1918
331A
Allenstein
6 January 1918
Dear Professor,
Many thanks for your two letters and for complying with my wish concerning Krauss [sic]! I did gather from your first letter that you found it difficult to come to a decision, but I did not doubt for a moment that you would in fact write to K., and it was therefore unnecessary to set my mind at rest with the second letter! I am very sorry that my request made you feel so uncomfortable. Perhaps we shall both be rewarded by a favourable result!
There is nothing new to report from here. Today I received the reprints of the trifle about “Spending of Money in Anxiety States”.1 My work on the Habilitation progresses slowly. On the scientific front, I might mention that I am getting interesting results from the analysis of a case of obsessional brooding, which will be suitable for publication later (addenda to the anal-sadistic aetiology).2
I am enclosing with this letter the promised review of Pötzl.3 I am very disappointed with the paper. The author's attitude to Ψα is ambivalent, in that he agrees with everything theoretically but, at the same time, robs the concepts of their real content; thus his acceptance becomes meaningless, and in practice he is very far from using the method. I have therefore written a review that is moderate in tone but unequivocally unfavourable. Has P. become a member in the meantime? After this paper I should find that difficult to understand.
I am very sorry to hear that Rank is not well. Sachs on the other hand seems to be in top form. As soon as there are real hopes of peace, I feel personally ready for anything, and I already have a number of plans for a scientific get-together! That does not mean to say that the war years have passed me by without trace. Just like everyone else, I have lost some of my vigour, hair pigmentation, and weight. But I hope for a quick regeneration and not for myself alone!
Since you do not mention any details about your family, I assume that you are all well, including the soldiers at the front.
With many good wishes for 1918 (Casimiro!) and cordial greetings from house to house,
Yours,
Karl Abraham
1. Abraham, 1917[55].
2. Possibly the case mentioned by Abraham (1921[70]: pp. 381–382).
3. Abraham's review appeared in the Zeitschrift (1919, 5: 222–224), but is not listed in the bibliography of his writings and has never been reprinted.
Otto Pötzl [1877–1962], one of the most important representatives of the Viennese school of psychiatry, between 1905 and 1921 assistant and senior physician at the psychiatric–neurological clinic with Julius Wagner-Jauregg. On 14 November 1917 Pötzl had been accepted as a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. In 1922 he became a full professor in Prague; in 1928 he returned to Vienna as Wagner-Jauregg's successor. He “ended…the denial of psychoanalysis at the University of Vienna which had prevailed until then and supported, to the extent possible, Freud's pupils. But his attitude towards psychoanalysis remained ambivalent all his life” (Nunberg & Federn, 1975: p. xxii). (Cf. Mühlleitner, 1992: pp. 245–247; Roazen, 1992: pp. 119–120, 129.)
332F
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
191 January 1918
Shivering with cold!
Dear Friend,
I am very glad you did not take my recent difficulties more seriously. Your equable temperament and indestructible willingness for life stand up well to my alternations between courage and resignation. The resistances against which it was written were probably evident in my letter to Kraus. The handwriting changed at least four times in the two pages. But at least the content was harmless. I have not received an answer this time either, but gladly put up with this if only it helps you.
Your criticism of Pötzl did him great honour, because it was completely honest. He has now become a member, and his reply to respective reproaches is that he has since gone much more deeply into analysis. Also he is soon to go to Prague as successor to Pick2; this too will not be a disadvantage to us.
The Dutch are now getting serious about things. We recently received from them a pile of reviews of Dutch papers and polemical writings,3 and a quite admirably clear and definite rebuttal of Jung's latest product on the psychology of the unconscious processes (1917).4 A new local group is about to be formed in Warsaw.5
Otherwise there is little news. I am reading about Darwinism without any real aim, like someone with plenty of time before him, which may be appropriate in view of the paper shortage. The practice is still very busy, and also even interesting. Successes have been good. One of my sons (Ernst) is at present nearer to you than to me, he may be visiting his sister in Schwerin today. We receive occasional news of the other two, none of it bad. If the war lasts long enough, it will kill everybody off anyway.
