Friedrich Würzbach
Encyclopedia
Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf Wurzbach [Würzbach] (1886 Berlin - 1961 Munich). Nietzsche scholar, Nazi sympathiser and convinced propagandist, was born in Berlin in the summer of 1886 to a Polish-Jewish mother and German-Protestant father.
. Other members soon included writers and intellectuals such as Thomas Mann
and Hugo von Hofmannsthal
who like many European academics of the time, perceived a kindred soul in Friedrich Nietzsche
. Wurzbach’s first publication in 1921 was a treatise on Dionysus
which rehashed certain elements of Nietzsche’s thoughts on the Manichean rivalry of Apollonian and Dionysian forces within cultures. Apart from his doctoral thesis published 1924, which offered an eccentric theory of prehistoric artifacts and tools, his subsequent career was almost exclusively dedicated to Nietzsche’s work.
Throughout the 1920s, Wurzbach, along with Richard and Max Oehler
, worked on the Musarion Editions of Nietzsche’s Complete Works. According to a self-penned resume in 1934, and his later mercy-plea to Hitler
in 1940, he gave lectures railing against the "Jewish philosopher Edmund Husserl
". He claimed to have given lectures on the subject of Husserl in Berlin
‘25, Freiburg ‘26, Basel
‘26, Paris
‘26, Riga
‘28. Whether in fact these lectures dealt with Husserl in an anti-Semitic manner, as his resume suggests, or whether this was simply the boastings of a pragmatic job-seeker has not yet been established. One thing is certain however, during the 1920s Wurzbach drifted toward certain readings of Nietzsche, and philosophy
in general, which leaned toward the ultra-nationalist Nazi Weltanschauung which would emerge triumphant in Germany
of the ‘30s.
It was at the 1924 International Philosophy Congress in Naples
where Wurzbach first aired his view that philosophers are determined by their race. Thereby, Kant
and others were not just "philosophical Germans, but Germanic philosophers". He was to continue using this racial argument throughout his career.
Rather than reading "Germanic" as related to the cultural influence of one’s nation, Wurzbach became convinced of a biological-racial reading of Nietzsche. As Wurzbach asserted in his 1926 Afterword to the Musarion Will to Power
, "We proclaim the W.t.P [Will to Power] to be Nietzsche’s most important work. We identify as particularly important its biological and regulative character; all that remains is to adumbrate in which sense it is philosophical". He goes on to expound on his biological reading when he speculates that Nietzsche ‘foresaw’ the theory of Keimplasma when he identified a "spiritual originary-substance" one which "eternally grounds life" giving the "laws of life". Keimplasma theory, at least Wurzbach's reading of August Weismann's
work, was a popular basis for Nazi racial theories
at it was argued that through Keimplasma certain racial characteristics, temperaments and values could be passed from generation to generation and remain within a given 'race'.
. According to a 1933 document, the aim of his shows was to further aggrandize Nazi notions of German racial superiority, beneficent fascism
, and of course the thesis of a special destiny for the German ‘race'. Although Wurzbach was to claim in his Entnazifizierung
[de-Nazification hearings] file, that he had been on a “secret mission” to subvert the regime, his published broadcasts, books and articles imply that Wurzbach was in fact, at least publicly, deeply enmeshed within the NSDAP doctrine.
stock. Wurzbach was eventually fired from his position at the radio-station when his final plea for clemency, petitioned to Hitler, was turned down. The Director of the station, Helmuth Habersbrunner [1899-1959] wrote a number of letters in an attempt overturn Würzbach’s suspension, in one such letter to a high ranking Nazi official, Habersbrunner wrote
In 1943 the Nietzsche Society was officially banned by the Gestapo
and their files were destroyed. Although he was prevented from working Wurzbach maintained contact with his colleagues and managed to publish number of books, including, shortly before his dismissal, Das Vermächtnis Friedrich Nietzsches [Nietzsche’s Legacy]. This was collection of Nietzsche’s unpublished work, which at the time was described by Günther Lotz, spokesman for the Ministry for the People’s Enlightenment and Propaganda as an “important work for our current world-view situation”. Wurzbach’s monumental achievement, the painstaking process of assembling and cataloguing Nietzsche’s Nachlass, was, however, overshadowed by his continued adherence to the biological-Nazi reading of Nietzsche.
