German philosopher and poet born near Lützen, Saxony, and educated at the University of Bonn and the University of Leipzig where he studied Schopenhauer's writings. He became professor of classical philology at Basel, where he was at first the friend and follower and later a strong opponent of Wagner in art and philosophy, and an opponent of Schopenhauer's philosophy. He lived subsequently in Switzerland and Italy, and in 1889, suffered a mental breakdown. Nietzsche spent his last years in the care of his mother at Naumberg and his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche at Weimar. He denounced all religion and championed the "morals of masters," the doctrine of the perfectibility of man through forcible self-assertion and glorification of the superman or overman (Übermensch). His theories are regarded as influencing the German attitude of the World War and in the Third Reich (1933). His works, chiefly on philology, music, Greek antiquity, and, especially philosophy, include:

• Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik (1872),
• Die Philosophie im Tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen (1873),
• Menschliches-Allzu Menschliches (2 volumes, 1878-80),
• Morgenröte (1881),
• Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft (1882),
• Also Sprach Zarathustra (proclaiming the gospel of the superman; 4 parts, 1883 ff.), which he interpreted in Jenseits von Gut und Böse (1886), and
• Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887),
• Der Fall Wagner (1888),
• Der Antichrist (1888),
• Der Wille zur Machte (1888, unfinished),
• Götzendämmerung (1889),
• and the autobiography Ecce Homo (1888).