Reik came to see me yesterday from darkest Montenegro. He is going back there, but like so many others he is expecting to be posted to the Western Front. He looks well, asked after you, and agreed to take several things with him to review. Yesterday I also read the preface to the second edition of Rank's Artist.6 Farewell, go on being a brave Casimiro for me, and accept the most cordial greetings from
Your
Freud
1. Reading uncertain; it might be a 19, corrected from 18, or vice versa.
2. Arnold Pick [1851–1924], neurologist in Prague, described the illness named after him (atrophy of parts of the brain) and pontine visual hallucinations. He had written a review of Freud's On Dreams (Pick, 1901).
3. Cf. the review of the Dutch literature by August Stärcke in the Bericht über die Fortschritte der Psychoanalyse in den Jahren 1914–1919, 1921: pp. 332–347.
4. Meyer, 1917.
5. Cf. the corresponding short note in the Zeitschrift (1919, 5: 228). The initiative had come from Eugenia Sokolnicka (née Kutner) [1884–1934], but eventually failed. After studying natural sciences and biology at the Sorbonne in Paris, Sokolnicka stayed at the Burghölzli [1911/12]; in 1913/14 she underwent analysis with Freud and was a member of the Vienna Society from 1916 to 1926; after the First World War she underwent a second analysis with Ferenczi. In 1921, as an “emissary” of Freud's, she went to Paris; however, she was rejected by the medical circles there. In 1926 she was co-founder and vice president of the Société Psychanalytique de Paris. Isolated and impoverished, she took her own life in 1934.
6. See letter 314F, 20 May 1917, n. 4.
333A
Allenstein
4 February 1918
Dear Professor,
Although there is not much new to report, I do not want to delay my reply any longer. I have in the meantime studied the issue of the Zeitschrift that has come out.1 What is really good in the issue is by Ferenczi.*2 I could contribute a great deal in confirmation, drawn from the experience of the war, of his main paper and might perhaps do so later on. This may well be the best paper that F. has written so far. Besides his smaller papers in this issue, his review of Schultz3 is excellent. I know the author personally; we worked together for quite a long time here in the hospital, and I have even mentioned him earlier in my letters.4 He is very talented, well educated in everything to do with psychoanalysis, but without any moral foundation. This characteristic also explains the article reviewed.
Pötzl's paper on dreams, which Sachs has promised me for reviewing,5 arrived today, sent from Lemberg. The sender does not give his name. The copy contains a dedication to the Vienna Association. I shall write the review as soon as I can. I use most of my spare time with preparatory work for my paper for Habilitation. I had a letter from Bonhoeffer that does not hold out very much hope but does not completely bar the way. At any rate I want to make the attempt. I want to thank you again for overcoming such great resistances.
Our Dutch colleagues do indeed deserve appreciation for what they are achieving in these times. This increase of interest in the East, in spite of the war, promises well for peace time. But when will peace come? You, dear Herr Professor, are mistaken if you think that I remain completely untouched by the years. At times I too feel depressed, but so far have always succeeded in accepting the inevitable.
I hope you still have good news of your two sons at the front, and that you and your family there are as well as these times allow.
What is to become of our journals, when one more issue of each of them has appeared? When is Rank's second edition coming out?
I do not know whether I wrote to you that I have moved with my hospital. Address now: Artilleries-Mess Reserve Hospital. Unfortunately we also have to change our private quarters by 1 April; it is very difficult here to get a bearable replacement. The best place would be Berlin, but at present that is unattainable.
With the most cordial greetings from house to house,
Yours,
Karl Abraham
* Tausk's article6 disappoints me. Far too many words and little substance behind them.
