Bernhard Förster

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Bernhard Förster
Born
Ludwig Bernhard Förster

(1843-03-31)31 March 1843
Delitzsch, Province of Saxony
Died3 June 1889(1889-06-03) (aged 46)
San Bernardino, Paraguay
Known forFounder of Nueva Germania
SpouseElisabeth Förster-Nietzsche

Ludwig Bernhard Förster (31 March 1843 – 3 June 1889) was a German teacher and

anti-Semitic activist. He was married to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the sister of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
.

Life

Förster became a leading figure in 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]

In 1883, Förster left Germany in order to emigrate to

Fatherland' where an Aryan
could prosper. They travelled to Paraguay from Hamburg in February 1886.

The initiative was a failure for many reasons, not least the harsh environment. Förster, with unserviceable debts, drank heavily and became depressed. [4] 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 3 June 1889. He was buried in San Bernardino.[5] After his death, his widow Elisabeth wrote a book entitled Bernhard Förster's Colony New Germany in Paraguay. Intended to salvage Förster's reputation by portraying him as a hero, the book first appeared in print in 1891.

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.
  3. ^ Felicori, Bianca (7 October 2019). "Nueva Germania Community". Elle Décor. Archived from the original on 30 November 2020. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
  4. ISBN 978-1-4088-3815-0
  5. ^ Kracht, C., & Woodard, D., Five Years (Hanover: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2011).
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