The Escape of Sigmund Freud

David Cohen

• Publisher: ABRAMS Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781468306774
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Biographies de sciences sociales

The "gripping" true story of the founder of psychoanalysis—and how he made it out of Austria after the Nazi takeover ( The Independent ). Sigmund Freud was not a practicing Jew, but that made no difference to the Nazis as they burned his books in the early 1930s. Goebbels and Himmler wanted all psychoanalysts, especially Freud, dead, and after the annexation of Austria, it became clear that Freud needed to leave Vienna. But a Nazi raid on his house put the Freuds' escape at risk. With never-before-seen material, this biography reveals details of the last two years of Freud's life, and the people who helped him in his hour of need—among them Anton Sauerwald, who defied his Nazi superiors to make the doctor's departure possible. The Escape of Sigmund Freud also delves into the great thinker's work, and recounts the arrest of Freud's daughter, Anna, by the Gestapo; the dramatic saga behind the signing of Freud's exit visa and his eventual escape to London; and how the Freud family would have an opportunity to save Sauerwald's life in turn. "Full of fascinating insights and anecdotes... Cohen draws copiously on the correspondence between Freud and [his nephew] Sam to paint a vivid picture of their complex and deeply troubled family." — Daily Mail "An illuminating look at the end of the life of a giant of psychology." — Kirkus Reviews

1

The Bureaucracy of Hate

Vienna, July 25, 1947

Anton Sauerwald looked very haggard for a man of forty-two. His doctor, Karl Szekely, had written many times to the court to explain that his patient was suffering from tuberculosis and asked that the proceedings be delayed. Sauerwald had spent a month in the hospital. However, Judge Schachermayr would have no more delays. The accused’s wife, Marianne, sat close to her husband. She had told the court that her husband had no secrets from her.

For most of the war Sauerwald had been an officer in the Luftwaffe, not a pilot but a technical expert. In March 1945 he was captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp at Bad Heilbrunn run by the Americans, but in June he was released and returned to Vienna. The Nazi defeat had shattered a long-treasured private dream. Throughout the war he had looked after fifteen allotments belonging to a group of Nazis who planned to build a small estate for like-minded people. Their slogan had been Miteinander Füreinander (Together for Each Other), but that dream was now over.

Sauerwald was an extremely well-educated man. When he was only twenty-four years old, he had published four learned papers in the influential Monatsheft der Chemie (The Monthly Journal of Chemistry). He had a doctorate from the University of Vienna, where his professor was a distinguished organic chemist, Josef Herzig, who is still remembered for a particular reaction he discovered. Herzig was also a friend of Freud’s and regularly visited him in the evening to play cards. Sauerwald always liked and respected “Herr Professor Herzig.”

Once in Vienna, a city in ruins and a city of betrayals, Sauerwald could not find his wife. Three months before the war ended, she had abandoned her factory job and fled west, not wanting to be captured by the Russians. Sauerwald spent a night at the house of his mother-in-law, Anna Talg, but in the confusion at that time, Anna did not know where her daughter was to be found. Sauerwald then went to his wife’s grandmother’s house in Kritzendorf, but his wife was not there, either. While Sauerwald was searching for her, someone else was looking for him. Harry Freud, Sigmund’s nephew, was an officer in the American army and insisted that Sauerwald be tracked down. Harry Freud had excellent contacts: one of his cousins was Edward Bernays, who had worked for Woodrow Wilson, the president who took the United States into the First World War. Harry Freud believed that Sauerwald had robbed his family and destroyed the family business, the psychoanalytic publishing house that had started in 1919. He forced his way into the Sauerwalds’ old flat to seek documents that would prove the man’s guilt. No one would stop an American officer.

A few days later, when Anna Talg was asked by the police to describe her son-in-law, she found it hard to say anything much about him. His nose was normal; his ears were normal; his mouth was normal. His eyes were blue-gray. He had absolutely no distinguishing characteristics apart from his blond hair.

