For Mother’s Day this year, two of our regular contributors are dedicating articles to an often-forgotten figure from the Nietzscheverse, without whom the philosopher would not have existed: his mother, Franziska Ernestine Rosaura Nietzsche, née Oehler. The pastor's daughter was born on February 2, 1826, and died on April 20, 1897, just a few years before her son, whose mental illness was by that stage so developed that he probably didn’t notice his mum’s death. Who was this woman? How did she shape and influence Friedrich Nietzsche?

In this first part of our small series, Henry Holland reports on her life and origins, while, in part two, Natalie Schulte will delve deeper into her relationship with her son, and the question of how it coloured his writing and thinking about women.

What were the decisive factors that shaped Franziska Nietzsche's life? How could she, a woman in a world thoroughly defined by patriarchal structures, who never pursued paid employment, achieve a certain degree of self-determination? How did she cope with the traumatic early death of her husband? How religious was she? An often-neglected autobiographical fragment, written shortly before her death, sheds new light on her life.

In cultural perception, the forest is much more than a mere supplier of raw materials or a local recreation area, but, especially in German culture, a magical place of encounter with the supernatural. In the second part of our series ”the forest as a livelihood“ Christian Saehrendt explores this romantic fascination for the forest and to what extent it is also reflected in Nietzsche's works. Because Nietzsche was not only a passionate forest walker, he also writes again and again about this gateway to the “otherworld” and, last but not least, places his Zarathustra in sylvan sceneries.

From October 12 to 15, the annual meeting of the Friedrich-Nietzsche Society took place in Naumburg. Numerous experts from all over the world came together to explore the various causes of Nietzsche's impact in the first decades following his mental collapse. The spiritual struggles over Nietzsche repeatedly referred to the real struggles of the past — and those of our present.