definite promise from Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche that he would be the sole editor of all volumes of the estate (following the eighth volume). I had every reason not to give the impression that I wanted to use my friendly relationship with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche to smuggle myself into the editorship. And Dr. Koegel had lost his sense of trust, as he had had a large number of differences with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche over the years, which had repeatedly led him to believe that his position had been shaken. It was necessary on my part to avoid any confusion about my completely unofficial relationship with the Nietzsche Archive. When I visited Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche in Weimar for the first time, at her request, I told her that the rumor that had arisen from the above newspaper article, as if I were to be employed at the Nietzsche Archive, must be firmly countered. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche agreed and at the same time regretted that the matter could not be true. I had the feeling that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche would have liked to see my employment at that time, but her definite promise to Dr. Koegel that he would be the sole editor in the future stood in the way. I would like to emphasize, however, that no mention was made of Dr. Koegel's inability to edit the edition alone. I have now sent to a number of German newspapers, with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's consent, a correction of the above-mentioned note, which contains the words: "The sole editor of Nietzsche's works is Dr. Fritz Koegel. I have no official relationship with the Nietzsche Archive. Nor is such a relationship envisaged for the future." Dr. Koegel was on a vacation trip at the time. He had left behind in the Nietzsche Archive the printed manuscript of the " Wiederkunft des Gleichen" (Return of the Same) that he had compiled. He had already sent me this compilation in July of the same year. I then spoke to him several times about the thoughts contained in the printed manuscript. I never went through Nietzsche's manuscript. In October 1896, I also spoke repeatedly with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche about the "Second Coming of the Same" and already then expressed the idea, which still forms my conviction today, that Nietzsche's main idea of the "Eternal Return" of all things arose from reading Dühring. In Dühring's "Kursus der Philosophie" this idea is expressed, only it is fought against there. We looked in Nietzsche's copy of Dühring's book and found the characteristic Nietzschean pencil marks in the margin where the thought is mentioned. At that time I told Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche many other things about the relationship of her brother's philosophy to other philosophical currents. The result was that one day she came out with the plan: I should develop my views and results for her in private lessons. Of course, even then I had the feeling, with which Dr. Seidl was now crawling, that these lectures should first be given by the editor of Nietzsche's writings; and I explained to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche that I could only agree to give the lectures if Dr. Koegel agreed. I talked it over with Dr. Koegel, and the plan with the private lessons was realized. When Dr. Seidl claims in an outrageously scolding tone that I have no right to call these lectures on the "philosophy of Nietzsche", I reply that I have no name for such an untrue assertion, for which he cannot provide the slightest proof. For it is simply a lie to call these lectures by any other name. I must surely know what I dealt with in the lessons. Dr. Seid] knows nothing about it. I dealt with Nietzsche's view of Greek philosophy, his relationship to modern philosophy, especially Kant's and Schopenhauer's, and the deeper foundations of his own thought. Dr. Seidl interprets the reasons why Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche took lessons from me in a - I really cannot say otherwise - childish way. But if what he says about it is true, then he would have done Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche the worst possible service by revealing these alleged reasons. He is imposing on her a deceitfulness and a frivolous game with people that, despite everything I know about her, I would not expect her to play. When she asked me for the lessons, she should not have wanted to learn something, but to examine me to see whether I was fit to be a Nietzsche editor. There can be no doubt that if I had had the slightest inkling of such a plan, I would have indignantly left Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, never to return. Dr. Seidl is of the opinion that this woman has caught me with such a plan in ambush under all kinds of pretexts. Anyone who does such a thing is acting frivolously. I leave it to Dr. Seidl to argue with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche about this interpretation of her conduct.

I continue with my account of the facts. Everything went pretty well until Dr. Koegel's engagement, which, if I remember correctly, took place at the end of November 1896. An error of memory on my part could only refer to a few days at most. Dr. Seidl finds himself compelled to accuse me of the "equally malicious and simple-minded insinuation" that I had made a connection between Dr. Koegel's engagement and the "enlightenment". engagement and Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's "enlightenment" about Koegel's talent "& tout prix". I believe that only a not entirely pure imagination can see a malicious insinuation in my sentence (in the "Magazin" essay). I said nothing more than: "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". Let us hear what a certainly classic witness says in this regard, namely Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche herself. In the unsolicited letter to me of September 1898, also mentioned by Dr. Seidl, she writes: "Dr. Koegel was not only to be the editor, but also the son and heir of the archive. But the latter was only possible if I had a sincere mutual friendship with Dr. Koegel. I also felt this lack and had hoped that we could become better friends through his marriage. But since I was completely mistaken about the bride, the lack of friendship and trust became much more noticeable after the engagement than before." Dr. Arthur Seidl! You dare to call me a "knight of the sad figure" because of my conduct towards Dr. Förster-Nietzsche. Look at you: how you fight! What you call a "malicious" and "simple-minded insinuation" of mine is nothing more than a reproduction of a passage from a letter by the "lonely woman" for whom you so "bravely" stand up, you knight in shining armor.

