Obituary Notices

FRITZ STRAUSS was born in Berlin, leaving Germany when the Nazis came to power, and living first in Switzerland before he and his wife, Ruth, settled in London at the outbreak of war.

Fritz was a lover of all the arts, and of music in particular, and was himself an expert pianist, an ‘amateur’ in the literal sense. He also began to study medicine, but that was suspended with the move to Switzerland. He was able to take up his music and was once given notice to quit his accommodation in Zürich when the landlady complained that he played only classical music. In London Fritz still kept a piano, but with a move to a smaller flat off Park Lane it had to go and he never played again, though he attended concerts and operas, chosen with meticulous care. I often regret that I did not know how to draw him out to talk of the many things he knew so much about, especially in the musical world. I remember him best sitting with eyes closed and hand gently moving with the music. He retained his keen musical interest and enjoyment to the end of his life and, shortly before his death, had ordered new recordings, one of which was heard at his simple, dignified and moving cremation service.

After settling in London Fritz took an honours B.A. degree in psychology at Birkbeck College and went on to train as a clinical psychologist at the Maudsley Hospital. From there he went to Maxwell Jones's famous unit at Belmont Hospital, where he worked full-time for ten years until his retirement. While working at the unit he trained as an analytical psychologist and became a member of the Society of Analytical Psychology. He had a small analytic practice up until his death and also worked part-time, for ten years, as clinical psychologist at H.M. Prison at Wormwood Scrubbs. It was at this time that I had most contact with his professional life, when he talked more freely about his work and occasionally asked advice on points of language in his prison reports, and I realised then how he