Herman Nunberg—1884-1970

Dr. Nunberg belonged among those outstanding pioneers whose life and work have become an essential part of psychoanalytic history. In expressing our deep sense of loss, and in paying tribute to the rich legacy that he has left behind, one may wish to trace the main events of his life. Nevertheless, as Anna Freud said in her introduction of Nunberg's recently published Memoirs, 'even our most determined attempts in this respect fall short inevitably of the intended aim to recreate for the present generation of analysts the true picture of a man and his work'.

Dr. Nunberg was born in Poland, where he spent his childhood. He went to medical school in Cracow and later to the medical school in Zurich, from which he graduated. At that time, the Swiss school of psychiatry was the outstanding one in the world and Dr. Nunberg was able to absorb the psychiatric contributions of its leading spirit, Bleuler. Later, he took part with Jung in studies on association. He then went to Vienna where he became a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Later, he married Margarete Rie, the sister of Dr. Marianne Kris and the daughter of the pediatrician who attended Freud's children. In 1931 he was invited to Philadelphia to teach psychoanalysis there. He immigrated to the United States with his family in 1933 and after staying in Philadelphia for a year, moved to New York.

His first major work, published in 1932—Allgemeine Neurosenlehre auf Psychoanalytischer Grundlage (it appeared here in translation as Principles of Psychoanalysis in 1956)—fully revealed Nunberg's specific scientific approach. His contributions, both before and after, were to become classics, milestones on the road to psychoanalytic progress. Nunberg always avoided speculation and, even more, formulations without a firm clinical basis. When he felt himself ready to formulate a paper, it was because by that time he knew the paper would be able to express a clear unity between his clinical data and his th