The authors outline the difficult situation of the international psychoanalytic movement after the National Socialist takeover in Germany, with special reference a) to the situation of analysts in exile, and b) to the theoretical and political conflicts and controversial internal policy issues dividing the psychoanalytic movement in general. Otto Fenichel's achievement in this period was to send regular circular letters to many of the scattered and isolated psychoanalysts living in exile, thus keeping them in touch with one another and also informing them of ongoing theoretical debates and the controversies over policy issues affecting the psychoanalytic society and the movement as a whole. It is thus more than justified to describe Otto Fenichel posthumously as the historiographer of psychoanalysis during the years of National Socialist rule.