1. The penultimate issue of the 1916/17 volume.
2. Ferenczi, 1917[195].
3. Ferenczi, 1917[205].
4. See letter 275A, 26 April 1915, & n. 6.
5. This review of Abraham's (1919[63b]), written later but published earlier than the one mentioned in letter 331A, 6 January 1918, is also not listed in the bibliography of his writings.
6. The second part of Tausk, 1916–17, in Roazen, 1991; cf. letter 324A, 2 November 1917, & n. 2.
334F
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
17 February 1918
Dear Friend,
Yesterday my son Martin came home on leave from Tagliamento in “excellent shape”. Ernst is also here, but not at all well. Thanks to a general eczema, Oli has a rather long stay in a Galician hospital.1
I received a booklet from Germany a few days ago that is bound to be of special interest to you. I cannot send it to you, because I want it to be generally known here, but you will be able to get it easily. It is called “War Neuroses and Psychic Trauma. Their Mutual Relations, Presented on the Basis of Studies in Psychoanalysis and Hypnosis”2 by
Ernst Simmel, MD
at present senior physician of the L[Landsturm?] and doctor in
charge
in a special hospital for war neurotics
With a preface by
Dr Adolf Schnee
Publisher Otto Nemnich, Leipzig—Munich
1918.
This is the first time that a German physician, basing himself firmly and without patronizing condescension on Ψα ground, speaks of its outstanding usefulness in the treatment of war neuroses and backs this with examples, and is also completely upright on the question of sexual aetiology. It is true that he has not gone the whole way with Ψα, takes essentially the cathartic standpoint, works with hypnosis, which is bound to conceal resistance and sexual drives from him, but he correctly apologizes for this because of the necessity of quick results and the large number of cases with which he has to deal. I think a year's training would make a good analyst of that man. His behaviour is correct.
The booklet was written in the hospital in Posen and is probably intended to be only the preliminary communication of a more detailed publication. I think you should read and review it for us; it will be easy for you, and I suggest it to you as a relief from your dissertation [sic] which does not seem to me to be promising much success in any case.
I hope we shall be able to continue with our journals. Heller seems to be in good form. We have ample material.—The world is surely in a muddle.
With cordial greetings to you and to your dear family,
Your faithfully devoted
Freud
1. Ernst had arrived on 18 January, Martin on 16 February; on 16 March Martin left again, and on 12 April Ernst was declared unfit for service. From 26 February until 13 March Oli was at home on his first leave (calendar entries, LOC).
2. Simmel, 1918. Ernst Simmel [1882–1947], Berlin physician, cofounder of the Society of Socialist Physicians and, during the First World War, chief physician and medical director of a special hospital for war neurotics in Posen (now Poznan in Poland). Analysed by Abraham, from 1920 on he was a director, along with Abraham and Eitingon, of the psychoanalytic polyclinic in Berlin. In 1927 he was director of the psychoanalytic sanatorium Schloss Tegel, near Berlin—the first psychoanalytic hospital. In 1934 Simmel emigrated to Topeka, Kansas, and then moved to Los Angeles, where, with Otto Fenichel, he brought the psychoanalytic society there into being.
335A
Allenstein
12 March 1918
Dear Professor,
A few days ago I heard from Sachs that at the moment you have the joy of seeing all three sons home on leave. Certainly this time, however short it might be, has had a favourable effect on your mood. May a quick end to the war enable them to come home altogether, so that they can rest on their well-deserved laurels! I often think how hard it must have been for you and your wife to bear such worries for all these years. How are your two sons-in-law?
I sent for the book by Simmel and Schnee and have just read it. I too am amazed at the achievement and even more by the courage of the conviction, of the author as well as of his protector. I shall get in touch with the author and may thus be able to contribute something to winning him completely over to our interests. I find many of my own hospital experiences confirmed in the book. Perhaps a meeting with him may be possible, as Posen lies on the way from Allenstein to Berlin.
