The Private Nietzsche

The furniture of Nietzsche’s estate offers revealing insights into the philosopher’s and his sister’s lifestyle and the development of the Nietzsche cult.

The desolate condition of the furnishings and household items reflects their eventful history. The devotional objects, once worshipped by the philosopher’s admirers, were packed away in post-war East Germany and have since been practically forgotten. On the occasion of the 2023 Theme Year “Living”, the exhibition “The Private Nietzsche – An Impossible Exhibition” presents the unrestored objects in crates and asks how museums should treat the memorabilia of historic figures. The Nietzsche-Archiv is both an outstanding and problematiccommemorative site. The archive rooms on the ground floor, designed by Henry van de Velde in the Jugendstil style, are accessible to visitors as a museum, while the siblings’ former living quarters upstairs have mainly been used to accommodate guests. After her broth er’s death in August 1900, Elisabeth Förster-Nietsche converted her brother’s death chamber into a memorial site. In socialist East Germany, the philosopher fell into disfavour as being a visionary of fascism, and the predecessor institution of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar assumed responsibility of the building and used it for administrative purposes. Nietzsche’s personal belongings remained in storage for more than 70 years.

At first glance, this hodgepodge of different styles and epochs appears to draw its value from its provenance. With its unusual presentation in shipping crates and pallets, “The Private Nietzsche” underscores the “homelessness” of the Nietzsche memorabilia. The furnishings and personal items reveal how the philosopher lived and how he imagined ideal living. And yet the question remains: How do we handle this problematic collection which researchers have yet to thoroughly examine and catalogue.