Carl Ludwig Nietzsche

Carl Ludwig Nietzsche

Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (born October 10, 1813 in Eilenburg , Kingdom of Saxony , † July 30, 1849 in Röcken , Prussian Province of Saxony ) was a German Lutheran pastor and the father of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche .

Life

Carl Ludwig Nietzsche was born in 1813, the same year as Richard Wagner , who later became Friedrich Nietzsche's friend and patron. His mother Erdmuthe Dorothea, nee Krause (born December 11, 1778 Reichenbach im Vogtland in, † 3 April 1856 Naumburg an der Saale ), was first married to a Court Advocate Kruger in Weimar been married, had at the time of Goethe lived in Weimar and there witnessed the occupation of Weimar by the French. His father Friedrich August Ludwig Nietzsche had been pastor to Wohlmirstedt for a time and then rose to superintendent in the Prussian-Saxon town of Eilenburg. From his father's first marriage, Carl Ludwig had seven half-siblings, one of whom later became prosperous in England and established the family's prosperity through his inheritance, to which Friedrich Nietzsche was also to owe his financial livelihood. From his father's second marriage, Carl Ludwig had two sisters, Auguste and Rosalie, who later played a decisive role as aunts in Friedrich Nietzsche's childhood.

Following the example of his father, Carl Ludwig studied theology in Halle and then worked as a tutor for the princesses at the ducal court in Altenburg . In 1842 he was given the parish office in the village of Röcken near Lützen in Prussian Saxony on the “highest order” of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. He moved into the parsonage there, together with his mother and the two unmarried sisters, from whom Auguste took over the management of the household while Rosalie was engaged in charitable activities.

In the memories of his youth that the son Friedrich wrote when he was only fourteen years old ( From my life , 1858), Friedrich describes the father in his social role as pastor of Röcken:

My father was a preacher for this place and at the same time for the neighboring villages of Michlitz and Bothfeld. The perfect picture of a country clergyman! Endowed with spirit and spirit, adorned with all the virtues of a Christian, he lived a quiet, simple but happy life and was respected and loved by all who knew him. His fine demeanor and cheerful disposition embellished some of the parties to which he was invited and made him popular everywhere on his first appearance. He filled his leisure time with beautiful science and music. He had acquired an important skill in playing the piano, especially in free variations.

During an inaugural visit to his official brother David Ernst Oehler, the pastor of the neighboring community of Pobles , Carl Ludwig made the acquaintance of his youngest daughter Franziska , whom he married on his 30th birthday, October 10, 1843, when he was seventeen at the time. Franziska Nietzsche remembered the first encounter at which Carl Ludwig made an impression through improvisations on the piano, later in retrospect as follows:

Coffee was drunk while chatting happily, then the pastor, already known to us as a piano player, was encouraged to fantasize about what he was doing with particular mastery that day.

A little more than a year after the marriage, on October 15, 1844, the eldest son was born, who was baptized in the name of Friedrich Wilhelm because, as the father Carl Ludwig emphasized in his baptismal address, the royal benefactor Friedrich Wilhelm IV. celebrated his birthday on this day:

[...] You blessed month of October, in which all the most important events of my life happened to me in the different years, what I will experience today on October 24th is the greatest, the most glorious - I am to baptize my child !! O blessed moment, o delicious celebration, o inexpressibly holy work, be blessed in the name of the Lord! [...] - And now, with unspeakable feelings, with the most deeply moved heart, I speak it out: now then bring me this, my dear child, that I may consecrate it to the Lord! My son Friedrich Wilhelm, this is how you should be called on earth, in memory of my royal benefactor, on whose birthday you were born [...]

The father described the two-year-old son in a letter in 1846:

Brother Fritz is a wild boy whom papa alone sometimes brings to reason, when his rod is not far from him; but now someone else helps educate more powerfully, because that is the dear holy Christian, who has already taken little Fritz's head and heart that he does not want to speak and hear about anything other than the 'sound box'! - It is something very lovely.

However, it is passed down from the family that the father not only raised the son with the "rut" and sermons, but was also often called to "make music" to calm the lively child and thus left an unforgettable impression on him for a lifetime.

