Nietzsche used the words “Übermensch” and “Übermenschen” in his book “Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen.” Several translations of these words have been put forward in the more than a century since this book’s first publication in the 1880s. This paper will examine German and “Also sprach Zarathustra,” also referred to as “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” later on, and argue that “Beyond-Human” is the best translation of Übermensch.

Keywords:

Nietzsche, Zarathustra, Übermensch, Übermenschen

In 1896, Alexander Tille translated Übermensch as “Beyond-Man.” Various translations such as Overhuman and Overman have followed in the more than 100 years since (Nietzsche, 2018). This paper will argue that “Beyond-Human” is the best translation of Übermensch.

Über has several translations in English. They include “above,” “beyond,” “over,” “about,” and “more than.” “Over” is applied for sentences such as “Die Hürdenläuferin springt über die Hürden wie eine Gazelle,” which one website essentially translates as “The hurdler jumps over the hurdles like a gazelle” (WordReference.com⁵). “More than,” meanwhile, can be applied for sentences such as “Wie lange hat das Spiel gedauert? Etwas über zwei Stunden” (Deutsch: Na klar! (Hereafter “DNK”) (5th ed.), 2008: p. 218). In “Run Lola Run!,” in response to the main character’s father asking her that she had a boyfriend after she told him that she had a boyfriend, she replied “Über einem Jahr!” (Twyker, 1998, between the 21:00 and 21:08 marks). As for “about,” translating “über” as such fits sentences such as “Berichten Sie über eines der folgenden Themen” (DNK, 2008: p. 381). Two online translation tools translate this sentence as “report on one of the following topics” (Deepl.com⁶; Google Translate⁷). Another translation, however, is “report about one of the following topics.” An “above” translation of über fits sentences such as “sie wohnt über uns” and “über uns nichts als blauer Himmel” which one website translates as “she lives above us” and “nothing above us but blue sky, respectively (WordReference.com⁸). As for translating über as “beyond,” this translation fits sentences such as “über meine Kräfte,” which one website translates as “beyond my strength” (Wordreference.com⁹).

“Weit” in High German means “far” (DNK, 2008: A-54) and “weiter” in High German means “further.” In High German, however, it is sometimes used in the way that native English speakers would use “more” or “additional” (same at p. 345), as shown by the previous citation. It comes from a German textbook that when speaking about the actress Franke Potente gave some examples of movies that she has been in and when about to mention a few more, it said “weitere Filme”.

“Über” is a prefix in various High German words, including überglücklich, überleben, übergroß, and überfreundlich. “Überglücklich” is translated as “overjoyed” and “over the moon” (same at A-51; WordReference.com¹⁰). Translating it as “beyond happy,” though, also makes sense, especially given the previously mentioned tendency in High German to think of things as separate and discrete, as shown by “weitere Filme.”

As for “überleben,” this word is traditionally translated as “to survive” or “to outlive” (DNK, 2008: A-51; WordReference.com¹¹). Another translation that makes sense, however, is “to live beyond,” especially given the previously discussed tendency in High German to use “über” to describe lengths of time, such as for how long a soccer game lasted (DNK, 2008: p. 381).

“Überfreundlich,” meanwhile, is translated as “super-friendly” (same at A-51). It can easily be translated as “beyond friendly,” though, if one thinks of friendliness as a spectrum with discrete categories or cutoff points such as “somewhat unfriendly,” “not really friendly or unfriendly,” etc.

“Über” is oftentimes translated as “above” or “over” in English. This translation does make sense for when referring to something that’s physically above another thing, but “beyond” also works in these sentences because “above” is another way of saying” beyond” or “over” in a vertical sense. “Above” and “over,” however, can’t be used in certain sentences that have “über” in them, such as sentences with the previously mentioned “überleben”¹² and sentences such as “geht der Zug über Frankfurt?” (WordReference.com¹³). “Geht der Zug” translates as “does the train go” and Frankfurt is a city, so translating “über” as “over” or “above” in this sentence doesn’t make sense in English.

