Many authors have hinted at a death trauma, but none have named it. Freud mentioned the term, Hilflosigkeit, referring to an infant's distress without recourse. Brown and Becker wrote about a “flight from death,” during the anal stage. Wainrib spoke about the ‘vanishing of one's being,” in connection with an infant's distress without recourse. Klein wrote about an infant's fear of death, which caused splitting, chaos and disintegration of the personality. This paper takes the next step and posits a death trauma that occurs at the point in childhood when humans first become aware of their own mortality. It then explains how the death trauma and the death complex affect personality formation.