At the end of October 1945, at Harry Freud’s insistence, Sauerwald was arrested and the police started to investigate his past in detail. The archives of the city of Vienna make it possible to follow the police inquiries that led to Sauerwald being imprisoned, first in Gefaengnis 1 and then in Gefaengnis 2. He lost the flat on Witter-hauergasse, in Vienna’s Eighteenth District, where he and his wife had lived since the mid-1930s. He had to go to the civil courts to be allowed even to set foot inside his old home. The city had given his flat to a new tenant, Frau Leidersdor, and Sauerwald claimed she had robbed him of the contents of a wardrobe and chemicals, including gold and some catalysts, worth 50,000 reichsmarks.

Frau Leidersdor had a good grasp of publicity and told the press that she was being harassed by the man who had robbed Sigmund Freud. In 1946 the Vienna papers published two stories portraying Sauerwald as a vicious Nazi who was trying to boot a defenseless woman out of her home.

The Neues Österreich (New Austrian) even managed to obtain a letter that Matthias Goering, the cousin of Hitler’s deputy, Hermann Goering, had written to Sauerwald. It seems likely that Frau Leidersdor found the letter in the flat and “leaked” it. Addressing Sauerwald as a fellow member of the Nazi Party, Matthias Goering asked Sauerwald to send a book by a non-Jewish psychoanalyst, August Aichhorn, but to remember to rip out the foreword by Freud because Goering didn’t want anyone to think he was reading Jewish “filth.” In a superb Freudian slip, Goering mistyped Freud’s name as Frued. Then, as Sauerwald must have collected money from the sale of goods belonging to Freud, Goering asked for at least 1,600 marks to help with some expenses. Finally, Goering signed off with a cheery “Heil Hitler.”

The publication of this letter seemed damning. Sauerwald’s lawyer, Franz Petracek, who had been his friend since their schooldays, told Sauerwald he would no longer represent him.

Sauerwald was sent to be tried in the new Volkesgericht, or People’s Court, which was set up as soon as Germany surrendered in June 1945. The records of the People’s Court are now housed in Gasometer D, a once elegant Victorian brick building whose interior has been developed into a tacky shopping mall. Sixteen percent of the defendants in the People’s Court were accused of financial fraud, as Sauerwald was. Sauerwald was also charged with having been a member of the Nazi Party, which had been outlawed in Austria after civil disturbances in 1933 and 1934. The specific charge was of having been an “illegal,” meaning an “illegal” Nazi.

The People’s Court trials were not as high profile as those at Nuremberg, but the Allies were still keen on proper legal processes. They wanted to show that the Nazis had been defeated by civilized people who followed rules. As a result, everything took a great deal of time. In fact, Sauerwald’s trial lasted longer than any trial at Nuremberg.

The prosecution’s case against Sauerwald was simple. As soon as they seized power in Germany in 1933, the Nazis passed decrees to limit the personal and financial freedom of Jews. All Jewish holdings of over 5,000 marks had to be declared. The Nazi Party paper Der Angriff (The Attack) made it clear that “all Jewish assets are assumed to have been improperly acquired.”

The Nazis appointed a trustee or Truehandler to every Jewish business. The Truehandler was supposed to ensure that these improperly acquired Jewish assets were used for the greater glory of Germany and the Nazi project. In Austria, after the Nazis annexed the country, there were at least nine thousand such trustees, who were also called Kommissars. Anton Sauerwald was better qualified than most, having studied medicine and law, as well as chemistry.

On March 15, 1938, Sauerwald was appointed trustee to the Freud family and controlled both their assets and their destiny. By then the psychoanalytic publishing house was being run by Freud’s son, Martin. It had a stock of several thousand unsold books in Leipzig. Despite Freud’s international reputation, the company was a financial disaster. But the Freud family did have money. The prosecution claimed Sauerwald had abused his position to seize the money, as well as assets, including manuscripts, artwork, books, and much else of value.

The People’s Court asked Sauerwald whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty. “Not guilty,” he replied. Over the next eighteen months, he insisted on his innocence in many statements. He repeatedly told the court it was incredible that he should be so charged.

