Forgotten Fatherland: The True Story of Nietzsche's Sister and Her Lost Aryan Colony Paperback – April 5, 2011

In retrospect, the title of this book is somewhat misleading. I was really expecting 'Forgotten Fatherland' to chronicle a recent discovery of a Hitler-inspired city deep in the jungles of modern-day Paraguay populated by Germans who believe the Second World War is still being fought . Instead, this book is essentially a modern-day travelogue describing its authors journey into the wilds of Paraguay searching for remnants and descendants of a documented German colonial experiment from the late 19th century. As it turns out, the colony (Nueva Germania) still exists in the 21st century but not in the form you might think and I will leave it at that.. Nearly 135 years ago, a pioneering venture of German colonists was led into the wilds of Paraguay by an ultra-nationalist and virulent antisemite named Bernhard Forster. He was accompanied by his scheming and opportunistic wife, Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche(sister of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The Forsters were moderately affluent Germans with appropriate connections in German high society who both enabled and funded their venture. A healthy portion of this book relates to the life of Elisabeth Forste-Nietzsche before,during, and after her time in Paraguay and this is a very interesting tale in and of itself. In the late nineteenth century, Germany went through alternating periods of economic depression and prosperity; the depressions blamed unfairly on the Jewish people and their perceived hegemony over financial systems, and prosperity attributed to German fortitude, hard work, and ingenuity. Economic depression hit Germany hard in the 1870s and 1880s, and it is not difficult to imagine why many afflicted Germans might have seized what appeared to be a golden opportunity to emigrate with the Forsters(though many would soon discover the inhospitable wilds of Paraguay to be anything BUT the biblical paradise they were promised in their brochures). Not all of the colonists under the stewardship of the Forsters were anti-Semitic, but all were certainly fleeing economic hardship in their native Germany. Unfortunately, the atmosphere of cultural bigotry, scapegoating, and persecution prevalent in Germany at this time continued well into the twentieth century, finding its ultimate expression two generations later under the morally corrupt leadership of Adolf Hitler. The author appropriately categorizes both Elisabeth and her husband Bernhardt Forster, the leaders of Nueva Germania, as 'slave moralists par excellence'. Their true motivations were likely driven by what the German philosopher Nietzsche himself called 'ressentiment', or a moral code driven by some combination of envy, jealousy and misguided revenge. One could almost predict their venture into the unknown would end in some form of disaster since the Forsters seemed more concerned with profiting from their colonial venture than attending to the needs of the colony or the individual colonists. I was more than a little baffled at the imperialistic demeanor of Elisabeth and her husband. Both doomed their venture to failure, in my opinion, by maintaining the ramshackle colony in the style of a feudal fiefdom. Contrast the hut-dwelling German colonists who were at times starving and despondent, with the Forsters themselves, who seemed to be adjusting well to Paraguay in their new custom-built mansion. The steady stream of money wired from Germany was obviously diverted to fund a more lavish lifestyle for the Forsters at the expense of the individual colonists. Nueva Germania might have succeeded and thrived had there been cooperation, collaboration, and effective leadership from stewards more capable than the Forsters. Instead, there was only despair and hunger. This was the grim reality of the German colonists in their rainy, humid, and inhospitable jungle environment. While I didn't find this book to be the page turner I hoped it might be, I nevertheless enjoyed it and learned much about a little known fragment of German/Paraguayan history in the process. Suffice it to say that the idealism and nationalism of the Forsters and their fellow colonists quickly withered and decayed when confronted by the harsh realities of life in the insufferable Paraguayan wilderness. Nevertheless, there were a few surprises in the occasional tale of improvisation, ingenuity, and courage on the part of several individual colonists. This book was dull in sections, fascinating in others, but was nevertheless expertly interwoven into a very readable book. The best thing about reading this book is that it kindled an interest in me to further explore South American history--Paraguay in particular. I found the Paraguayan history related by the author to be considerably more interesting than the tale of yet another failed 19th century European colonial enterprise in South America. Ben Macintyre is a brilliant author, but in my opinion this is not his best or his most interesting book. I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend another of his works: 'The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan.' Nevertheless, I DO recommend this book as I think it is a good read for all the reasons I have listed above. 4 out of 5 stars.

As several reviews make clear, this book is less about Friedrich Nietzsche and more about his sister, Elisabeth, a forceful, if horrifying, character in her own right. Indeed, Nietzsche becomes secondary player. Macintyre gives you enough about the philosopher's life and his ideas (mainly in relation to Elisabeth's) to allow to you to follow Elisabeth's perversion of her brother's ideas and works (she became the exclusive editor of his books) to build her own career as an intellectual force in the German nationalist and anti-Semitic movements. Ironically, she also made Nietzsche more widely known and likely rescued him from oblivion.However, before that happened and while Nietzsche still had all his marbles, Elisabeth and her husband, Bernhard Foerster, an intellectual lightweight and virulent anti-Semite with delusions of grandeur, founded a German colony in Paraguay (which wanted to encourage settlement), perhaps the poorest country in South America. They named it Nueva Germania. Foerster intended to found and lead a significant German enclave free of Jewish and other decadent influence. He recruited a number of poor Sachsen farmers and intended to encourage more Germans to emigrate, in order to preserve the "purity" of the German race. The Foersters ran the colony into the ground. Foerster himself committed suicide, probably because he could no longer get the financial support he needed to maintain not only the colony, but the lifestyle he believed he deserved.Elisabeth soon abandoned the colony, ostensibly to take care of her brother, by that time institutionalized. She falsely trumpeted the success of the colony, mostly to raise her and her late husband's reputation, and kept up a desultory interest in the colony, as long as it sent good news. She resolutely ignored bad news or blamed developments on those who remained behind. To support herself, she lived for a while off the early, aristocratic supporters of her brother, but later appointed herself editor and chief propagandist for the distorted icon of Nietzsche. Macintyre takes up most of the book in these details.To me, the most compelling sections consist of Macintyre's trek to the remnants of the colony and what he found. It lies in a particularly inaccessible and dangerous part of Paraguay. Most of the settlers are the product of over a century of inbreeding. It's not a particularly happy ending.Macintyre writes in a superior style of journalese, at times approaching the tone and level of a New Yorker "fact" piece. Not bad.

Pesquisa competente e original sobre o impacto da ideologia nazista na América Latina

let me begin by saying that i would read anything wrtitten by ben macintyre -- shopping lists, post-it notes, lists of addresses, etc -- and in this sense, "forgotten fatherland" did not disappoint. everyone has heard of frederick nietzsche and rightly or wrongly (wrongly, it turns out) associates his name with the doctrine of the ubermensch, the superman who exists "beyond good or evil". but how many people have heard of fred's sister, elizabeth, who, with her husband whose-name-i-forget led a group of nazi followers deep into the jungle of paraguay, there to establish an aryan colony and thereby preserve, as in a vial, the purity of blood that flowed through their misguided and in time malaria-infested veins? it's been a while since i read this book so the details are a bit vague, but i do remember that lizzy eventually went back to germany where she struck up a friendship with the who's who of nazi germany, including the fuhrer himself who is said to have wept at lizzy's funeral. well, the truth is, there's much more to this story than i can cram into a review, especially,as i say, since i read it a while ago. what i can say, however, is that if you enjoy history that reads like fiction-- stranger, even, than fiction -- than you will certainly enjoy :"forgotten fatherland" (even if, like me,you forget the details)

Very interesting reading, tells you more about the Nietzsches (brother and sister) than a traditional biography would.The author`s trip to Paraguay was a clever finish to the story.

good condition

Interesting piece of history ! Good read.