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K.R. Eissler, M.D. PH.D., For Many Years A Close Friend of the Anna Freud Centre, died peacefully on 17 February 1999 at the age of 90. He was not only one of the most distinguished psychoanalysts of his generation, but has left behind a body of writing of permanent value to present and future practitioners. A Freud scholar and historian of distinction, he was tireless in the defense of basic Freudian principles.
Kurt Eissler was born in Vienna on 2 July 1908. He studied psychology at the University, and in 1934, under Professor Karl Buher, was awarded his Ph.D. His M.D. followed in 1937 and, after training at the Psychoanalytic Institute, he joined the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society. There he worked as an assistant to August Aichhorn, a pioneer in teenage delinquency whose book, Wayward Youth, became a classic. In 1938, following the Anschluss, he left for Chicago and obtained the American Board of Psychiatry diploma.
In 1943 he volunteered for the U.S. army as a Captain in the Medical Corps, and directed a Consultation Service at a training camp for ground forces. In the autumn of that year his brother Erik was killed in a concentration camp, though he knew of this only later.
When the war ended he moved to New York, taking up permanent residence and establishing a successful practice. In 1952, together with a group of fellow psychoanalysts, he founded the Sigmund Freud