Nietzsche was repeatedly elevated to a figurehead by right-wing theorists and politicians. From Mussolini and Hitler to the AfD — Nietzsche is repeatedly seized when it comes to confronting modern society with a radical reactionary alternative. Nietzsche was particularly fascinating to intellectual right-wingers, such as authors like Ernst Jünger, Carl Schmitt and Martin Heidegger, who formed a cultural prelude to the advent of National Socialism in the 1920s, even though they later partially distanced themselves from it. People also often talk about the “Conservative Revolution”¹.

What do these authors draw from Nietzsche and to what extent do they read him one-sidedly and overlook other potentials in his work? Our author Paul Stephan spoke about this with philosopher Robert Hugo Ziegler.

Werner Herzog (born 1942), described as a “mythomaniac” by Linus Wörffel, and Klaus Kinski (1926—1991) are among the leading figures of post-war German cinema. In the 70s and 80s, the filmmaker and the actor shot five feature films that are among the classics of the medium's history. They are hymns to tragic heroism, in which the spirit of Nietzsche can easily be recognized. From “Build Your Cities on Vesuvius! “will “Build opera houses in the rainforest! ”.

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Our author Natalie Schulte traveled by bicycle for nine months Vietnam, Kampuchea, Thailand and malaysia. In her penultimate contribution to the series ”Hikes with Nietzsche“ she muses on encounters with wild animals that she met or could have met on her journey. It is hardly surprising that this includes considerations about the importance of animals, as they occur in Nietzsche's philosophy.

After Christian Saehrendt took a primarily biographical look at Nietzsche's relationship to music on this blog in June last year (link), Paul Stephan focuses in this article on Nietzsche's content statements about music and comes to a somewhat different conclusion: For Nietzsche, music has a liberating power through its subjectivating power. It affirms our sense of self and inspires us to resist repressive norms and morals. However, not all music can do that. With late Nietzsche, this is no longer Richard Wagner's opera, but Georges Bizet's opera carmen. Our author recognizes a similar attitude in Sartre's novel The disgust and in black popular music, which is not about comfort or grief, but affirmation and overcoming.

The humanities scene recently experienced a minor sensation: In the estate of Michel Foucault (1926—1984), one of the most important representatives of post-structuralism, its editors came across an elaborate book manuscript with the title Le discours philosophique, on which the avowed Nietzschean had worked in 1966. It was published in German by Suhrkamp in 2024. Nietzsche plays a decisive role in this comprehensive analysis of philosophical discourse since Descartes. Paul Stephan takes this event as an opportunity to take a closer look at the most influential Nietzsche interpretation of the 20th century to date.

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“Resentment” is one of the guiding concepts of Nietzsche's philosophy and perhaps even its most effective. In his new book The cold rage. Resentment theory and practice (Marburg 2024, Büchner-Verlag), Jürgen Grosse argues that since the 18th century, more or less all political or social movements have been those of resentment. Our main author Hans-Martin Schönherr-Mann has read it and presents major theses below.

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It is well known that Nietzsche's history of influence has been read and absorbed across all political camps. But what about our present tense? Paul Stephan examines the writings of two authors who are about the same age as himself, in their mid/late 30s, and whose perspectives on Nietzsche could hardly be more different: While French journalist and YouTuber Julien Rochedy declares Nietzsche a pioneer of a right-wing cultural struggle, the German philosopher and political scientist Karsten Schubert attacks him for a left-wing identity politics. Both positions do not really convince our authors; rather, they are entirely within the framework of the prevailing simulation of politics as a cultural struggle, which would need to be countered by focusing on the really pressing life problems of contemporary humanity.

One of the most important philosophers of our time, Peter Sloterdijk (born 1947), visited Halle at the beginning of July. The thinker, who was heavily influenced by Nietzsche, shared his thoughts about “gray” there and impressively showed the heights to which philosophy can rise.