Career
Their father was a Lutheran pastor in the German village of Röcken bei Lützen. The two children were close during their childhood and early adult years. However, they grew apart in 1885 when Elisabeth married Bernhard Förster, a former high school teacher who had become a prominent German nationalist and antisemite—Friedrich Nietzsche despised antisemitism.
As his caretaker, Förster-Nietzsche assumed the roles of curator and editor of Nietzsche"s manuscripts.
Förster planned to create a "pure" Aryan settlement in the New World, and had found a site in Paraguay which he thought would be suitable. The couple persuaded 14 German families to join them in the colony, to be called, and the group left Germany for South America on February 15, 1887.
The colony did not thrive. The land was not suitable for German methods of farming, illness ran rampant, and transportation to the colony was slow and difficult.
Faced with mounting debts, Förster committed suicide by poisoning himself on June 3, 1889.
Four years later his widow left the colony forever and returned to Germany. The colony still exists as part of San Pedro. Friedrich Nietzsche"s mental collapse occurred in 1889 (he died in 1900), and upon Elisabeth"s return in 1893 she found him an invalid whose published writings were beginning to be read and discussed throughout Europe.
In 1930, Förster-Nietzsche, a German nationalist and antisemite, became a supporter of the Nazi Party.
After Hitler came to power in 1933, the received financial support and publicity from the government, in return for which Förster-Nietzsche bestowed her brother"s considerable prestige on the régime. Förster-Nietzsche"s funeral in 1935 was attended by Hitler and several high-ranking Nazi officials.