The Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1868) With his Untimely Meditations [Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen] (1873-76), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), the most important philosopher of the Bismarckian age, proved that not all Germans bought into the new national myth. Nevertheless, this earlier photograph, which dates back to the fall of 1868, captures a 24-year-old Nietzsche as he strikes a martial pose during his one-year volunteer service as an artilleryman in the Naumburg Field Artillery Regiment.