Alfred Gross—1893-1957

Alfred Gross died suddenly at his home in New Haven, Connecticut, on March 1, 1957, in his sixty-fourth year. He had come to America in 1947 from England with his wife and two sons, and joined the staff of The Menninger Foundation and The Topeka Psychoanalytic Institute. In 1949 he moved with his family to New Haven, and became one of the founders and original training analysts of the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis, where he taught until his death.

Born in Breslau, Germany, on November 26, 1893, he studied medicine at the Universities of Breslau and Freiburg, receiving his medical degree at the former in 1919. His graduation thesis already marked his interest in psychiatry, and he went at once into psychiatric training in Breslau and Berlin under Professors Bumke and Bonhoeffer, completing it in June 1921. He began his psychoanalytic training before finishing his psychiatric training, a rather rare thing in those days, and by June 1920 had become a student at the Berlin Institute, where Doctor Hanns Sachs was his training analyst. His teachers included Karl Abraham, Max Eitingon, Ernst Simmel, Felix Boehm, Karen Horney, and Josine Muller.

He established his practice first in Berlin in September 1921. On completing his analytic training, he became a member of The Berlin Psychoanalytic Society in 1924 and began psychoanalytic practice. In 1927-1928 he worked with Dr. Ernst Simmel, being his first associate, at the newly founded Psychoanalytic Hospital in Berlin-Tegel.

In 1923 he was married to Ingeborg Christiane Muller in Berlin. His first migration from Nazi Germany was to Milan, Italy, in 1933. He moved on in July 1935 to England where he settled in the Manchester-Liverpool area, again establishing himself in private psychoanalytic practice. He was appointed a training analyst at the British Psychoanalytic Institute in 1940. He continued his practice there until his final migration to the United States in 1947.

Dr. Gross was one of the most