Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher thought to have died of syphilis, was the victim of a posthumous smear campaign by anti-Nazis, new research shows.
A study of medical records has found that, far from suffering a sexually transmitted disease that drove him mad, Nietzsche almost certainly died of brain cancer.
The doctor who carried out the study claims that the universally accepted story of Nietzsche having caught syphilis from prostitutes was concocted after World War II by Wilhelm Lange-Eichbaum, an academic who was one of Nietzsche's most vociferous critics. It was then adopted as fact by intellectuals who were keen to demolish the reputation of Nietzsche, whose idea of a "superman" was used to underpin Nazism.
The new research was done by Leonard Sax, the director of the Montgomery Centre for Research in Child Development in the United States. Dr Sax studied accounts of Nietzsche's collapse with dementia in 1889, when he was admitted to an asylum in Switzerland and initially diagnosed as being in the advanced stages of syphilis.
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∙ 2011-03-25 15:21:06Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche died on 1935-11-08.
Friedrich Nietzsche died on August 25, 1900 at the age of 55.
Friedrich Nietzsche's birth name is Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.
While he often referred to Nietzsche, and did seminars on Nietzsche, he never wrote a book on Nietzsche.
Nietzsche did not stay silent.
Nietzsche = × ×™×˜×©×”
Nietzsche - film - was created in 2003.
Friedrich Nietzsche is 5' 8".
Friedrich Nietzsche was a professor, composer, and philologist who was criticized for his works for many years. He was plagued by health problems and later had a mental breakdown and died, at the age of 55, in 1900.
Nietzsche was an atheist.
Nietzsche is buried in Röcken, Germany.
The duration of When Nietzsche Wept is 1.75 hours.