Our journals are continuing after all! Since we have managed to keep them going for so long, they will probably stay alive until peace comes. Whenever there is a small spark of hope making one think of peace, plans for projects automatically seem to start up in my mind. I must confess to you that I am already preparing a paper for the next Congress on giving a prognosis in Ψα treatment. I do not have sufficient material for other theoretical papers, but think I can speak definitively on a practical problem of this kind on the basis of my seven years' experience before the war. There are other reasons too for choosing such a subject.
The hard East Prussian winter seems to be about to end earlier this year than it usually does. At the beginning of April we have to move into another residence, very small-town, in an old house, but at least with a big garden, which is wonderful for the children. While my wife and I think nostalgically of Berlin, the children are completely happy in the small town.
Hoping to have good news from you and your family soon, I am, with cordial greetings from house to house,
Yours,
Karl Abraham
336F
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
22 March 1918
Dear Friend,
There is no need to explain the slip of the pen on the envelope!1 As the great offensive has now begun,2 I assume your spirits will have been raised, if not by the hope of peace, at any rate by that of victory, and for that reason you will think my confession to being tired and weary of the struggle all the more irresponsible. As you see, I can hardly write legibly any more. Perhaps, as I have always been a carnivore, the unaccustomed diet contributes to my listlessness.
Two of my warriors have gone back, first of all to their former postings. The third, Ernst, because of his ailments, the worst of which is pulmonary catarrh, is in a position to be graded C or B and hopes for several months' leave so as to be able to go on with his studies in Munich. If travelling were not now forbidden and subject to all sorts of penalties, I should very much like to go to see my daughter and grandson at Easter, and Schwerin is not too far from Allenstein. But it cannot be done.
If you were free now, a vast field of work would be open to you as the natural intermediary with German neurology. Today—following in the wake of Simmel—I received a monograph from Lewandowsky's collection3 (Vol. 15), called Delusion and Realization by Paul Schilder (Leipzig),4 which is quite analytic in its conclusions, though it dutifully ignores the Oedipus complex. Sch. naturally writes as if these gentlemen had discovered everything, or most of it, by themselves. That, in short, is the way our findings will be “adopted” by German medicine. Not that it matters.
I recently sent you the proofs of the last issue5 of the Zeitschrift, both because of my metapsychological efforts6 and because of the—not exactly distinguished—reaction of Tausk to your paper on ejaculatio praecox.7 We are continuing to print the journals, but Heller is ill and inaccessible, so that we are uncertain about the future. I wanted to persuade him to publish a fourth volume of my Sammlung [kleiner Schriften] zur Neurosenlehre and would have given him for that purpose a long case history that has been in store since 1914.8
I send my cordial greetings to you and to your dear wife,
Yours,
Freud
1. Instead of Kasino [officers' mess], Freud had written Kaserne [barracks].
2. The big “spring offensive” of German troops on the Western Front started on 21 March.
3. Monographien aus dem Gesamtgebiete der Neurologie und Psychiatrie [Monographs on the Whole of Neurology and Psychiatry].
4. Schilder, 1918. Paul Schilder [1886–1940], neurologist and psychiatrist from Vienna. Before the war he had been assistant at the psychiatric clinic in Leipzig, and after the war, he returned to Vienna and became a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society [1919]. He worked in Wagner-Jauregg's psychiatric clinic, advocating and teaching a combination of psychiatry, brain pathology, and psychoanalysis. In 1925 professor, in 1929 head of the department for psychoses at the psychoanalytic polyclinic. Around 1930 he emigrated to New York City, where he was instrumental in introducing psychoanalysis into psychiatry and in developing psychoanalytic group therapy. (Cf. Mühlleitner, 1992: pp. 286–288; Roazen, 1985: pp. 151, 210, 254, 284.)
5. That is, the last issue of the 1916/17 volume.
6. Freud, 1916–17f, 1916–17g.
7. Tausk, 1917, cf. letter 323F, 5 October 1917.
8. The fourth volume of Freud's Collection of Little Essays on the Theory of the Neuroses did appear in 1918 with Heller, containing the case history of the Wolf Man (Freud, 1918b [1914]).
