Chapter V. Last Years in Vienna (1934-1938)

This year saw the flight of the remaining Jewish analysts from Germany and the ‘liquidation’ of psycho-analysis in Germany. It was one of Hitler's few successful achievements. Looking back it is remarkable how thoroughly the knowledge of Freud and his work, once so widely spread throughout Germany, could be almost completely obliterated, so that twenty years afterward it is still at a lower level than, for instance, in Brazil or Japan. Naturally it caused Freud great distress and confirmed his pessimistic views about the ubiquitous presence of anti-Semitism.

The first signal of what was to happen had been the bonfire of Freud's and other psycho-analytical books in Berlin at the end of May, 1933, shortly after Hilter had come to power. On April 17, 1933, Boehm visited Freud in Vienna to ask his advice about the situation. The immediate question was the new order that no Jews were to serve on any scientific council. Freud was of the opinion that merely to change the personnel in this way would not prevent the government from forbidding psycho-analysis in Germany. Yet it would be wise not to give them that pretext by refraining from making the change, and he agreed that Boehm replace Eitingon on the council. Some physicians of the Charité hospital composed an indictment against the Psycho-Analytical Society, and there were many other rumours of the worsening situation. So on October 1, 1933, I met Boehm and Müller-Braunschweig in The Hague and discussed it with them, reporting afterwards to Vienna. At a general meeting of the Society on November 18 Eitingon proposed that the Council be restricted to two members, those just mentioned, and this was unanimously agreed.

In June, 1933, the German Society for Psychotherapy had come under Nazi control and masqueraded under the aegis of an ‘International General Medical Society for Psychotherapy’, which in its turn was ‘readjusted’ in terms of the ‘German National Revolution’.1 Reichsführer Dr. M. H. Göring explained that