Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844–1900), German philosopher. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1833–92) he introduced the concept of the “superman,” who would transcend what he considered the slavish morality of Christianity and whose motivating force would be a “will to power,” directed toward creativity, that would set him off from lesser human beings. Nietzsche's ideas, further elaborated in Beyond Good and Evil (1886), have been much misrepresented, particularly by the Nazis, who misappropriated the concept of the superman to justify their own concepts of Aryan racial superiority.

See also: Philosophy.