He Created the Myth of Nietzsche

Collection of six books inscribed to the author's brother Hans Georg, including: Deutsche Gestalten. Fest- und Gedenkreden, 1934. The Dedication Copy. [With:] Wartburg. Spruchgedichte, 1933. "Exemplar Nr. 2', additionally inscribed, "Ohne Gefahr keine Rettung". [And] Griecheneiland, 1934. [And] Das weiße Pferd. No. 8 of 120 copies, [1936]. [And] Straßburg. Ein Gedichtkreis, 1928. [And] Nietzsche. Versuch eine Mythologie, 1929.

Leipzig, Berlin: Insel-Verlag, etc, 1928-1936.

Price: $3,000.00


About the item

First editions of the first four titles, later editions of the last two titles. 7 vols. 8vo. He Created the Myth of Nietzsche. Original publishers' bindings (cloth or paper over boards). Four titles in dust jacket and/or publisher's box. Buchner 18, 39, 58, 61; Sarkowski 142, 144, 153, 155.

Item #43917

Ernst Bertram (1884-1957), Germanist and poet, was appointed professor of German literature and philology at the University of Cologne in 1921. His friends included Stefan George, Friedrich Gundolf and Thomas Mann; he was among Mann's closest personal friends during the war years and the 1920s. Bertram and Mann were among the co-editors of Ariadne, the 1925 Jahrbuch der Nietzsche-Gesellschaft; Mann's correspondence with Bertram has been published as Th. Mann an E. Bertram. Briefe aus den Jahren 1910-1955, ed. Inge Jens (1960). It was Bertram's study of Nietzsche that laid the groundwork for the philosopher's ascent into the Nazi pantheon.
Bertram's partner was calligrapher and Germanist Ernst Glöckner, in memory of whom Das weiße Pferd was printed; their unpublished correspondence from 1906 until Glöckner's death in 1934 amounts to some 5000 love letters and cards.
From the 1920s on, Bertram's poetry became increasingly mythological in its concern with the "nordische Seele des Rheinlands." He was ultimately unable to resist the Nazi movement, though he protested the destruction of the writings of Mann and Gundolf. Because of his close links to the Nazis, Bertram was dismissed from his academic post in 1946.
A selection of Bertram's works with an outstanding association, each of the six volumes bearing a dated inscription to his brother Hans Georg:
Deutsche Gestalten, a collection of cultural and literary essays, is the Dedication copy, inscribed "in recollection of the love of Ernst Glöckner" in June 1934, just after Glöckner's death (cloth, in dust jacket and publisher's slipcase).
Das weiße Pferd, [Leipzig, 1936]. No. 8 of 120 copies privately printed as a memorial to Ernst Glöckner (parchment-backed green boards, printed labels, in printed dust jacket).
Wartburg, 1933. Additionally inscribed on the half-title, "Ohne Gefahr keine Rettung" (without danger no salvation) and on the imprint, "Exemplar Nr. 2" (brown boards, printed labels).
Griecheneiland, 1934 (parchment-backed blue boards, printed labels)
Straßburg is present in the third, enlarged ed., 1928 (marbled boards, dust jacket printed on spine only); Bertram's profoundly influential work on Nietzsche, in the seventh, corrected ed., 1929, 18th-21st Thousand (gilt-stamped blue cloth, printed dust jacket and slipcase). Also accompanying these volumes is Gedichte, 4th, enlarged ed., 1924 (parchment-backed marbled boards, printed dust jacket).