Nietzsche edition

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The Nietzsche edition is the compilation of writings by Friedrich Nietzsche in the form of a work edition or a selection of works .

First plans after Nietzsche's collapse

At the turn of the year 1888/89 Nietzsche had fallen into mental derangement without having brought his works into a recognizable canonical form. Some of the older works were available in different editions from different publishers, two works were in print - with Nietzsche's contradicting instructions - and unprinted materials were also available in various stages of production. This unprinted material was initially collected by Franz Overbeck in consultation with Heinrich Köselitz , who in turn consulted with Nietzsche's last publisher, Constantin Georg Naumann, on how to proceed. Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche , who had returned from Paraguay for the first time at the end of 1890 , also got involved in the negotiations on behalf of the family. In the meantime it was foreseeable that Nietzsche's writings would find increasing sales. At the beginning of 1892 an initial agreement was reached on a complete edition. This was published by Naumann and was supervised by Köselitz.

The editions of the Nietzsche archive

In September 1893, Elisabeth Förster finally returned to Germany. She had the Köselitz edition broken off after five volumes had appeared, recalled and crushed. She founded in Naumburg (Saale) the later of Weimar relocated Nietzsche Archive . Under his supervision, various editions were published in the following years, with changing editors and fluctuating, but in the opinion of today's Nietzsche research, but generally in insufficient quality.

Particularly noteworthy is the so-called large octave edition (today's common symbols: GA ), which appeared from 1894 to 1913 first in Leipzig by CG Naumann, later by Alfred Kröner Verlag and comprised 19 volumes; a register tape was added in 1926.

This edition was also canceled in 1897 (after eight work and four estate volumes) due to differences between Förster-Nietzsche and the publisher Fritz Koegel (customary sigla of the volumes edited by Koegel: GAK ). In a new print from 1899, the estate volumes were rearranged and contained in particular (but again in different versions) the powerful compilation The Will to Power .

In addition, the small octave edition (1895–1904) and various pocket editions were published, all of which were more or less based on the large octave edition. The 23-volume Musarion edition ( MusA ) was published in Munich from 1920 to 1929 and was intended as a monumental collector's edition. In terms of content, however, it did not go much further than the grand octave edition ("Its monumentality is in inverse proportion to its scientific importance" - Mazzino Montinari ).

Criticism of the archive's editions

All editions of the Nietzsche Archive were basically subject to fierce criticism from literary scholars from the start, in some cases even from former employees of the archive. In opposition to the Weimar interpretation , the Basel interpretation was formed around Carl Albrecht Bernoulli , who saw itself as the successor to Franz Overbeck . The most important critics were Ernst and August Horneffer , Charles Andler , Josef Hofmiller and Erich F. Podach ; Admittedly, the aforementioned Fritz Koegel and Rudolf Steiner , who were also brief employees, had already made known the archive's questionable editing methods. A broader public, however, was not aware of this criticism or was indifferent to it; at any rate, the vast majority of researchers, and even more so of the public, used the Weimar editions without criticism.

Term of protection expired in 1930

In 1930 the protection period for Nietzsche's works expired . The archive had previously tried unsuccessfully to extend the term of protection to 50 years. In the same year the Kröner Verlag published three different editions, the following year also the Reclam Verlag . An estate edition under the title The Innocence of Becoming , published by Alfred Baeumler at Kröner, also followed in 1931. None of these editions went beyond the GA, some were considerably shortened in comparison, they are all scientifically worthless.

Meanwhile, the Nietzsche Archive was planning a completely new, critical edition, partly to take account of criticism from outside and its own concern about independent editions. This historical-critical complete edition (HKG, today common code: BAW), which was published from 1933 by the archive (responsible: Hans Joachim Mette and Karl Schlechta ) in the publishing house CH Beck , was criticized in 1938 by the National Socialist authorities as "scientification". Because of this and the Second World War, no further volumes were produced. Erich Podach accused this edition of philological inadequacy and embarrassing errors after just a few volumes.

The Schlechta issue and criticism of it

From 1954 Karl Schlechta published a new edition of Nietzsche's works and a selection of his bequests at Carl Hanser Verlag . This so-called Schlechta edition (SA) sparked a new debate mainly because Schlechta in his "philological review" (first published in 1957) identified various forgeries of Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche in Nietzsche's estate and letters, as well as the earlier compilation Der Will to power dissolved. Schlechta denied the use of the estate material at all, at least as far as it was known up to then.

It was only with this issue, followed by lively press coverage, that the falsifying activities of the Nietzsche Archives became known to a wider public. But there was also criticism of the edition from various sides.

