Obituary

(13 September 1921-12 February 2005)

With ‘Hannes’ Dieckmann's death analytical psychology has lost one of its really important representatives. He had been President of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP) from 1983-1989, President of the German Association 1971-1980 and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Analytical Psychology from 1974 to 2005.

Founder of the Berlin Institute for Analytical Psychology and first editor of the Zeitschrift für Analytische Psychologic, he remained on its editorial board for many years. His wife, Ute, who died three years before, had become an analyst too and loyally supported Hannes in all his work and during the years he lectured at home and abroad. His most original work was on the relationship between a person's favourite fairy tale and their ‘personal fiction’, or the repetitive leitmotiv, or our lives. Geliebte Märchen (Beloved Fairy Tales) was translated into several languages.

In Berlin he became a patriarchal figure. Before there could be any other training analyst at the local institute, every applicant had to go to him. Gradually a group of his pupils became training analysts too and so the colloquially known ‘Gang of Four’ emerged and became training analysts and supervisors until the number of training analysts increased to its present size of sixteen.

Hannes did not retire completely until shortly before his death.

I became a personal-friend of Dieckmann in 1971 when I chaired the 5^th IAAP International Congress. We celebrated the occasion at my house and exchanged shirts like footballers do. After that I was a frequent guest and seminar leader as well as a visiting supervisor when I stayed at Hannes and Ute's home. We did not see each other often even after I had moved to Berlin, but meetings remained cordial.

The large number of members of his family, friends and colleagues that filled the chapel at his funeral testifies to the high esteem in which he was held.