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Berlin-Eichkamp
18 March 1927
Dear Professor Freud,
May I make a request of you? I would like to have your permission to dedicate my book Caliban oder Politik und Leidenschaft, Versuch iiber die menschlichen Gruppenaffekte, dargestellt am Antisemitismus1 to you.
My gratitude to you has many aspects and it is this that moves me to make my request. Firstly, because without your system of thought, your basic ideas and your new principles (the reintroduction of the psyche into psychology), without your creative philosophic method my own modest contribution to theoretic knowledge would never have been possible. Secondly, because anti-semitism, which you must have experienced in all its aspects, owes you an obeisance. And thirdly, because I personally owe to your psychological therapy the restoration of my whole personality, the discovery that I was suffering from a neurosis and finally the curing of this neurosis by your method of treatment.
I still cherish the hope of being able to make your personal acquaintance. I think I could supply you with a number of significant insights into neurotic inhibitions affecting the creative artist which might perhaps confirm certain observations made by you long ago.
Today I only hope that you will agree to accept the dedication of a book which you do not as yet know, but which owes so much to you. In any case I remain always
Your faithful admirer
Arnold Zweig