Nietzsche’s Influence and Reception
Essay title: Nietzsche’s Influence and Reception
Nietzsches writings have been interpreted very differently by different people, and cases even exist of Nietzsche being used on both sides of an argument to support contradictory views. For instance, Nietzsche was popular among left-wing Germans in the 1890s, but a few decades later, during the First World War, many regarded him as one of the sources of right-wing German militarism. Another example is around the time of the Dreyfus Affair. The French anti-semitic Right levelled the accusation at Jewish and Leftist intellectuals, who were defending Dreyfus, that they were Nietzscheans. The German conservative right-wing wanted to ban Nietzsches work under charges of subversion in 1894/1895, while Nazi Germany used a highly selective version of Nietzsche to promote its idea of a revival of traditional German culture and national identity. Many Germans read Thus Spoke Zarathustra and were influenced by Nietzsches appeal of unlimited individualism and the development of a personality.
During the interbellum, various fragments of Nietzsches work