The fact is that almost immediately after the engagement a profound difference arose between Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche and Dr. Fritz Koegel. For me, this difference became more noticeable and more embarrassing with each passing day. As often as I met Dr. Koegel, he talked excitedly about scenes with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche and remarked that every day he felt more and more that she wanted to be rid of him. When I came to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's lessons, she brought up all sorts of things against Dr. Koegel. It is characteristic how her objections to Koegel's suitability as editor changed. At first she acted deeply offended that Dr. Koegel had neglected to put "Archivist of the Nietzsche Archive" on his engagement announcements. Soon afterwards, a new motif appeared on the scene. The family in Jena into which Dr. Koegel married was a pious one; Dr. Koegel would not be able to combine his position in the Nietzsche Archive with such a relationship. It would be bad if the Nietzsche editor had to get married in church and have his children baptized. As a light-hearted intermezzo, something else came in between. Dr. Koegel was reading the proof sheets of the French edition of Zarathustra because the Nietzsche Archive wanted to check this edition for accuracy. Koegel's bride was present at the reading of one of the sheets in the Nietzsche Archive. There was a discussion about the French translation of a sentence, and Dr. Koegel agreed with his bride about the correct French expression of a thought, contrary to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's opinion. She then complained to me that she was no longer the master of her archive. Gradually, such objections to Dr. Koegel gave rise to others, all in successive development. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche began to doubt Koegel's philosophical expertise. The matter was at this stage when, on December 5, Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche attempted to involve me in the matter. The whole behavior of this woman, with all the dodges in which it was so rich, simply gave me the impression that she no longer wanted Koegel and was looking for all kinds of reasons. Dr. Arthur Seidl, in his comic chivalry, has an expression for this: "What at that time was still a certain unprovable instinct in her, subjective feeling and a dark sensation that the matter was not quite right, that something was not in order, was soon to prove... as a serious objective error and as scientific untenability". Strange, most strange: Mrs. Elisabeth Förster Nietzsche's instinct that something is scientifically wrong is expressed by the fact that she acts offended when her editor does not identify himself as "Archivist at the Nietzsche Archive" on his engagement announcements, or in the fear that he will get married in church.

If I were to characterize the role I had played in the whole affair up to that point, I could not say otherwise than that I acted as an "honest broker". I tried to present Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche with all the reasons I could find for retaining Dr. Koegel as editor. I tried to calm the sometimes highly agitated Dr. Koegel. Then came December 5. I had a lesson with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche. She had already indicated to me the day before, by a card she gave me, that she had important things to tell me the next day. This card was, of course, quite superfluous, because I would have appeared at the lesson that Saturday in any case. As soon as I arrived, the conversation turned to Dr. Koegel. He was an artist and an aesthete, but not a philosopher. He could not publish "The Revaluation of All Values" on his own. I have never denied that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche tried to persuade me at the time that I should become editor alongside Dr. Koegel, that she made all sorts of nebulous remarks about modes of collaboration, and so on. I made no secret to Dr. Koegel of this gossip of hers. Only at that moment did the mutual bitterness between Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche and Dr. Koegel run too high. I foresaw that the mere announcement that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche was planning to make a change in his position would provoke Dr. Koegel to the extreme. But Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche

