Bernhard Förster
| Bernhard Förster | |
|---|---|
|
Bernhard Förster | |
| Born |
March 31, 1843 Delitzsch, Province of Saxony |
| Died |
June 3, 1889 (aged 46) San Bernardino, Paraguay |
| Cause of death | Suicide |
| Known for | Nueva Germania |
| Spouse(s) | Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche |
Bernhard Förster (March 31, 1843 – June 3, 1889) was a German teacher. He was married to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the sister of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Biography
Förster became a leading figure in the anti-Semitic faction on the far right of German politics and wrote on the Jewish question, characterizing Jews as constituting a "parasite on the German body".[1] In order to support his beliefs he set up the Deutscher Volksverein (German People's League) in 1881 with Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg.[2]
He left Germany in 1886 to emigrate to Paraguay and the following year he set up a colony known as "Nueva Germania". However, as this initiative was a failure, he eventually committed suicide by poisoning himself with a combination of morphine and strychnine in his room at the Hotel del Lago in San Bernardino, Paraguay on June 3, 1889.
Bernhard Förster was laid to rest in San Bernardino.[3]
References
- ↑ Hannu Salmi (1994). "Die Sucht nach dem germanischen Ideal" (in German). Also published in Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 6/1994, pp. 485-496
- ↑ Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship, 1970, pp. 59-60
- ↑ Kracht, C., & Woodard, D., Five Years, Vol. 1 (Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2011).