The Myth of the Corpse in the Car

The following story was told to me by a friend and psychoanalytical colleague in the autumn of 1938 when the accord of Munich had removed the immediate threat of war. He guaranteed the full authenticity of his report, which I repeat here verbally.

1) A young man who in September 1938 expected to be called up for service within a day or two brought his fiancée to Laval where he wanted her to stay at the house of relatives. In leaving Paris he stops for gasoline. A middle-aged couple asks him where he is going and learning that he is on his way to Laval entreats him to give transportation to the wife, who wished to go in this direction, whereas her husband had to stay behind to join his regiment next morning. The fiancée cries on the way and speaks about their separation. The other woman reassures her that there is no cause for crying. “You certainly will not be called to arms because there will be no war. Furthermore, Hitler will be a dead man within six months.” She repeats this several times. At their arrival in Laval she says goodbye and asks the young man if and at what time he wants to return to Paris. He answers that he will go back presently.

The woman advises him not to travel just now, because being on his way during the night, he would find a corpse in the car. Once more the two young people consider her as a bit soft in the brain and leave her without asking for her name or address. The relatives of the young man in Laval request him to take in his car a young friend who expects his mobilization. He consents. The new passenger declares when they are well underway that he feels sleepy. He lies down on the back seat and goes to sleep. When the car stops in Paris, at the address of the passenger, the driver tries to wake him and finds that he is dead. “Who is this woman?”

It was a year later in the autumn of 1939 when Hitler in spite of the predictions had lived long enough to start the war, when another anecdote was reported to me. This time it had been told by