Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche, (1844-1900). German philosopher. He was appointed a professor at Basel University in 1869 despite his lack of a doctorate. The Birth of Tragedy (1872) was his first book. Nietzsche resigned his professorship owing to ill-health in 1879 and devoted the next ten years to writing, living alone in rented rooms. The important works Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-89) and Beyond Good and Evil (1886), in which he preached a total rejection of Christian values, only slowly attracted attention. In 1889 he collapsed with a mental breakdown and never fully recovered.