I had to listen to her out of courtesy. I told her that with Dr. Koegel's present irritability, it was highly inadvisable to let him know anything about her plan. I myself never gave my consent to this plan. Everything I said can be summarized in the conditional sentence: "Madam, my consent is irrelevant; even if I wanted to, such a will would be without consequence". - Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche could not take these words to mean that I would have wanted to, but only as a conditional acceptance of her plan, not to agree, but to reduce it to absurdity. I wanted to make her understand: firstly, that she could not change Dr. Koegel's position now, after she had promised him sole editorship; secondly, that Dr. Koegel would never agree to work with a second editor. That was all that happened on my part. As you can see, I wanted nothing more than to continue playing the "honest broker" role. If Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche now believes that she can dispose of me as she pleases, it is only due to her peculiarity that she believes she can place people wherever she wants like chess pieces. For my part, I had not the slightest reason to take Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's word for not talking about her plan. It was absolutely her wish. I believe I even expressly remarked that, given my relationship with Dr. Koegel, I had to tell him something like that. Very well: we agreed not to talk about one of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's plans, the absurdity of which I had explained to her. Dr. Arthur Seidl has the audacity to present this as follows: "he made the request to the lady mentioned, to whom he must (or should) have felt a warm obligation, to protect his person in the event of any harangue her person from another side and then to deny a de facto consultation with his mouth - to put it nicely: the imposition of a lie". This is where Dr. Seidl commits an objective falsification. At the express wish of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, I gave her my word not to speak of her plan to Dr. Koegel, and then naturally asked her to do the same. Because I knew what would come out if she said anything. Where on earth can one speak of the imposition of a "lie"? But Dr. Seidl wants to say something completely different. He wants to create the impression that, after Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche had broken her word, which was not given because of me but because of her, I would have expected her to deny something. I will tell you in a moment how things stand with this supposed denial. But first I must tell Dr. Seidl that he is either incapable of understanding the account I have given (in the "Magazin" article), or that he is deliberately falsifying it. He has to choose between two things, either he has to confess that he does not understand a clearly formulated sentence, or the other, that he deliberately commits a falsification in order to slander me. In the former case, the impression of his comic knighthood increases for me; in the latter, however, I must tell him what Carl Vogt said to the Göttingen Court Councillor in the famous materialism dispute:

"To a rough block a rough wedge,
To a rascal one and a half!"