after the war. He presented himself to the commission as a victim and was officially given the political all-clear in 1946. He then worked intermittently at the Vocational College [Volkshochschule] in Munich until his death on the 14th of May 1961. In those final years after the war he repeatedly tried, in vain, to regain regular air-time at the radio station from which he had been dismissed. As far as his philosophy was concerned, he continued to read Nietzsche as proffering a biological-hierarchical theory; as is evident in his claim in an essay written late in 1945, that we need a “hierarchy of Man, not according to our own standards, but according to the given hierarchical and power order”. Furthermore, when he republished his 1932 polemic Erkennen und Erleben [Know & Experience] in 1949, albeit with some changes and under the new title of Grundtypen des Menschen; he therewith demonstrated his lasting antipathy to, and misunderstanding of Edmund Husserl and his philosophy.
Staatsarchiv München, Akten der Spruchkammer: Miesbach 19/1866/46. Dr. Friedrich Würzbach; Rottach.
Nietzsche/Nietzsche Gesellschaft in Munich
Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchive: Generalintendanz Bayer. Staatstheater, No. 1375.
Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchive: Nietzsche Gesellschaft.
Personnel File from Reichsender München
Bayerische Rundfunk Historisches Archiv (BRHA): Friedrich Würzbach, RV. 16.
Letters/Documents
Bundesarchiv, Lichterfeld: Berlin (BA)
Geheim Staatarchive Preußischer Kultusministerium (GStA PK) I. HA Rep. 76 Kultusministerium, Va. Universitäten Sekt. 1 Tit. XIX.
Nietzsche Archive Weimar
Goethe-Schiller Archiv (GSA: 72)
Republished as:
Other
The Nietzsche Years (1919-1933)
In 1919 Wurzbach founded the Nietzsche Society in MunichMunich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
. Other members soon included writers and intellectuals such as Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
and Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal ; , was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist.-Early life:...
who like many European academics of the time, perceived a kindred soul in Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
. Wurzbach’s first publication in 1921 was a treatise on Dionysus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
which rehashed certain elements of Nietzsche’s thoughts on the Manichean rivalry of Apollonian and Dionysian forces within cultures. Apart from his doctoral thesis published 1924, which offered an eccentric theory of prehistoric artifacts and tools, his subsequent career was almost exclusively dedicated to Nietzsche’s work.
Throughout the 1920s, Wurzbach, along with Richard and Max Oehler
Max Oehler
Max Oehler was a German army officer and archivist for the "Nietzsche-Archiv." Oehler pursued his career in the German Empire's military until the end of World War I and the German November Revolution. Under the Weimar Republic, which he opposed, he served as an archivist in his cousin Elisabeth...
, worked on the Musarion Editions of Nietzsche’s Complete Works. According to a self-penned resume in 1934, and his later mercy-plea to Hitler
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
in 1940, he gave lectures railing against the "Jewish philosopher Edmund Husserl
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
". He claimed to have given lectures on the subject of Husserl in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
‘25, Freiburg ‘26, Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
‘26, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
‘26, Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
‘28. Whether in fact these lectures dealt with Husserl in an anti-Semitic manner, as his resume suggests, or whether this was simply the boastings of a pragmatic job-seeker has not yet been established. One thing is certain however, during the 1920s Wurzbach drifted toward certain readings of Nietzsche, and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
in general, which leaned toward the ultra-nationalist Nazi Weltanschauung which would emerge triumphant in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
of the ‘30s.
It was at the 1924 International Philosophy Congress in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
where Wurzbach first aired his view that philosophers are determined by their race. Thereby, Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
and others were not just "philosophical Germans, but Germanic philosophers". He was to continue using this racial argument throughout his career.
Rather than reading "Germanic" as related to the cultural influence of one’s nation, Wurzbach became convinced of a biological-racial reading of Nietzsche. As Wurzbach asserted in his 1926 Afterword to the Musarion Will to Power
Will to Power
The will to power is a prominent concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and in the psychotherapy of Alfred Adler. The term may also refer to:*The Will to Power , a posthumous publication of Nietzsche's notebooks...
