Bernhard Förster
{{Short description|Anti-Semitic German teacher (1843–1889)}}
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{{Infobox person
| name = Bernhard Förster
| image = Bernhardfoerster.jpg
| image_size =
| birth_name = Ludwig Bernhard Förster
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1843|03|31|df=y}}
| birth_place = Delitzsch, Province of Saxony
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1889|06|03|1843|03|31|df=y}}
| death_place = San Bernardino, Paraguay
| death_cause = Suicide
| known_for = Founder of Nueva Germania
| spouse = Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche
}}
Ludwig Bernhard Förster (31 March 1843 – 3 June 1889) was a German teacher and antisemitic activist. He was married to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the sister of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Life
Förster became a leading figure in the antisemitic faction on the far right of German politics and wrote on the Jewish question, characterizing Jews as constituting a "parasite on the German body".
{{cite web |url=http://users.utu.fi/hansalmi/forster.html |author=Hannu Salmi |title=Die Sucht nach dem germanischen Ideal |year=1994|language=de}} Also published in Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 6/1994, pp. 485–496. In order to support his beliefs he set up the Deutscher Volksverein (German People's League) in 1881 with Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg.Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship, 1970, pp. 59–60.
In 1883, Förster left Germany in order to emigrate to Paraguay, when his antisemitic beliefs resulted in ostracism and loss of his teaching job.{{Cite web|url=https://www.elledecor.com/it/best-of/a28385313/nueva-germania-community-paraguay/|title=Nueva Germania Community|date=7 October 2019|access-date=22 November 2020|website=Elle Décor|last=Felicori|first=Bianca|archive-url=https://archive.today/20200426162016/https://www.elledecor.com/it/best-of/a28385313/nueva-germania-community-paraguay/|archive-date=26 April 2020|url-status=live}} After searching the country for many months, Förster found a suitable site to establish a settlement. It was 600 square kilometres and almost 300 kilometres north of Asunción. The settlement was to become known as "Nueva Germania". Förster returned to Germany in March 1885 and married Elisabeth Nietzsche on 22 May. The couple assembled a group of "pioneers" who shared their antisemitic views and wished to live in a new "Fatherland" where an Aryan could prosper. They travelled to Paraguay from Hamburg in February 1887.
The initiative failed for many reasons, not least the harsh environment. Förster, beleaguered with debts, drank heavily and became depressed. Forgotten Fatherland by Ben MacIntyre {{ISBN|978-1-4088-3815-0}} He eventually committed suicide by poisoning himself with morphine and strychnine in his room at the Hotel del Lago in San Bernardino, Paraguay, on 3 June 1889. He was buried in San Bernardino.Kracht, C., & Woodard, D., [https://www.wehrhahn-verlag.de/public/index.php?ID_Section=3&ID_Product=577 Five Years] (Hanover: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2011). After his death, his widow Elisabeth wrote a book entitled Bernhard Förster's Colony New Germany in Paraguay. Intended to salvage Förster's reputation by portraying him as a hero, it was published in 1891.
References
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Category:Antisemitism in Germany
Category:Far-right politics in Germany
Category:German emigrants to Paraguay
Category:German schoolteachers
Category:People from Delitzsch
Category:People from the Province of Saxony