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Nietzsche Apologetics: Am I missing something?

I'm currently reading 'On the Genealogy of Morals'. Before starting I had the vague understanding that:

1. Nietzsche and his ideas were distorted by his sister to make him seem more nazi-esque
2. He doesn't actually support the brutal master morality in the first essay and is more nuanced than that

But reading the first essay, it seems to be nothing but glowing appraisal of the noble master morality folk, including justification of their 'murder, arson, violence and torture'  as a natural 'need' (point 11) and part of their glory, as opposed to the regressive compassionate slave bunch. He seems to be longing for a return of more master morality, else face mediocrity... Wouldn't that include more of the bloodshed as above?

So I suppose my question is: am I misinterpreting or misunderstanding Nietzsche so far? I went in expecting to find something different because I'd heard he's so misunderstood but it seems at least a bit nazi-like (even if the blond beast is an animal rather than Aryan metaphor).

I'd appreciate if someone who actually knew what was going on could give some insight.
gpt
> But reading the first essay, it seems to be nothing but glowing appraisal of the noble master morality folk, including justification of their 'murder, arson, violence and torture' as a natural 'need' (point 11) and part of their glory, as opposed to the regressive compassionate slave bunch. He seems to be longing for a return of more master morality, else face mediocrity... Wouldn't that include more of the bloodshed as above?

So, here's the bit you're talking about (my emphasis to sustain the line of thought):

> **Here there is one thing we will be the last to deny: the man who knows these "good men" only as enemies, knows them as nothing but evil enemies**, and the same men who are so strongly held bound by custom, honour, habit, thankfulness, even more by mutual suspicion and jealousy inter pares [among equals] and **who**, by contrast, demonstrate in relation to each other such resourceful consideration, self-control, refinement, loyalty, pride, and friendship—these men, **once outside where the strange world, the foreign, begins, are not much better than beasts of prey turned loose**. There they enjoy freedom from all social constraints. In the wilderness they make up for the tension which a long fenced-in confinement within the peace of the community brings about. They go back to the innocent consciousness of a wild beast of prey, as joyful monsters, **who perhaps walk away from a dreadful sequence of murder, arson, rape, and torture with exhilaration and spiritual equilibrium, as if they had merely pulled off a student prank**, convinced that the poets now have something more to sing about and praise for a long time.

So, here Nietzsche is making a genealogical concession about the origin of what we now see as aristocracy/nobility - that it is rooted in barbarism.  He says next, for instance:

> It was the noble races which left behind the concept of the "barbarian" in all their tracks, wherever they went.

In the rest of the passage Nietzsche is trying to point out a general problem he thinks that history presents us - prior ages are barbaric by the lights of our refined taste, but responding to that barbarism with a *total* rejection of it creates (he claims) a problem for how we're supposed to continue to progress.  His comment about Hesiod's reaction to Homer is a representative anecdote for this.

What follows is a repeated attempt to solve the contradiction - that is validate our disgust in the barbarian without a mistaking our relation to them, in particular in how we think about the 'domestication' of nobility.  Roughly, we should be reasonably afraid of the baser impulses, but if we *only* fear them then we risk creating something which he thinks is much worse - *comfort* with the absolutely tame.

All of this is to say that, in some sense, you're right - he does think we should admire the barbarian, but it's wrong to say that it's "nothing more than a glowing appraisal."  It's a measured appraisal - an appraisal combined with disgust and prudential fear buttressed by a fear of something which, on his account, is much worse for humankind.

On his own account he's trying to push back against a narrative which *only* is disgusted with the barbarian, so perhaps he's overdone the counter-narrative or, at least, offered cover for those who wish to accept an overdone counter-narrative.  He's probably being intentionally provocative here, and, unsurprisingly, we're provoked.  (That is to say - it wasn't hard for his sister to transform his works into Nazi propaganda.)