Sunday followed Saturday. On this day, Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche had arranged an engagement dinner for Dr. Koegel at the Nietzsche Archive. Various gentlemen from the Weimar Goethe Archive were invited, as well as Gustav Naumann, who together with his uncle ran the publishing house where Nietzsche's works were published, myself and others. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche gave a speech during the meal in which she praised Koegel's services to the Nietzsche edition in words of appreciation. After the meal, she took Gustav Naumann aside and told him: Dr. Koegel was not a philosopher; he could not do the "revaluation of all values" at all. Dr. Steiner was a philosopher, he had read her philosophy splendidly; he can and will do the revaluation. Mr. Gustav Naumann believed he owed it to his friendship with Dr. Koegel to inform him of this conversation with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche that very evening. Now Dr. Koegel's excitement, which I had wanted to avoid, had erupted. I met him that same evening. I calmed him down by telling him that I would do everything I could to keep him; I would never agree to become a second editor. I made no mention of my fruitless conversation with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche on Saturday, because I was bound by my word; and even if that had not been the case, it would not have been necessary, for why waste words on Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's talk, since it could lead to nothing without my consent. On the following Wednesday I received a letter from Dr. Koegel, who had gone to Jena to visit his future parents-in-law, in which he informed me that on Tuesday Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche had told Koegel's sister (whom she used at that time as an official intermediary between herself and Dr. Koegel, although she could always have spoken to him herself) that I had declared that a collaboration between myself and Dr. Koegel would be excellent, and that I would be happy to agree to it. Both were incorrect, as can be seen from my explanation of the facts. (Dr. Seidl, of course, has the audacity to claim a priori that it is correct. Another philosophical principle: what you cannot prove, you assert a priori). This Wednesday I had to go to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's class again. I now confronted her. I explained to her that she had put me in a fatal situation with her incorrect information. Dr. Koegel could not possibly explain the matter in any other way than that I was playing the role of an intriguer who was pretending other things than were going on behind the scenes. I told her in the most definite terms that I would clarify the matter in a preliminary letter to Dr. Koegel, and that I must demand that she herself set the record straight before Dr. Koegel and myself. I said at the time that I found it almost unbelievable that she should appear to be an intriguer, when I had made every effort to see that the facts of the case were absolutely clear. At the same time I remarked, in order to make clear to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche the full extent of the inconvenience she had caused me: I would rather shoot myself than gain a position through intrigue. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche then twisted these words in such a way that she later often claimed that I had said I would have to shoot myself if she did not retract her false statements. Dr. Seidl also rehashes the nonsensical duel tale. Never did Dr. Koegel threaten a duel. He did, however, write to Naumann that if what Mrs. Förster had said about an intrigue of mine turned out to be true, he wanted to challenge me. This passage from Dr. Koegel's letter became known to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche; and she later, with the intention of riding me into enmity with Dr. Koegel, threw this threat, which was only uttered behind my back - to use Dr. Seidi's tasteful comparative language - "like a sausage at a ham". She could not bring this threat of a duel to my ears and eyes often enough, both verbally and in writing. Dr. Seidl had the audacity to say that I had "imploringly asked" Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche to "lie my way out of it". If Dr. Seidl, as such a comical knight, did not faithfully parrot everything he was told: one would truly have to take him for a rogue. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche now claimed in the conversation just discussed that she had written me a letter the previous day - that is, on Tuesday - in which I would find the explanation for her behavior. I said I wouldn't have cared about such a letter, but I never received one. And strangely enough, on Wednesday afternoon, a few hours after the conversation with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, I found a letter from her in which she wrote the following: "So today, for certain reasons, I was compelled to tell Miss Koegel that I had asked you whether, in the event that I asked you to publish the revaluation with Dr. Koegel, you would be inclined to do so and whether you believed that you would both be finished with it in a year; - you would have answered in the affirmative. You also said that Dr. Koegel had already told you of similar intentions on my part. This was all on Saturday. I will let you know quickly so that you are informed." So Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche believed that she could dispose of me in any way she liked; she only had to give the order: I say you have done this and then it is so. "I'll let you know quickly so that you are informed." It was also urgently necessary, this instruction. It's just a pity that I only received the letter after Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche had already wreaked havoc. Otherwise I would have told her beforehand: "If for certain reasons you feel compelled to say false things about me, then for certain reasons I will feel compelled to accuse you of untruth. On December 10, Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche made a definite statement to Dr. Koegel, myself and two witnesses that what she had said to Koegel's sister about me was not true. The next day she was already sorry again that she had made this statement, and she tried to turn the matter around in the following way. She insisted that there had been a conversation between her and me on the Saturday in question. I had to admit that. I explained to her on the Saturday of ır. December: it didn't matter that there had been any conversation at all, but only that the information she had given Koegel's sister was incorrect. For me, the matter was now closed. I can prove that I never demanded of Frau Förster that she should deny anything; rather, from the moment I heard of her incorrect statements through Dr. Koegel, I was quite certain that I also reproached her for this incorrectness. On Sunday, December 2, she wrote me a letter from which it is clear that I never asked her to lie to me, but that I always asserted the incorrectness of her statements to her face. In this letter she writes: "It is a pity that we have never spoken properly about the whole matter. Think that I was indeed firmly convinced that you knew as well as I did that the much disputed conversation had really taken place. Now you think that yesterday it suddenly dawned on me that you are really and truly convinced that you have heard nothing of the things I remember exactly." So Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche built golden bridges for herself by claiming to remember exactly. I allowed her the pleasure. I have no interest in the way she makes things up. But she admits here that I never - as Dr. Seidl now "chivalrously" babbles - "implored" her to lie, but that I told her frankly and freely: it is not true that I gave my consent. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche goes on to describe the matter quite nicely: "What a boundless pity that I was not convinced sooner, for then the whole thing would have gained a much more cheerful and natural appearance. It was nothing more than one of those cases of absent-mindedness that so often occur, especially among scholars: one person talks about certain things in a vague way, the other listens distractedly, says yes and makes friendly faces, and then forgets the whole thing in the subsequent philosophical lecture." Now Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche may rest assured that I would certainly not have forgotten a promise on my part. But what she said was meaningless and actually irrelevant to me.

So. Now I come back to you, Dr. Arthur Seidl. I have proved to you that you were reckless enough to repeat things whose incorrectness is easy to demonstrate. Before I show you the flimsiness of your assertions about my alleged contradictions, I will ask you two more things. I. You write: "And it must not be overlooked that in the whole battle that broke out, the selfish and personal motives were entirely on the side of her (Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's) opponents, who as Nietzsche's publishers wanted to create pecuniary advantages for themselves." Since you speak of Nietzsche publishers in the plural, you imply that I have ever sought pecuniary advantages in this matter. I was never a Nietzsche publisher; I never wanted to become one, so I never wanted to gain pecuniary advantages. You will not be able to provide proof for your assertions. You are therefore putting slander into the world. 2. you claim: I should have felt a warm obligation towards Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche. I challenge you to tell me the very least that entitles Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche to claim any special thanks from me.

