In the ninth section of the complete critical edition (Kritische Gesamtausgabe, KGW) of the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, the manuscripts of the nachlass from the later period (1885-1889) are edited.

The KGW was founded by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari and was originally planned in eight sections. In order to document the late legacy, a ninth section has been added. It replaces the original plan, which Montinari was not able to complete, of presenting philological reports that would provide information on the manuscripts and their inter-relations, and would report all the preliminary stages and variants that were not recorded in the text volumes.

Nietzsche’s late notes are transmitted in twenty notebooks and jotters and on around three hundred loose sheets collected in folders. For the first time, these will be documented in their entirety, as they appear in the manuscript and accompanied by a facsimile of the manuscript (on CD-ROM). The transcriptions are done topologically, following the arrangement of Nietzsche’s notes on the manuscript pages, and they clearly show the complex processes of correction, deletion and subsequent revision, preserving the material’s character as notes and sketches.

The ninth section will comprise 13 volumes and is being produced by a German-Swiss team based in Weimar, Berlin and Basel, under the general editorship of Marie-Luise Haase and Martin Stingelin. It is supported by funding from the Hamburger Stiftung zur Förderung von Wissenschaft und Kultur and the Swiss National Science Foundation and is published by the publishing house Walter de Gruyter. Eight volumes have appeared so far.

The Academy research project “Nietzsche’s Late Period” is part of the Academies' Programme , a research funding programme co-financed by the German federal government and individual federal states. Coordinated by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities , the Programme intends to retrieve and explore our cultural heritage, to make it accessible and highlight its relevance to the present, as well as to preserve it for the future.