Sigmund Freud had died in London in September 1939, the court was told, but many other members of his family had also suffered at the hands of the accused. Harry Freud, Freud’s nephew, felt he had every reason to press for the arrest of Sauerwald, but Harry tended to be flamboyant. He managed, for instance, to get hold of some of Hitler’s personal headed notepaper and wrote a note on it to the Freuds’ housekeeper, Paula Fichtl—not that he said anything of importance in it. The housekeeper, who revered the family, said that Harry Freud was the only one of them who was not really clever.

As the case against Sauerwald proceeded, with many delays, the prosecution failed to draw attention to one crucial fact. After Sauerwald was reunited with his wife, Marianne, she wrote to Freud’s widow, Martha, who was then in her late eighties and living in Hampstead. In July 1947 Marianne Sauerwald explained her husband’s plight; she did not know whom else to turn to, she said in desperation. If the Freuds were honorable, she said, they would rescue Sauerwald from the terrible difficulties Harry Freud had created for him. Martha did not reply herself but handed the letter to her daughter, Anna. Anna Freud did respond, but the copy of her letter is not signed by her or, indeed, by anyone else. The copy is in the papers relating to Sauerwald’s trial, which are in the Vienna archives.

Sauerwald also asked for letters of support from Freud’s lawyer, Dr. Alfred Indra; from the well-known psychoanalyst, Dr. August Aichhorn (whose book Matthias Goering had wanted); and from Princess Marie Bonaparte of Greece, Napoleon’s great-grandniece. Marie Bonaparte was also an analyst and Freud gave her the exceptional privilege of having two-hour sessions with him.

Anna Freud’s letter was clear, if unsigned. She said it was wrong for Sauerwald to be charged with harming the Freud family. Dr. Alfred Indra and Princess Marie Bonaparte also wrote to the court in Sauerwald’s favor. They all agreed that Sauerwald had actually helped the family in very difficult circumstances. Many who might have been expected to help Freud and his family in their hour of need had not done so. Carl Jung, for example, did nothing, even though he was very influential in Germany.

Anton Sauerwald was hardly the only German or Austrian to help Jews. The most celebrated “helper” is, of course, Oskar Schindler, the subject of Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s Ark and Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List. At Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, there is a list of Gentiles who took large risks to help Jews. Schindler is remembered with honor, as is Albert Goering, Hermann Goering’s brother.

Sauerwald’s name is not inscribed at Yad Vashem as one of the righteous Gentiles, but he did help at least one Jewish family. In fact, without Sauerwald’s help, it is unlikely that Freud, his wife, his sister-in-law, his daughter, his son—and a total of sixteen relatives, associates, and “servants”—would have managed to escape. Four of Freud’s five sisters stayed behind in Vienna; all died in concentration camps.

This book will explain why a Nazi—and Sauerwald was a sincere Nazi—had every reason to expect that Sigmund Freud’s daughter and his friends would come to his rescue. For a variety of reasons, it is not a story that Freudians have tended to explore.

2

Biographies and Restricted Archives

The Library of Congress houses 153 boxes of correspondence among Freud and his family, friends, and patients, as well as clinical notes and other papers, but not all of these can be read. Nineteen boxes cannot be opened until 2020, 2050, or 2057; eight are closed in perpetuity One box contains an envelope marked TOP SECRET.

It is natural that Freud should wish to protect the confidences of his patients, even for fifty years after they died. The restrictions go well beyond this, however, and it is far from clear that all of the closed items deal with confidential medical matters. In contrast, Carl Rogers, the founder of humanist psychotherapy, gave the Library of Congress all of his papers with no restrictions. Appendix 2 contains a detailed list of materials in the Freud Archives that are restricted, but some need to be highlighted from the start.

Not to be opened until 2050 or 2057 are the following folders:

Till 2050, correspondence between Freud and his nephew Harry Freud, the man who had Sauerwald arrested. No other correspondence with a nephew or niece is restricted.

Till 2056, correspondence relating to the Bernays family, with whom Freud became doubly linked by marriage. He married Martha Bernays, while his sister Anna married Martha’s brother, Eli. One of Martha and Eli’s sisters, Minna, lived with the Freud family from 1892 after her fiancé died. Freud and his sister-in-law traveled together to Rome in 1913. Freud historian Peter Swales claims Sigmund Freud and Minna Bernays were lovers and that she had to have an abortion after she became pregnant by him.