But now to your "logical contradictions" in my essay. You, Dr. Arthur Seidl, claim that it follows from my account that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche must have been convinced in the autumn of 1896 that the volumes ııı and ı2 were erroneous, since she claimed that Dr. Koegel could not publish the "Umwertung". You say: "Well, I think that in such a case one can only feel doubt and anxiety on the basis of existing samples and work already done, which must have been available from Dr. Koegel up to and including volume 12." If there is even a milligram of sense in this reply, then I want to be called "Peter Zapfel". I declare on the basis of the facts that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche knew nothing of errors in the ıı. and ı2. volumes in the autumn of 1896 and conclude from this that she based her assertion that Dr. Koegel could not publish the "Umwertung" on nothing; and the Dr. Seidl comes and says: Yes, it is precisely from the fact that she declared him incapable of publishing the "Umwrertung" that one can see that she must have recognized the flawed nature of volumes 11 and ı2. Think of this philosopher Seidl as a judge. The defense lawyer of a defendant proves that he could not have committed a murder that demonstrably took place in Berlin at ı2 o'clock because the defendant only arrived in Berlin at ı2 o'clock. The judge, Dr. Seidl, throws himself on his chest and says: "Mr. Defense Attorney, you are not a logician: if the defendant only arrived in Berlin at ı2 o'clock, then the murder can only have happened after one o'clock. Well, after this rehearsal, I won't get any further into Dr. Seidl's logic. It seems too unfruitful. It is the height of nonsense that old Heraclitus has to be used to justify Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche calling red today what was blue yesterday. "Everything flows", says the good Heraclitus; therefore, Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's statements about one and the same object may also "flow". "Yesterday's blue color can indeed take on a reddish hue in our eyes, depending on today's lighting." Certainly it can, wise Dr. Seidl; but if you claim that the color that only took on a red hue today already had it yesterday, then you have simply lied, despite your ingenious interpretation of Heraclitus. You are no different to old Heraclitus than you are to me: you know quite as much about both: namely nothing.¹

I am not arguing with you about the value of Lichtenberger's book, Dr. Seidl. For you are just as happy with the justification of this book from Nietzsche's sentence . with the "light feet" as you are with the derivation of "Today blue, tomorrow red" from Heraclitus' "Everything flows". Certainly, Dr. Seidl, light feet are a great advantage; but in such cases as the one we are dealing with here, they must carry a spirit-filled head. Zarathustra is a dancer, says Nietzsche. Dr. Seidl quickly re-evaluates this Nietzschean value: every dancer is a Zarathustra. What you can learn in Weimar today!

You are forgiven, Dr. Seidl, for tearing down my booklet "Nietzsche, a fighter against his time". By the way, you can believe me that I know the weaknesses of this book, written five years ago, better than you do. I would perhaps write some things differently today. But it has one advantage over many: it is an honest book in every line. That is why it has not only found praise among Nietzsche followers, but a fierce opponent of Nietzsche recently found that I am the only one among Nietzsche's followers who "can be taken seriously". Dr. Seidl claims that in "Zarathustra" it is not the idea of the "superman" that is important, but the "eternal return". He puts forward a reason for this that is truly "godly". This idea occurs no less than three times in Zarathustra. Now three times some other thoughts also occur in Zarathustra. According to Mr. Seidl's logic, they could therefore just as well be placed above the "superman" thought, which does not occur three times, but runs like a red thread through the whole. And that "the whole" boils down to the idea of the Second Coming is simply not true. Dr. Seidl also seems to sense the flimsiness of his logic; in order to prove more than he is capable of, he invokes the fact that Richard Strauss turned the "nuptial ring of rings" into the "light-footed" ring dance of an ideal waltz rhythm. This is how I recognize Dr. Arthur Seidl. I have the honor of knowing him from Weimar. It was always like this with him: wherever concepts were lacking, he always found the right music at the right time.

A logical snippet from Dr. Seidl, which, however, seems to point to the current school in the Nietzsche Archive, I would like to mention at the end. With all kinds of sources, Dr. Seidl claims that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche has "so far made the right decision in all decisive points concerning the organization of the complete edition". Now she and the current editors claim that on the most important point so far, with regard to Dr. Koegel's editorship, she has made the wrong decision. As the logic goes: "All Cretans are liars, says a Cretan. Since he himself is a liar, it cannot be true that all Cretans are liars. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche has always hit on the right thing, so she also hit on the right thing when she claimed that she had hit on the wrong thing with Dr. Fritz Koegel. That is Nietzsche editor logic.

