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Psychoanalytic literature before the Second World War referred extensively to Nietzsche's influence and character. It is furthermore amazing how much attention was given to the similarities between psychoanalytic doctrine and Nietzsche's philosophy.
Early preoccupation by Freudians with Nietzsche appears in the Minutes of the weekly meetings held by the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, chaired by Freud.
At the 11th meeting of the Society, held on January 30, 1907, Sadger observes that one reason for contemporary nervousness is that “no fresh blood has been introduced since the migration of Nietzsche's blond beast”1 At the meeting of November 13, 1907, Wittels spoke about Nietzsche's “sexual imprudence.”2 The April 1908 meeting was devoted entirely to a discussion of the 3rd essay of Nietzsche's Geneology of Morals on Ascetic Ideals.3
In his introductory comments, Hitschmann pointed to a geneological and reductive analogy between Nietzsche's life and his theory. He stressed the sharp contrast between Nietzsche's mild, subdued, and sublimated behavior in his every-day life, and the content and form of his ideas, the violent “Dionysian” temperament glorifying “cruelty and vengeance” in the figure of the “blond beast.” In summarizing Nietzsche's essay, he concluded that Nietzsche's rejection of the Ascetic Ideal stems from his inability to satisfy his own needs. Nietzsche is not conscious of the fact that in his exaltation of a cruel way of life, which allows for complete expression of one's desires and inclinations, he wishes to shed his own ascetic and inhibited mode of living.