Nueva Germania

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Coordinates: 23°54′0″S 56°34′12″W / -23.9, -56.57
Nueva Germania
Nueva Germania
Country	Paraguay
Department	San Pedro
Population (2008)
- Total	1,308

Nueva Germania (New Germania) is a village in the San Pedro Department of Paraguay. The Nueva Germania settlement was founded in 1888 as a "racially pure" utopian settlement of the Aryan race by Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and her husband, the anti-Semitic agitator Bernhard Förster. Nowadays only 10% of the inhabitants are of mainly German origin.^[1] Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, sister of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, is believed to have first conceived the scheme after reading Richard Wagner's 1880 essay 'Religion and Art,' in which the composer "ranted against Germany's 1871 emancipation of the Jews."^[2]

Originally five, then fourteen mainly very poor^[1] families emigrated from Saxony to rural Paraguay - envisioned as a fertile paradise in which would blossom a model rural society that demonstrated the qualities of German culture. The area's remoteness was thought to allow protection for their unique German culture and allow it to flourish.

Nonetheless, the settlers were unprepared for the hardships of working the land, which was not suitable for German methods of farming. Illness ran rampant, and transportation to the colony was slow and difficult. With the project increasingly mired in debt, Bernhard Förster fatally poisoned himself in a Paraguayan hotel, and Elisabeth returned home.

As of 1992, there was little access to electricity or telephone service, and none of the roads were paved.^[3]

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b Evangelische Gemeinde Düren [1] Brochure by the Protestant Parish of Dueren (in German), contains pictures.
^ Epstein, Jack. Rebuilding a pure Aryan home in the Paraguayan jungle. San Francisco Chronicle. March 13, 2005.
^ Kakutani, Michiko. On the Trail of the Other Nietzsche. The New York Times. October 16, 1992.