The papers relating to Minna Bernays are restricted in perpetuity. If she and Freud had a sexual relationship, that would not be surprising.

The papers relating to Anna Freud, Freud’s daughter, are also restricted in perpetuity. Freud called her “Anna Antigone,” because of her devotion to him. Antigone was the daughter of Oedipus in Greek mythology. Her friends denied Anna was a lesbian, though she had a fifty-year-long intimate friendship with Dorothy Burlingham, whose grandfather, Charles Tiffany, founded the famous jewelers, Tiffany & Co.; Burlingham had a husband, too. Despite her close relationship with his daughter, Robert Burlingham was analyzed by Freud. It was a web of entanglements. In his biography of Anna Freud, Robert Coles, the distinguished psychiatrist and historian, merely says the relationship between the two women was “complex.” When I asked Anna Freud’s last secretary, Gina Le Bon, whether the two women were lovers, she replied, “Does it matter?” They were discreet if they were.

The papers relating to Edith Jackson are also never to be opened. She was a wealthy American who worked with Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham setting up nurseries for poor children in Vienna and London. She knew a good deal about the relationship of her two close friends.

Freud’s own pocket books are also closed in perpetuity, though I found two of them in Box 50 in the Library of Congress. They offer some of Freud’s meticulously kept notes on his patients, the drugs he prescribed, and the fees they paid.

In 1952, an American psychoanalyst, Leslie Adams, was planning a biography of Freud. Adams wrote to the British Library, which passed his letter on to Manchester City Library. Adams wanted information about Freud’s British relatives and had gotten nowhere by asking fellow analysts. Adams was challenging in his letter to the British Library. He wrote:

It will guide you somewhat that the Freud family are morbidly reticent about the family history and that any work which must be done in this direction must be in spite of their cooperation. This indicates that behind this history is some disillusioning truth.

Adams never published his biography. Curiously, some of his notes have ended up in the archives of Manchester City Library where they have languished, unseen.

There have been bitter, sometimes melodramatic disagreements about access to the Freud Archives. In 1964 the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress received a gift of the papers of Princess Marie Bonaparte on condition that no one read them until 2020. In 1982, the historian Phyllis Grosskurth was not just denied access to these papers, but she was not told that she might be able to consult copies of them in Paris. When she found out, Grosskurth went on the attack in The New York Review of Books. The Librarian of Congress, Mr. Wilkinson, America’s senior librarian, had to defend the reputation of his institution: “Although some say that great secrets about Freud are being kept by these restrictions, I have examined most of the sealed material, for administrative reasons, and can say that no great horrors will be revealed by any of these documents.” It’s a lovely phrase, “administrative reasons”; the use of the word “horrors” is, of course, intriguing, but the Librarian of Congress did not specify how he defined “horrors.”

Even more dramatic were the disagreements that centered on Jeffrey Masson, an archivist who claimed Freud had suppressed facts about the seduction of children in order not to shock people too much. Masson’s aggressive study The Assault on Truth charted this “suppression” and how the Freud Archives sacked him. A good view of the Masson saga, which ended in litigation, can be found in Janet Malcolm’s In the Freud Archives.

Given the extensive scholarship on Freud, it is surprising to come across some strange omissions. No one had tried to get access to the archives of the school Freud attended from the age of ten. The files matter because one of his friends at school was Josef Herzig, one of Anton Sauerwald’s teachers. Very few scholars have consulted the Sauerwald files in the Vienna and the Austrian state archives. The exception is Dr. Murray Hall of the University of Vienna, who is concerned with the history of publishing rather than the history of psychoanalysis. Hall has done valuable work on the publishing company Freud helped set up in 1919, the company that Sauerwald would eventually control. Harry Freud’s letters, records, and unpublished autobiography also seem to have been rather neglected; they form a separate collection in the Library of Congress.

Two books that have never been published in English are also relevant to Freud’s last years. The first is by F...