Friedrich Nietzsche and the
German Gothic Band “Das Ich”
[V]alues are not discovered by reason and it is fruitless to seek
them, to find the truth or the good life. The quest begun by
Odysseus and continued over three millennia has come to an
end with the observation that there is nothing to seek. This
alleged fact was announced by Nietzsche just over a century
ago when he said, “God is dead.”
—Allan Bloom 143
In 2002, the German Gothic band Das Ich released its new album with the
title Antichrist. For those who are familiar with this group and this specific
subculture, this reference to Nietzsche’s famous text is not surprising. In their
second single, Die Propheten (1992), which had made them famous in the
Gothic scene, the most important song was “Gott ist tot” (“God is dead”)—a
quotation from Nietzsche’s Die frohliche Wissenschaft (481). This study will
examine the band’s reception of Nietzsche’s Antichrist (1888) and try to answer
the question of what made Nietzsche’s philosophy so relevant for young
Germans living during the turn of the last millennium.
In addition to the song “Gott ist tot” in Die Propheten, in later CDs Das Ich
had adapted many poems of German expressionist poets who had been strongly
influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche. They even produced a whole CD referencing
Gottfried Benn’s volume of poetry, Morgue. As Douglas Kellner pointed out,
“Nietzsche attracted the Expressionists because they perceived in him a
powerful critique of modern society and call for self-transformation” (9). For
exactly the same reasons, both Nietzsche and the expressionists seem to attract
Bruno Kramm and Stephan Ackermann, the two members of the group Das Ich.
Kellner continues:'
Nietzsche’s analysis of the modem era is crucial for
understanding the expressionist project and its (often
unarticulated) epistemological-metaphysical assumptions. For
Nietzsche, the death of God was the decisive fact of the epoch,
and deeply affected the totality of life. In his view, religion
had declined as a viable philosophical system; consequently,
many traditional values were rendered obsolete or threatened
by the demise of a Deity who guaranteed value, meaning, and
transcendence. (9)
Listening to the songs of Das Ich that refer to Nietzsche, it seems that according
to the band’s impression, in the Catholic city of Bayreuth, where both musical