Bernhard Förster

For other people named Förster, see Forster (surname).
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.

Bernhard Förster (2nd left) among other German antisemitic writers, ca. 1880

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.

References

  1. ↑ Hannu Salmi (1994). "Die Sucht nach dem germanischen Ideal" (in German). Also published in Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 6/1994, pp. 485-496
  2. ↑ Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship, 1970, pp. 59-60