Now I would like to say a few words about your brazen assertions at the end of your essay. Dr. Seidl, it is you, not me, who is pulling the wool over the eyes of uninformed people. For I have admitted from the outset the errors which you reproach Koegel's edition with and about which you do not know enough "morality tales" to tell. I have even conceded that an edition with such errors may be withdrawn if the opportunity arises. It is not these errors that matter. I believe them, too, without first checking them again, as you do with Dr. Koegel. The main point of my refutation of Horneffer's brochure consists in proving that the aphorisms compiled by Dr. Koegel in volume ı2 do indeed give an idea of the form of the "Eternal Reappearance Doctrine" that this doctrine took in Nietzsche in August 1881. In order to provide such proof, one need only have the aphorisms printed in volume ı2 in front of one's eyes. The reading errors made by Koegel do not change this. Dr. Seidl avoids a reply to this proof of mine with the completely meaningless suspicion: I judge without having seen the manuscripts. No, I have not seen them; but I do not need to have seen them for what I am claiming. I lack the space here to substantiate my conviction regarding Nietzsche's idea of the "Eternal Second Coming" in greater depth. I will do so elsewhere. The fact is - as can be asserted with a probability almost bordering on certainty - that Nietzsche took up the idea of the "Eternal Second Coming" from Dühring and initially envisaged it as the opposite view to the generally accepted one, which was also held by Dühring. The "draft" that Koegel communicated in the ı2nd volume belongs to the time when Nietzsche had such a plan. However, he soon dropped the idea because he felt that the "draft" of 1881 could not be realized. Later it only appeared sporadically, as in Zarathustra, and at the very end of his work it reappeared, as I now believe, as one of the symptoms of the madness that had previously announced itself. What Dr. Koegel published in the ı2nd volume could therefore only be a flawed work, simply because the insertion of the idea of reincarnation into Nietzsche's system of ideas was a flawed one. And some critics, e.g. Mr. Kretzer (in an article in the "Frankfurter Zeitung"), felt this deficiency. And it was around this time that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's earlier "dark feeling" began to become an "objective error" on the part of Dr. Koegel. In the aforementioned unsolicited letter to me, she wrote: "If this shattering thought could not be proven splendidly, irrefutably, scientifically, it was better and more reverent to treat it as a mystery than as a mysterious idea that could have tremendous consequences. The scientific proof would have come! It is clear from all my brother's notes that he wished this idea to be treated in this way: "Don't speak! Dr. Koegel's poor, misguided, falsified publication murdered this tremendous idea! I will never forgive him for that." I believed: here we have the crux of the matter. The core. Nietzsche's work on the "Eternal Return" from 1881 is untenable. Nietzsche abandoned the plan because it was untenable. Dr. Koegel, as editor of the estate, had to give an idea of this untenable work. That is his main crime. What is untenable in Nietzsche is to be explained as a forgery by the editor. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche claims on $. LXIV of her introduction to Lichtenberger's book that "this strange and meager publication must disappoint every sincere Nietzsche admirer". Well, the sincere Nietzsche admirers cannot be disappointed when they see that the revered man conceives a flawed plan and then puts it aside because he recognizes its inadequacy. Whoever is of the opinion of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche that these embryonic developments of thought should have been published with the addition of the later ones that perfected them (see introduction to Lichtenberger p. LXIV): precisely he has the tendency: the form of the idea of reincarnation, as Nietzsche had it in 1881, should have been falsified by the addition of later thoughts.

I have never disputed the merits of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, which she really has. I even remember a certain letter that I wrote to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, although not unsolicited at the time, in which I wrote about these real merits, because Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche needed something like that at the time. She wrote me a letter on October 27, 1895, in which she thanked me for my letter: "Your manifesto against the unbelievers and the uninstructed pleases Dr. Koegel and me extraordinarily and we read it with great edification. Thank you very much for it." But there was nothing to entitle Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche to draw me into a matter that was none of my business, into which I did not want to be drawn. And when this involvement then had consequences that Dr. Seidl calls "more brutal than particularly effective", I was again the first to regret that such scenes had been made necessary. But no one else made them necessary than Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche.

If only the "lonely woman" in Weimar had not been treated worse by anyone than by me! Right up to the point when she provoked me in an outrageous way, of course. I wonder if she gets along better with knights of comic stature like Dr. Arthur Seidl!