Nietzsche House

Nietzsche Haus

In July 1881, Friedrich Nietzsche visited Sils for the first time, staying at the home of the Durisch family (today's Nietzsche Haus), where he rented a room on the first floor. From 1883 to 1888, he returned here every summer. He had found a place that gave him peace and enabled him to concentrate, a landscape which - as he said himself - was "blutsverwandt" (related by blood). Here, he worked on a number of books during his 7 summer stays (1881, 1883-88), e.g. Part 2 of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", whose key idea of eternal recurrence came to him in a moment of inspiration on the shore of the Lake of Silvaplana, "Beyond Good and Evil", "On the Genealogy of Morals", "Twilight of the Idols" and "The Antichrist". In August 1884, he wrote to Resa v. Schirnhofer: "Here one can live well, in this strong, bright atmosphere, here where nature is amazingly mild and solemn and mysterious all at once - in fact, there is no place that I like better than Sils-Maria". In 1960 when a business threatened to take over the house, which was still privately owned, it was acquired by the Stiftung Nietzsche-Haus in Sils-Maria (click here), which opened it up to the public. The concept of the Foundation, which continues to be the sponsor of the house, is twofold. It wants to provide information about the philosopher's life and work in a comprehensive exhibit. At the same time, it wants to offer a place to stay, a meeting place, where interested persons can come together for lively discussions that keep the museum dust from settling over the house. In addition, the Foundation has regularly staged contemporary art exhibits with regional and/or Nietzsche connections in the house since the 1980s. The Nietzsche House continues to finance its unique cultural offerings with the income from the sale of museum tickets and room letting. This severely limits major renovation work. In 2007, the Foundation decided to set up a society for the promotion of the house, the "Kreis der Freunde und Förderer des Nietzsche-Hauses", with the goal of providing additional financial support.
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