“Übermensch” or “Übermenschen” comes up 47 times in Also Sprach Zarathustra.¹⁴ Perhaps the most important of these 47 time sis when Nietzsche wrote “Der Mensch ist ein Seil, geknüpft zwischen Thier und Übermensch,—ein Seil über einem Abgrunde,” which more than one online tool essentially translates as “man is a rope tied between animal and Übermensch, a rope over an abyss” (Google Translate¹⁵; Deepl.com¹⁶). The imagery of this passage strongly suggests “Beyond Human” or “Beyond Man” as the best way to translate “Übermensch” given the imagery of a rope with three groups tied to it with human beings in the middle, a rope that is horizontal given its being over an abyss unless one were to add something to Nietzsche’s words along the lines of that rope somehow being suspended from something else over that abyss’s floor.

Another telling mentioning of “Übermensch” by Nietzsche comes later in the book when he wrote “Ich gehe nicht euren Weg, ihr Verächter des Leibes! Ihr seid mir keine Brücken zum Übermenschen!”. Online sources essentially translate this passage as “I am not going your way, you despisers of the body! You are no bridges to the Übermenschen for me!” (Google Translate¹⁷; Deepl.com¹⁸). The reference to bridges continues the aforementioned horizontal imagery, giving more support to translating “die Übermenschen” as “The Beyond Humans” or “The Beyond Men.”

There are some passages which seem to support a translation of Übermensch as “Overhumans” or “Above Humans”^{19, 20} and they are shown below with an English translation from deepl.com next to them. Each of these passages works, however, if you translate Übermensch as “Beyond Humans” or “Beyond Men.”

Some such as Thomas Common have translated Übermensch as superhuman or superman. ^{21, 22, 23, 24} This translation should be disregarded for several reasons. First, über is a preposition in High German, not an adjective. Secondly, it makes it sound as though an Übermensch is still a Mensch and this is clearly contrary to what Nietzsche intended, as shown by lines saying things like what is an ape to a human being? We are clearly separate for apes, after all. There’s also the line of humans being in the middle of a rope tied between apes and Übermensch, clearly indicating that Nietzsche sees Übermensch as being separate from human beings.

The only reason a “superhuman” or “superman” translation of Übermensch can make sense is because of words like überglucklich, which is sometimes translated as “overjoyed” or “super happy,” and überfreundlich, which is sometimes translated as “super friendly.” As discussed earlier, however, these words can also be translated as “beyond happy” and “beyond friendly,” respectively. And given the just discussed obviousness of Nietzsche’s view of Übermenschen as being separate from humans and über’s usage in German as a preposition, the “superman” and “superhuman” translations should be discarded. A superman is still a man, after all, just like a funny person is still a person.

“Beyond” is a common English word and it is sometimes used to refer to outer space and things from it. Marvel Comics has a character named “The Beyonder” who does not come from Earth (Marvel Database|Fandom²⁵). There was also a science fiction television show named “Space: Above and Beyond” that aired in the mid 90s and documentaries such as “Space: Into the Great Beyond” (IMDB²⁶; Reality Entertainment²⁷). It thus makes sense to translate Übermensch with “beyond” given Nietzsche’s sentences mentioning the stairs of the Übermensch.

Nietzsche’s “Übermensch” has been translated frequently through the years. Given parts of “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” such as someone “being no bridge to the Übermensch,” any translation that only translates über in a vertical way should be discarded. Any translation that discards any sense of direction when translating Übermensch should be ignored given all the passages in “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” that indicate traveling or getting to the Übermensch. And for reasons already stated, translating Übermensch as “superhuman” should also be gotten rid of. Therefore, and including all the reasons previously stated, Übermensch should be translated as “Beyond Human.”

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

Mastroniani, A. (2022). What Exactly Did Nietzsche Mean by “Übermensch”? Advances in Literary Study, 10, 386-397. https://doi.org/10.4236/als.2022.104031

Table with All Mentions of Übermensch in “Thus Spoke Zarathustra