, "We proclaim the W.t.P [Will to Power] to be Nietzsche’s most important work. We identify as particularly important its biological and regulative character; all that remains is to adumbrate in which sense it is philosophical". He goes on to expound on his biological reading when he speculates that Nietzsche ‘foresaw’ the theory of Keimplasma when he identified a "spiritual originary-substance" one which "eternally grounds life" giving the "laws of life". Keimplasma theory, at least Wurzbach's reading of August Weismann's
August Weismann
Friedrich Leopold August Weismann was a German evolutionary biologist. Ernst Mayr ranked him the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charles Darwin...
work, was a popular basis for Nazi racial theories
Nazism and race
Nazism developed several theories concerning races. The Nazis claimed to scientifically measure a strict hierarchy of human race; at the top was the master race, the "Aryan race", narrowly defined by the Nazis as being identical with the Nordic race, followed by lesser races.At the bottom of this...
at it was argued that through Keimplasma certain racial characteristics, temperaments and values could be passed from generation to generation and remain within a given 'race'.
Nazi Propagandist (1933-1939)
In 1933 Wurzbach was appointed to head of World View [Weltanschauung] at the Munich city radio-station [Reichsender München]. This appontment was approved by Joseph GoebbelsJoseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
. According to a 1933 document, the aim of his shows was to further aggrandize Nazi notions of German racial superiority, beneficent fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
, and of course the thesis of a special destiny for the German ‘race'. Although Wurzbach was to claim in his Entnazifizierung
Denazification
Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...
[de-Nazification hearings] file, that he had been on a “secret mission” to subvert the regime, his published broadcasts, books and articles imply that Wurzbach was in fact, at least publicly, deeply enmeshed within the NSDAP doctrine.
Jewish 'Victim' (1939-1945)
Wurzbach’s attraction to Nazism is all the more curious as Wurzbach himself was, in the language of the Nazi Racial-Purity Department, “half-Jewish”. This was a fact he himself denied by falsely claiming that he had been born to a different mother, whose name his father had never told him, and thus, he urged, he was of ‘true’ AryanAryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
stock. Wurzbach was eventually fired from his position at the radio-station when his final plea for clemency, petitioned to Hitler, was turned down. The Director of the station, Helmuth Habersbrunner [1899-1959] wrote a number of letters in an attempt overturn Würzbach’s suspension, in one such letter to a high ranking Nazi official, Habersbrunner wrote
“When one works closely with someone for six years, one ought to have felt the Jew coming through on at least one occasion. Especially me, who can usually sniff a Jew out from a hundred metres, against the wind. I have never spotted the slightest trace of Jewish Geist. On the contrary, a true Aryan mentality.”Despite the protests, (there are a considerable number of letters and statements from colleagues trying to reverse the decision in his personnel-file) and despite Würzbach’s official “Political Judgement”, which claimed that Wurzbach was “completely convinced of the world-beating meaning of National Socialism”, he was finally dismissed in September 1940.
In 1943 the Nietzsche Society was officially banned by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
and their files were destroyed. Although he was prevented from working Wurzbach maintained contact with his colleagues and managed to publish number of books, including, shortly before his dismissal, Das Vermächtnis Friedrich Nietzsches [Nietzsche’s Legacy]. This was collection of Nietzsche’s unpublished work, which at the time was described by Günther Lotz, spokesman for the Ministry for the People’s Enlightenment and Propaganda as an “important work for our current world-view situation”. Wurzbach’s monumental achievement, the painstaking process of assembling and cataloguing Nietzsche’s Nachlass, was, however, overshadowed by his continued adherence to the biological-Nazi reading of Nietzsche.
Post War (1945-1961)
Wurzbach escaped prosecution by the AlliesAllies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
after the war. He presented himself to the commission as a victim and was officially given the political all-clear in 1946. He then worked intermittently at the Vocational College [Volkshochschule] in Munich until his death on the 14th of May 1961. In those final years after the war he repeatedly tried, in vain, to regain regular air-time at the radio station from which he had been dismissed. As far as his philosophy was concerned, he continued to read Nietzsche as proffering a biological-hierarchical theory; as is evident in his claim in an essay written late in 1945, that we need a “hierarchy of Man, not according to our own standards, but according to the given hierarchical and power order”. Furthermore, when he republished his 1932 polemic Erkennen und Erleben [Know & Experience] in 1949, albeit with some changes and under the new title of Grundtypen des Menschen; he therewith demonstrated his lasting antipathy to, and misunderstanding of Edmund Husserl and his philosophy.