In 1846, the daughter was Elisabeth born, the life of her brother Frederick and especially as executor and the founder and director of the Nietzsche Archive for the Nietzsche reception should play a decisive and problematic role. His third child, Karl Ludwig Joseph, was born in 1848, but he died in 1850.

In the late summer of 1848, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche fell ill with a serious illness from which he succumbed at the age of only 35. In the description of Friedrich Nietzsche's memories of the youth (1858):

In September 1848 my beloved father [r] [+] suddenly fell ill. However, we consoled each other [+] with a speedy recovery. Whenever there was a better day, he asked him to preach again and to have confirmand hours. For his active spirit could not have to remain. Several doctors tried to understand the nature of the disease, but in vain. So we brought the famous doctor Opolcer, who was then in Leipzig, to Röcken. This excellent man saw at once where the seat of the disease was to be sought. To the horror of all of us, he thought it was a softening of the brain that was not yet hopeless, but nevertheless very dangerous. My beloved father had to endure tremendous pain, but the disease did not want to lessen, it grew from day to day. Finally even his eyesight went out and in eternal darkness he still had to endure the rest of his suffering. His sick bed lasted until July 1849; the day of redemption drew near. On July 26th he fell into a deep slumber and only occasionally did he wake up. His last words were: Fränzchen, - Fränzchen - come - mother - hear - hear - oh God! - Then he fell asleep gently and blissfully. †††† d. July 27th. 1849. sic When I woke up in the morning, I heard loud weeping and sobbing all around me. My dear mother came in with tears and cried plaintively: Oh God! My good Ludwig is dead! Although I was still very young and inexperienced, I had an idea of ​​death; the thought of always seeing myself separated from my beloved father seized me and I wept bitterly. Oh God! I had become a fatherless orphan, my dear mother a widow! - -

As a result of this experience, Nietzsche lived later in fear that it was a hereditary disease and that he would suffer a similar fate. The father's “softening of the brain” has drawn various diagnoses in Nietzsche research, including a brain tumor or brain tuberculosis, and the possibility of a hereditary problem has often been speculated about. The family, especially Friedrich's sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, attached importance to the fact that an unfortunate fall with a concussion was the cause of the father's illness and death. In order to enforce this version and to prevent suspicion of hereditary disease, the sister forged the representation of her brother in her edition of the youth memories (at the passage quoted above "In September 1848 my beloved father suddenly became ill" , she apparently burned a hole into the manuscript and reproduced the passage as follows: "In September 1848 my beloved father suddenly became seriously ill as a result of a fall" ) and thus brought it into line with her own version of the course of events which she described in her biography of the brother ( Das Leben Friedrich Nietzsche's. I, Leipzig 1895, p. 5) reproduced as follows:

At the end of August 1848 he directed [sc. the father] friends home in the evening; on his return to the parsonage our little dog came between his feet at the door of the same - he stumbled and fell backwards down seven stone steps onto the pavement of the courtyard. As a result, he suffered a concussion, became ill, and died 11 months later.

On August 2, 1849, his father was buried in skirts. In the description of From my life :

The congregation had the grave walled up. At 1 o'clock noon the ceremony began to the sound of bells ringing. Oh, the muffled sound of the same will never get lost in my ears, I will never forget the dark, rustling melody of the song “Jesus my confidence”! Organ sounds roared through the halls of the churches. A large group of relatives and acquaintances had gathered, almost all the pastors and teachers in the area. Pastor Wimmer gave the altar speech, H. Supperindent Wilke am Grabe and H. Pastor Oßwalt the blessing. Then the coffin was lowered, the clergyman's muffled words resounded, and he, the dear father of all of us who suffered, was taken away. A believing soul lost the earth, a seeing soul was received by heaven.

