author
Henri Lichtenberger
1864–1941
A pioneering French scholar of German literature, he helped shape the study of German thought and writing in France at the turn of the twentieth century. His work ranged from Nietzsche and Wagner to the wider cultural relationship between France and Germany.
1 Audiobook
Nietzsche's Philosophie
by Henri Lichtenberger
About the author
Born in Mulhouse on March 12, 1864, Henri Lichtenberger became one of the key founders of modern German studies in France. He taught first at the University of Nancy and later at the Sorbonne, where he built a reputation as a major specialist in German literature, intellectual history, and cultural life.
He wrote widely on figures such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Heinrich Heine, Richard Wagner, and Novalis, and he also translated Goethe. His scholarship aimed to make German ideas more accessible to French readers, while also exploring the often complicated relationship between France and Germany.
Lichtenberger remained an important public intellectual as well as a university teacher. During the First World War he was involved in analyzing German publications for the French government, and in 1914–1915 he also served as an exchange professor at Harvard. He died in Biarritz on November 4, 1941.