Bernhard Förster

Bernhard Förster (March 31, 1843, Delitzsch, Saxony—June 3, 1889, San Bernardino, Paraguay) was a nineteenth century German teacher who became an antisemite. This is evident, for example, in his writings on the Jewish question, where he characterizes 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 de icon Also published in "Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft" 6/1994, pp. 485-496] Charles Bufe notes H. L. Mencken suggesting Friedrich Nietzsche refused to attend his sister's wedding to Förster because of his antisemitism. [ [http://www.seesharppress.com/nietzscheintro.html Intro to H.L. Mencken's "The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche"] by C Bufe]

He was married to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the sister of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. After the failure of his Paraguayan colony "Nueva Germania", he eventually committed suicide by poisoning himself with a combination of morphine and strychnine in his room at the Hotel del Lago in San Bernardino, Paraguay on June 3, 1889.

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