A little later, the younger brother Joseph also fell ill and died, which Friedrich Nietzsche later related in such a way that shortly before, in a dream, he had seen the father rise from the grave and bring the child to him:

At that time I once dreamed that I heard the organ in church like at a funeral. When I saw what the cause was, a grave suddenly arose and my father in death's robe climbed out of it. He hurries to church and comes back shortly with a small child in his arms. The burial mound opens, he climbs in and the ceiling sinks back onto the opening. Immediately the roaring organ sound is silent and I wake up. Because the day after this night Josephchen suddenly becomes unwell, gets cramps and dies in a few hours. Our pain was immense. My dream was completely fulfilled. The little corpse was also placed in the arms of the father. With these double misfortunes, God in heaven was our only consolation and protection. This happened at the end of January 1850.

Friedrich Nietzsche was barely five years old when his father died, so the father's share in the upbringing and intellectual development of the son was very limited in time. In Nietzsche's reception and research, he nevertheless played a certain role, not only in psychological and psychoanalytic attempts at interpretation, but also as a representative of the Protestant milieu with a pietistic orientation, which remained formative for Nietzsche in his later engagement with the Christian religion.

Remarks

1. ↑ Friedrich Nietzsche: From my life. I, In: Giorgio Colli, Mazzino Montinari (term): Works: Critical Complete Edition. Dept. I, Vol. 1, Walter de Gruyter Verlag, Berlin / New York 1995, p. 282, cited below as KGA
2. ↑ Quoted in the article by Carl Ludwig Nietzsche on www.friedrichnietzsche.de
3. ↑ The baptismal address is preserved in the Goethe and Schiller archives under the signature GSA 71/382 and is fully documented in: Reiner Bohley: Nietzsches Taufe in: Nietzsche-Studien 9 (1980), pp. 383-405, here: p. 399.
4. ^ CL Nietzsche to Emil Julius Schenk, December 15, 1846, quoted from: Stiftung Weimarer Klassik, Friedrich Nietzsche: Chronik in Bilder und Texten , Hanser Verlag, Munich / Vienna 2000, p. 11; Original in the Goethe and Schiller archive, signature GSA 100/396
5. ↑ From my life. KGA I.1, p. 285; for the gaps in the manuscript marked with [+] see below.
6. ↑ For example, in a letter to Carl von Gersdorff, January 18, 1876: “ My father died 36 years of encephalitis, it is possible that things will go faster for me. “Quoted after: Friedrich Nietzsche: Letters: Critical Complete Edition. Dept. II Volume 5, Walter de Gruyter Verlag, Berlin / New York 1980, p. 132; Digitized
7. ↑ For the following see Montinari 1991 (as in the bibliography), p. 6 f., And Hans Gerald Hödl: Poetry or Truth? In: Nietzsche Studies. 23 (1994) p. 285ff., Here p. 292ff.
8. ↑ Quoted by Montinari 1991 (see bibliography), p. 6, after: Elisabeth Förster Nietzsche: Das Leben Friedrich Nietzsche's. I, Leipzig 1895, p. 5.
9. ↑ ^{a b} From my life. KGA I.1, p. 286.

literature

• Klaus Goch: Nietzsche's Father or The Catastrophe of German Protestantism. Eine Biographie- Akademie Verlag, Berlin, 2001, ISBN 3-05-003077-1 .
• Eva Marsal: Who is Dionysus replacing? The "crucified one" in the many facets of the male Nietzsche dynasty: Friedrich August Ludwig Nietzsche, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche and Friedrich Nietzsche. In: Yearbook of the Nietzsche Society 9 (2002), pp. 132–146.
• Eva Marsal: 'Out of time viewing' as a family tradition of thought. An analysis of the cognitive style by Friedrich August Ludwig Nietzsche. In: Renate Reschke (Hrsg.): Turn of times - turn of values. International congress on the 100th anniversary of Friedrich Nietzsche's death from August 24th to 27th, 2000 in Naumburg (= Nietzsche research , special volume 1). Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-05-003619-2 , pp. 351–356.
• Mazzino Montinari : Friedrich Nietzsche. An introduction. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1991, ISBN 3-11-012213-8 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Carl Ludwig Nietzsche in the catalog of the German National Library
• Carl Ludwig Nietzsche on www.friedrichnietzsche.de
• Helmut Walter: The young Nietzsche. Revised and expanded version of a lecture on May 8, 2002 at the Society for Critical Philosophy Nuremberg. ( Memento from July 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive )