Friedrich Nietzsche Autobiography

Friedrich Nietzsche Autobiography

Full Name: Mr. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Date of Birth: October 15, 1844
Place of Birth: Röcken, Germany
Died: August 25, 1900
Place of Death: Weimar, Germany
Classification: Scientists & Thinkers


Known as a prolific author and one of the world’s most renowned philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about the fall of the European man due to his new-enlightened scientific ways and his subsequent destruction of religion. Nietzsche would change the face of German philosophy, and all his writings are the basis of philosophical study across the globe.

Born in Saxony, young Friedrich’s father was a Lutheran pastor, but died when the boy was only four years old. He was thereafter brought up in a house filled with women, which meant that he was outdoors, exploring his world constantly. By the age of 12, the local schools new they had a genius among them, and Nietzsche won a scholarship to Pforta, a renowned school in Germany. While there, he met several new friends whom he would revere for the rest of his life. He also received a thorough education in the classics, which would lay the foundation of his future studies. By the end of his schooling, Friedrich found that he could no longer accept Christianity. Following his boarding school days, he enrolled in Bonn in the mid 1860s.

After moving from Bonn, he followed a good friend to Leipzig and there acquired syphilis, a disease that would plague him for the rest of his days. But, he admits that this gave him the time away from people that he needed to complete his own work. He began being published in the field of philology, which garnished him national academic recognition. By the age of 24, he began a teaching career at the university without having graduated. Nietzsche became friends and an eventual enemy of Wagner, the musical genius. In fact, Nietzsche’s first book, The Birth of Tragedy, was highly influenced by Wagner’s own interpretations.

Friedrich Nietzsche worked endlessly in an attempt to find new meaning for human existence. He said that men must have a value system on which to base their beliefs and behaviors. He attacked the Jewish-Christian world in his book The Anti-Christ and A Genealogy of Morals. He wrote that it was man’s own job now to learn self-mastery, control, and to provide his own values, and if done properly, would bring great satisfaction and reveal creative endeavors never before seen. He believed that man should not condemn self-assertion or pervert his own bodily needs. He felt that a guilt-ridden conscious was worthless for man’s advancement.