Archival Sources
Denazification FilesStaatsarchiv München, Akten der Spruchkammer: Miesbach 19/1866/46. Dr. Friedrich Würzbach; Rottach.
Nietzsche/Nietzsche Gesellschaft in Munich
Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchive: Generalintendanz Bayer. Staatstheater, No. 1375.
Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchive: Nietzsche Gesellschaft.
Personnel File from Reichsender München
Bayerische Rundfunk Historisches Archiv (BRHA): Friedrich Würzbach, RV. 16.
Letters/Documents
Bundesarchiv, Lichterfeld: Berlin (BA)
Geheim Staatarchive Preußischer Kultusministerium (GStA PK) I. HA Rep. 76 Kultusministerium, Va. Universitäten Sekt. 1 Tit. XIX.
Nietzsche Archive Weimar
Goethe-Schiller Archiv (GSA: 72)
Würzbach Bibliography
- Erkennen und Erleben: Der "Große Kopf" und der "Günstling der Natur". Berlin: Volksverband Der Bücherfreunde Wegweiser-Verlag, 1932.
Republished as:
- Grundtypen der Menschen: Der "Große Kopf" und der "Günstling der Natur" 1941 [Officially Censured]
- Grundtypen der Menschen: Der "Große Kopf" und der "Günstling der Natur". Bamberg: Bamberger Reiter Verlag, 1949
Other
- Ariadne: Jahrbuch der Nietzsche-Gesellschaft 1925. Ed. Friedrich Würzbach. München: 1925.
- Dionysus. München: Nietzsche Gesellschaft Verlag/ Im Musarion Verlag, 1921.
- "Nachbericht zum Wille zur Macht" in Friedrich Nietzsche: Gesammelte Werke, Musarion Ausgabe 1922-1929.
- Der Wille zur Macht, Band XIX, 1926, 403-35.
- Arbeit und Arbeiter in der neuen Gesellschaftsordnung. [Radio Broadcast], Berlin, Leipzig: Bong & Co., 1933
- Nietzsche und das deutsche Schicksal [Radio Broadcast], Berlin, Leipzig: Bong & Co., 1933
- Die Wiedergeburt des Geistes aus dem Blute in Völkischer BeobachterVölkischer BeobachterThe Völkischer Beobachter was the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from February 8, 1923...
People's Observer - Daily Nazi Party Sponsored Newspaper: 14-Jan.-1934 - Das dionysische Lied des Deutschen in Völkischer Beobachter: 26-Jan.-1934
- Das Vermächtnis Friedrich Nietzsches in Völkischer Beobachter: 14-Nov.-1934
- Die Würdigung Friedreich Nietzsches in Völkischer Beobachter:16-May-35
- Vom Geist der Rasse [Spirit of Race] Frauenwarte 1938, Heft 20, p. 625
- Das Vermächtnis Friedrich Nietzsches. Salzburg; Leipzig: Pustet Verlag, 1940
- Nietzsche: Ein Leben in Selbstzeugnissen Briefen und Berichten. Berlin: Im Prophyläen Verlag, 1942
- Das Rohmaterial prähistorischer Silexwerkzeuge nach Vorkommen und Eigenschaften Freiburg i.B., Naturwiss.-math. Diss. v. 5. Mai 1924.
- Friedrich Würzbach & Fritz Krökel. Die Quellen unserer Kraft: Ein Lesebuch vom Ewigen Deutschen. Graz: Steirischer Verlag, 1943
- "Das Bild des Menschen" in Zwei unveröffentlichen Manuskripte aus dem Nachlaß. Ed. W.L. Hohmann. (Essen: Das Blaue Eule, 1984) pp. 13–66.
External links
- Friedrich Würzbach Biogrpaphical Information - http://homepages.uni-tuebingen.de/gerd.simon/ChrWuerzbach2.pdf
- The Will To Power - http://www.theperspectivesofnietzsche.com/nietzsche/nwill.html
- Munich Radio Chronicle - http://www.br-online.de/unternehmen/geschichte-des-br/br-chronik-DID1188598517/br-chronik-rundfunk-nationalsozialismus-ID661188598472.xml
- Information on the Musarion Editions of Nietzsche's works: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nietzsche-Ausgabe
- Spirit of Race Translation - http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/fw6-20a.htm