# Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher and poet. He denounced all religion and promoted the "morals of masters," the doctrine of perfecting man through forcible self-assertion and glorification of the "superman," as expressed in his most famous work, Thus Spake Zarathustra. Nietzsche was a professor at the University of Basel in Switzerland from 1869 until 1879, when severe eye and brain trouble forced him to retire on a pension. He lived at various health resorts in Italy and Switzerland until 1889, when he became hopelessly insane. Nietzsche's theories are regarded as having influenced the German attitudes in World War I and the Nazi regime. See also Zarathustra in this glossary.