Schiller’s life in Weimar. One of its most interesting exhibits isrna framed copy of the patent of nobility that Emperor Francis IIrngranted in November 1802 (four years before Napoleon abolishedrnthe Holy Roman Empire) to Johann Christoph vonrnSchiller—the erstwhile commoner from Ludwigsburg whosernfirst play, Die Rduber {The Robbers), had created an uproar 20rnyears before by exalting the triumphs and vicissitudes of arnRobin Hood figure who dares to challenge the social injusticesrnof his time. “In a smaller city such as Weimar,” as Schiller candidlyrnexplained in a letter to his friend Christian Korner, “it isrnalways an advantage to be excluded from nothing, for here thisrnis felt as unpleasantly abhorrent, whereas in a big city one is notrnat all aware of it.”rnIn July 1787, when Schiller turned up in Weimar in thernhope of meeting Goethe, the restless poet-in-residence had leftrnfurtively for Italy—to the consternation of the possessive Charlotternvon Stein, who avenged herself when the errant “lover” returnedrnthe next year by demanding the return of all her letters,rnwhich she proceeded to destroy. This was probably not as greatrna loss to world literature as the deliberate incineration of Byron’srndiary, but fortimately for posterity the “jilted” Charlotte refi-rnained from burning the 17,000 letters that Goethe is said tornhave written to her.rnThe least that can be said, when the two bards finally met, isrnthat Goethe treated the 28-year-old poet-dramatist almost asrncavalierly as he had the outraged Fran von Stein, although hernused his literary influence to have Schiller appointed professorrnof history at the nearby university town of Jena. The ten yearsrnof “exile” that followed proved singularly fruitful in one unexpectedrnrespect, giving rise to one of the most fascinating exchangesrnof letters devoted to serious questions of epic and lyricrnpoetry (later filling six volumes) ever to have taken place betweenrntwo literary giants. And it must be added that, when hernreturned in 1799 to Weimar (where Goethe was now directingrnthe court theater), it was the younger genius, Schiller, who leftrnthe older genius far behind by completing seven plays—thernWallenstein trilogy, Mary Stuart, The Maid of Orleans, ThernBride of Messina, and William Tell—in the short space of arndozen years: a firework display of dramatic creativity that nornGerman author since has come close to rivaling.rnToday an heroic double statue of Weimar’s two greatestrnadopted sons, mounted on a ten-foot-high pedestal, adds an aurarnof nobility to the dull, Doric-columned facade of the nolonger-rnducal theater —which now proudly calls itself thernDeutsches National Theater—on a square just beyond the limitsrnof the Innenstadt. Schiller, who died too soon to see hisrndream come true, had predicted, “If we had a national theater,rnwe would be a nation”: words that were quoted when, in thernturbulent month of January 1919, a group of parliamentaryrndeputies gathered in this same theater to pronounce the deathrnsentence on the Second Germanic Reich and to laimch a newrnrepublic.rnBefore leaving Weimar, I went to admire the magnificentrnBechstein grand piano in the humble gamekeeper’s housernwhere Europe’s greatest virtuoso, Franz Liszt, spent the lastrnsummers of his life after having, as the Hofkapellmeister, madernWeimar one of the musical centers of the continent during anotherrn”golden age” lasting from 1848 to 1861.rnBy the time I had climbed upstairs and down again to thernfiny garden, my legs were beginning to buckle. Daunted by thernprospect of trudging up the long Humboldtstrasse, I yielded torntemptation and climbed into a taxi—one of half a dozen thatrnnow cater to the needs of Weimar’s 60,000 inhabitants. Duringrnthe drive up to the villa where a tiagically demented FriedrichrnNietzsche spent the final months of his life, I asked the cabmanrnhow he was making out and if he had many clients.rn”Clients!” he scoffed. “Are you joking? What did they expect”rn—he meant the town authorities who had more or lessrnpressed him into service—”when anyone who wants to comernhere can drive all the way to Weimar in his fancy Mercedes orrnBMW?”rnThe large square villa, with the words “NIETZSCHErnARCHIV” boldly inscribed over the front door, was every bit asrnugly as the photographs I had seen of it. After their mother’srndeath in April 1897, Nietzsche’s stiong-willed sister Elisabeth,rnwho had long since abandoned their hometown of Naumburgrn(much too provincial for her “cosmopolitan” taste), forciblyrnmoved her helpless brother, along with his library, preciousrnnotebooks, and thousands of letters, to this hillside villa.rnInside, I got a shock. I already knew that, for reasons of securityrnand safekeeping, all of Nietzsche’s papers had been removedrnto a massive stone building overlooking the gentie Ilm,rna building which now also houses the manuscripts and sundryrnpapers of Goethe and Schiller. What I did not know was that,rntwo years after Nietzsche’s death in 1900, his sister, who was alreadyrnsuccumbing to a fatal folie des grandeurs as the “guardian”rnand “trustee” of the “great philosopher’s” intellectual heritage,rnhad decided to have the villa’s interior entirely redone, with elegantlyrncarved birch-wood paneling designed by the fashionablernBelgian architect, Henri Van de Velde. With the exceptionrnof a huge green-porcelain stove, used to heat the downstairsrnliving room, there was nothing in this villa to indicate what itrnhad looked like during the short period of Nietzsche’s last confinement.rn”And his books?” I asked the receptionist, an attractive youngrngirl who had only recently arrived from Dresden.rn”His books?” she answered, with a helpless shrug. “Oh,rnthey’re now stored in the basement of the Stadtschloss.”rnThe villa nevertheless was worth a visit—if only as a revelationrnof the supreme fatiiity of Nietzsche’s dreadful sister, compilerrnand concocter of The Will to Power, a book the philosopherrnnever wrote but which the imscrupulous Elisabeth hadrnpublished and presented to the world shortly after his death asrnhis “masterwork.” Prominentiy exhibited in the display room,rnnext to the villa’s entrance, was a framed copy of the congratiilatoryrntelegram that Fran Doktor h.c. {honoris causa) Forster-rnNietzsche had sent to “Sua Excellenza, il Presidente BenitornMussolini” on the occasion of the Duce’s 50th birthday inrn1933. The telegram (tianslated from the German) began: “Tornthe most splendid disciple of Zarathustra, of whom Nietzscherndreamed, the reawakener of genius of aristocratic values . . . “rnTo the left were three photographs taken on July 20, 1934,rnduring a visit made to the Fran Doktor at Weimar by another ofrnZarathustra’s “disciples”—an authentically Teutonic Ubermenschrnnamed Adolf Hitier. If he had ever bothered to readrnThus Spake Zarathustra with any care, this “superman” wouldrnhave known that the one species Nietzsche more ferociouslyrndetested than the shallow journalist or the hypocritical pulpitrnpreacher was that histrionic mountebank, the politician, slavernand master of the “coldest of cold monsters,” that “devilish artifice,”rnthat “horse of death, clanking in the finery of divine honors”rn—the modern, militaristic, impudentiy all-intrusive, “massifying”rnstate. crnMARCH 1999/25rnrnrn