Europe Discovers Nietzsche 331Nietzsche to come out of the period between the two wodd wars.
Thomas Mann was a close friend of Bertram's during the time in which
the latter was writing his book on Nietzsche. Mann admired the book,
and his views on Nietzsche were shaped by it. Bertram belonged to the
"George circle" which propagated the idea of leadership by the intel-
lectual elite. The book's subtide was Attempt at a Mythology, which is pre-
cisely what it was.
Bertram was carrying on a tradition ushered in by the Romantics and
expanded by Richard Wagner and the young Nietzsche: the creation of a
myth suited to uniting a nation under a common banner now that reli-
gion had faded. Nietzsche's life and works would be recast as a "legend
of a man" (Bertram 2). Bertram explained that there is no such thing as
objectivity when it comes to describing and analyzing a human life and
its accomplishments; there are only interpretations, which is just how
Nietzsche would have seen it. Bertram proposed to set forth an interpre-
tation that would make Nietzsche a mirror of the German soul, its suf-
fering, its upsurges, its creative power, and its destiny. Nietzsche had
wanted to be a "poet of his life," and Bertram carried forth this project
by becoming the poet of Nietzsche's life and works. Bertram claimed
that the "image" that emerges from this process "slowly rises on the
starry horizon of human memory" (Bertram 2). Nietzsche was not an
exemplar in the pedagogical sense but a prototype: studying him would
provide insight into the tensions, impulses, and contradictions of
German culture and its contribution to the grand history of the mind.
This is an image of a culture facing a crisis, which, according to Bertram,
would guide people to an awareness of its prospects and dangers.
Bertram cited Hölderiin's question "When will you appear in your
entirety, soul of the fatherland?" (Bertram 72) and provided the response:
it has appeared, in Nietzsche, with its full array of inner discord.
Passion for music is at the very center of this discord. Music sounds
the Dionysian driving force of life; it aligns itself with both the mon-
strous and the tragic dimensions of life. Bertram featured this passion
for music in drawing his distinctions between (German) culture and