Criticism of Löwith, Baeumler and others

The philosopher Karl Löwith by and large defended the earlier compilation The Will to Power . He was of the opinion that the reproduction of the estate according to chronological order obscures the view of Nietzsche's work of thought and that the reader now has to look for passages in the text that belong together. In his opinion, the framework of a “major work” was clearly recognizable in the estate. An edition based on philologically correct and exact standards, on the other hand, would cover up the essentials of Nietzsche's thinking. Alfred Baeumler expressed similar criticism , who at the same time defended the compilation Der Wille zur Macht as well as the selection of his estates published by himself in 1931 The Innocence of Becoming . However, Baeumler changed some passages in new editions of his afterwords to the works mentioned - the Kröner-Verlag and others published them in new editions, unimpressed by the debate - in order to at least weaken completely untenable claims. Even Rudolf Pannwitz criticized Schlechta issue with similar arguments.

Criticism of Podach

The criticism raised by Erich Podach went in precisely the opposite direction. He accused the former archive employee Schlechta of having started a new Nietzsche legend: namely that of Nietzsche's sister's sole guilt for the distortions and forgeries. In fact, many scholars, including Schlechta himself, took part in it; and the zeitgeist was only too happy to be deceived. Furthermore, Schlechta's new edition is scientifically insufficient. So it is not understandable why Schlechta, if he wanted to destroy the legend of a "major work" The Will to Power , would bring the same selection of estate agencies, just in a different order - especially since, as Podach has shown, still not in the correct chronological order. His main accusation against Schlechta was that he had not used the manuscripts stored in Weimar, that is, in the GDR in the meantime , and had even made misleading information about their accessibility (in the first edition of the SA). Podach himself used these manuscripts to publish Nietzsche's Works of Collapse (NWZ) in 1961 and a look at Nietzsche's notebooks in 1963 . These can be seen as the first actually scientific editions of Nietzsche's late works and a selection of his papers. The French Nietzsche researcher Pierre Champromis, who found some of Podach's assignments to be incorrect, criticized this edition.

The Colli Montinari edition

In the early 1960s, Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari prepared an Italian edition of Nietzsche. To do this, however, they needed a reliable German-language basis. Both the old editions of the archive and the Schlechta edition raised unanswered questions; in particular, none of the previous editions was apparently suitable for a complete edition of the estate. Montinari traveled to Weimar in 1961 to get an overview of the original manuscripts at hand, and in consultation with Colli agreed that they should publish a completely new, critical complete edition. The publisher Einaudi , which was to publish the translation, rejected this project out of concerns of financial and ideological nature. In the course of this, Luciano Foà, previously employed by Einaudi, founded the new publishing house Adelphi Edizioni and secured the publication of the new edition through a contract with the major Parisian publishing house Gallimard ; the first Italian volumes appeared in 1964. Only then did the German publisher De Gruyter show interest, and from 1967 the Critical Complete Edition (KGW) was also published in German. In the 1970s, supported by the Nietzsche Studies , also co-founded by Montinari , it replaced the earlier editions as the standard edition. To date, approximately 40 volumes have been published, particularly since 2001, the estate from 1885 in differentiated transcription and accompanying facsimile - CD-ROMs . Essentially, a few commentary volumes are still missing.

In 1980 the Critical Study Edition (KSA, second edition 1988) appeared for the first time , which contains works and philosophical legacies from 1869 onwards, as well as a shortened apparatus compared to the complete edition. The KSA is structured as follows:

  • KSA 1: The Birth of Tragedy, Untimely Considerations I – IV, Nachgelassene Schriften 1870–1873
  • KSA 2: Human, All Too Human I and II
  • KSA 3: Dawn, Idylls from Messina, The happy science
  • KSA 4: Thus spoke Zarathustra
  • KSA 5: Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals
  • KSA 6: The Wagner case, Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist / Ecce homo, Dionysus dithyrambs / Nietzsche contra Wagner
  • KSA 7: Leftover Fragments 1869-1874
  • KSA 8: Left Fragments 1875-1879
  • KSA 9: Leftover Fragments 1880-1882
  • KSA 10: Left Fragments 1882-1884
  • KSA 11: Left Fragments 1884-1885
  • KSA 12: Left Fragments 1885-1887
  • KSA 13: Left Fragments 1887-1889
  • KSA 14: Introduction to the KSA, list of works and symbols, commentary on volumes 1–13
  • KSA 15: Chronicle of Nietzsche's life, concordance, index of all poems, complete index

The Nietzsche commentary of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, which has been published by Walter de Gruyter since 2012 (written by Jochen Schmidt and Andreas Urs Sommer , among others ) follows the KSA, but corrects KSA printing errors in some places after the first edition or Nietzsche's print manuscripts. Three volumes have appeared so far; The aim of the company is to comment historically and critically on all of Nietzsche's works and thus to develop them in their context.

