109. Reply

In the essay: "The Battle for the Nietzsche Edition", Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche claims: "Of the three gentlemen who are persecuting me with their attacks, Dr. Fritz Koegel, Dr. Rudolf Steiner and Gustav Naumann, each has had the passionate desire and made the strangest attempts to remain or become the sole editor of Nietzsche's works or at least to be involved as a collaborator." As far as this sentence refers to me, it is completely made up out of thin air and can only have the purpose of imputing ugly, personal motives to my attack on the Nietzsche Archive contained in the "Magazin" (February 10, 1900), which were as far removed from me as possible. It is my conviction that the administration of Friedrich Nietzsche's estate is not being handled properly. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche declared that I only wanted to take revenge because my "passionate wish" to become Nietzsche's editor in the autumn of 1896 was not fulfilled. I must reply to this assertion that I never applied for the position of Nietzsche editor, that I never even hinted at such a wish to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche. In the fall of 1896, however, I had to make every effort to fend off Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's continual "strangest attempts" to make me Nietzsche's editor. Later, after Dr. Koegel's departure from the Nietzsche Archive, friends of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche repeatedly suggested to me that it would be in the interest of "Nietzsche's cause" to have me as editor of his works. I emphasized in the face of all pressure that nothing would be done by me to obtain this position. If, however, I were approached by the administration of the Nietzsche Archive, the matter could be discussed after the relationship with Dr. Koegel had been put in perfect order. Negotiations became possible after a friend of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche from the Nietzsche Archive sent me a telegraphic request to come from Berlin to Weimar for such negotiations. Following these negotiations, on the twenty-seventh of June 1898, I wrote the letter from which Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche quotes a few sentences, with the intention of portraying my conduct in the conflict she had with Dr. Koegel and Gustav Naumann in the autumn of 1896 as incorrect. This letter is not a spontaneous expression of my feelings, but was written at Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's request. Her relationship with me was destroyed by the aforementioned conflicts into which she dragged me against my will. It would have seemed strange to Friedrich Nietzsche's legal representative, the Lord Mayor of Herern, Dr. Oehler, if Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche had made me the editor, despite the complete break. She wanted me to build a bridge to a new relationship through some written statement. From the urging of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's friends and from her own ideas, I had the impression that I was needed, and I decided to make a sacrifice for the cause. It goes without saying that a letter written for the purpose indicated and at Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's request could not be written impolitely; I wrote as politely as possible, but not a word that I could not write with complete conviction. The letter also contains nothing that contradicts my other behavior in the whole matter; I did not want to say anything detrimental to Koegel's edition. This is clear from the very sentences that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche quotes. She was also so unsatisfied with the content of my letter that she wrote to me on July 3, 1898: "The letter is very well received, but I am not entirely satisfied." What Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche wanted to have written, I was convinced I could not write. That is why my appointment could not come about. Later, in the Nietzsche Archive, in the presence of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche and a third party, I drafted another letter intended for Dr. Oehler. But the concept remained the same because I had finally realized that I could not "completely satisfy" Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche. For me, that was the end of the matter. So I never took part in any "battle for the Nietzsche edition". I still have the draft of a letter that I wrote to Mrs. Förster in the summer of 1897, when she tried to win me over for the edition. I wrote to her at the time: "I cannot help but consider him (Dr. Koegel) today, as always, to be the most suitable editor, and I am of the opinion that it is in the interest of the edition that he should complete it alone." It is also not true that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche ever asked me to judge Dr. Koegel's work on the twelfth volume of the Nietzsche edition. She never had any right to demand such a judgment. I was never in any official relationship with the Nietzsche Archive. And it is only in keeping with the style in which Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche believes she can treat those close to her when she says: "I treated him (Dr. Steiner) with undeserved leniency." She didn't have to "treat" me in any way. I did her favors because I had a friendly relationship with her. She speaks in a tone as if I had been in some kind of employment relationship with her. Equally incorrect is the claim that Dr. Koegel threatened me with a duel in order to intimidate me. Dr. Koegel never made such a threat to me. It is foolish to say that I could have been intimidated by a letter that Dr. Koegel addressed to a third party and of which I knew nothing. My fight against the Nietzsche Archive is a thoroughly objective one. I am completely uninfluenced by any desire to become a Nietzsche editor. There has never been such a desire.