3Nietzsche Memorial Hal

On 25 August 1900, Friedrich Nietzsche died in Weimar, physically paralysed and mentally disturbed. Three years earlier, his sister had brought him to the "Villa Silberblick" because she believed she would find a better environment for the Nietzsche Archive she had founded. It was used to edit his estate and was under the control of the German nationalist Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. In 1932, Kurt Tucholsky mocked in
the Weltbühne about the "heart-warming and teasingly heroic ramblings of a lady staggering around in the maze of philosophy". As the "spiritual cult centre" of the European "Nietzsche movement", she had been planning the construction of a Nietzsche memorial hall since 1910. The idea was taken up again during the reign of the National Socialists. The völkisch-antisemitic publicist and architect Paul Schultze-Naumburg was finally commissioned with the design in 1934. The sacred-looking hall was arranged strictly on an east-west axis and was intended to lead visitors to a central figure in the apse. The antique sculpture of Dionysus, donated by Benito Mussolini and delivered in early 1944, was never erected. Paul Schultze-Naumburg was no longer regarded by those in power as an architect at the height of his time. His designs were controversial and were revised several times at the request of Albert Speer, Fritz Sauckel and Adolf Hitler. The topping-out ceremony was held in August 1938, after which construction stagnated and interest waned considerably. With the beginning of the war, there was also a shortage of materials, so that the hall was only largely completed in 1944, but was never occupied. From 1946 onwards, the hall was used as a broadcasting centre for the later Radio DDR 2 station, and has been empty since the end of August 2000.