Other expenses

Nietzsche editions are also published by various publishers. The editions published by Reclam are based on the Colli-Montinari edition and contain additional afterwords by important Nietzsche researchers ( Günter Figal , Volker Gerhardt , Josef Simon ). Own editions are published by Insel- and Goldmann Verlag , among others , the latter compiled by Peter Pütz . However, both are scientifically inferior to the Colli Montinari edition, especially in terms of commentary, the Insel series even brings partially incomplete texts to old archive editions. The Alfred Kröner Verlag also has an edition on offer that contains The Will to Power and The Innocence of Becoming .

Under the title Nietzsche's Nietzsche. Last-hand works was announced by the publishing house Lagerfeld-Steidl-Druckerei (LSD; program director: Karl Lagerfeld ) founded in 2010 a bibliophile 19-volume complete edition of Nietzsche's works in the versions “from the last hand” (publisher: Rüdiger Schmidt-Grépály ), the should appear from 2012. So far, two volumes in preparation for the complete edition have been published in this series. a. with the participation of Renate Reschke , Peter Sloterdijk and Bazon Brock .

The Felix Meiner Verlag brought in 2013 in the series Philosophical Library one of Claus-Artur Scheier published six-volume edition out that "the 1885 by Nietzsche decisions taken itself and justified concept of a new edition of his philosophical in the strict sense" "fonts" follows.

Also in 2013, Verlag Stroemfeld published a reprint of Also sprach Zarathustra (1885), the first volume of an edition of the “Last Hand Works”, the so-called Basel Edition, edited by Ludger Lütkehaus and David Marc Hoffmann .

Digital editions

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David Marc Hoffmann describes in On the History of the Nietzsche Archive (de Gruyter 1991) the publication history of the Nietzsche Archive and its background; for copyright renewal see p. 104
  2. ↑ see Hoffmann, p. 118
  3. ^ Karl Schlechta (Ed.): Friedrich Nietzsche, works in three volumes (with index volume). 8th edition. Hanover / Munich 1966.
  4. ↑ Note in the text ( Memento of the original from September 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , previously in the Steidl Spring 2012 catalog, pp. 27–29 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.steidl.de
  5. ↑ Learn to read me well! , published by Steidl
  6. ↑ On the return of the author , published by Steidl

literature

Complete editions - extensively commented

  • Works. Critical Complete Edition Sigel : KGW , ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Berlin and New York 1967ff.
  • Letters. Critical Complete Edition Sigel : KGB , ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Berlin and New York 1975-2004

Study editions - inexpensive paperback editions

  • Complete works, critical study edition in 15 volumes Sigel : KSA , ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Munich and New York 1980. ISBN 3-423-59044-0
  • All letters. Critical study edition Sigel : KSB , ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Munich and New York 1986. ISBN 3-423-59063-7

other :

  • Birth of a tragedy. Writings on literature and philosophy of the Greeks . Edited by Manfred Landfester . Frankfurt / Main: Insel 1994 (single edition with extensive commentary)

Secondary literature

  • Mette, Hans Joachim : The handwritten estate of Friedrich Nietzsche. Sixth annual edition of the Society of Friends of the Nietzsche Archive, 1932. Scan html - Mette's cataloging of the estate is still valid today. At the same time, an outline of the early publication history with a slight criticism of the archive's previous editing practice.
  • Schlechta, Karl: The Nietzsche case. Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 1958. - Schlechta's defense of his edition
  • Podach, Erich F .: Friedrich Nietzsche's works of collapse. Wolfgang Rothe Verlag, Heidelberg 1961. - contains extensive (partly polemical ) criticism of previous editions
  • Montinari, Mazzino: The new critical complete edition of Nietzsche's works. in: Nietzsche read. de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 1982, ISBN 3-11-008667-0 - describes shortcomings in older editions and the history of the KGW; Slightly modified version of this text also as a foreword in volume 14 (commentary volume) of the KSA
  • Hoffmann, David Marc: On the history of the Nietzsche archive. de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 1991. ISBN 3-11-013014-9 - describes the publication history of the Nietzsche archive and its background