337A
Allenstein, Bahnhofstr. 82
(Please address letters to: “Reserve Hospital Artillerie-Kasino”)
16 April 1918
Dear Professor,
We have an unpleasant time behind us. First the search for a new residence, then moving from an old house into one even older. We have increasingly learned to renounce our claims to comfort, and so we are succeeding, by repressing all the desires natural to city-dwellers, in feeling tolerably comfortable in our new home. There is, however, a big orchard, so that the children are completely happy. In spite of everything we are naturally always happy anew to be able to live here together. Only the unforeseeable nature of the exile is depressing.—I am very glad that recently you have not needed to worry about your two sons at the front. I hope there is nothing seriously wrong with the one at home.
Now I have to thank you for your letter and the proofs. I have only just been able to read the latter. I wanted to read the first of your two papers1 through twice before letting you know my reactions. It is very difficult, and I had first to adjust myself to this new way of thinking. I believe I have now achieved this and can say that I have no serious objection to make. I shall now reread the whole series of articles and after that let you know again what I think. I already knew the draft of your melancholia paper2 so that it was less of a surprise to me. I am pleased to note that my “incorporation phantasy” could be fitted into the wider framework of your theory.3 I have no important criticisms of this paper either4 and can only admire your ability to complete the edifice always a little more at such a time. One very minor criticism is the following. The so-called delusion of inferiority found in the melancholic5 only appears to be such. Sometimes it is actually a delusion of grandeur, as for instance when the patient imagines that he has committed all the evil since the creation of world. Even though the self-reproaches may be aimed at the love-object, they signify at the same time a narcissistic over-estimation of the own criminal capacities (similar to obsessional neurotics who think themselves capable of monstrous crimes).
Next week I am going (in an official capacity) to the Psychiatric Congress in Würzburg. Afterwards I shall visit my mother and also stay a short while in Berlin. If time permits I may visit Simmel in Posen on my return journey.
My colleague Liebermann has become the father of a son. Otherwise I can report from here only that I have recently begun a new psychoanalysis which promises well, a fairly mild but instructive obsessional neurosis. I have heard from Reik and Sachs and shall be answering them both soon. Pötzl's experimental work on dreams is very difficult to read. I have not yet finished it, but I shall review it in a few weeks' time.
Most cordial greetings from house to house!
Yours,
Karl Abraham
P.S.: Tausk's review is, like everything he writes, too long-winded, but contains some good points. Perhaps I shall still have something to say about it.—Are you really in agreement with Reik's small contribution to child psychology?6
1. Freud, 1916–17f.
2. Freud, 1916–17g.
3. See letter 273A, 31 March 1915, Freud, 1916–17g: pp. 249–250.
4. “When Freud published his ‘Mourning and Melancholia’”, Abraham later wrote in his Study of the Development of the Libido (1924[105]: pp. 437–438), “I noticed that I felt a quite unaccustomed difficulty in following his train of thought. I was aware of an inclination to reject the idea of an introjection of the loved object.…Towards the end of the previous year my father had died. During the period of mourning which I went through certain things occurred which I was not at the time able to recognize as the consequence of a process of introjection.…It thus appears that my principal motive in being averse to Freud's theory…was my own tendency to employ the same mechanism during mourning.” Interestingly, Abraham had not mentioned his father's death in his letters to Freud.
5. Cf. Abraham, 1924[105]: p. 246.
6. Reik, 1917.
338A
Allenstein
19 May 1918
Dear Professor,
Your birthday has passed without your receiving a sign of life from me. My good wishes are no less sincere for being belated! At the beginning of May I went from the Psychiatric Congress in Würzburg to Bremen, where I found my mother gravely ill, so gravely that I dared not risk leaving for days on end. It was a complete failure of heart and kidneys, severe oedemas, and also a malignant tumour was suspected. It was only because I could not stay any longer that I went back to Allenstein. In the meantime she is for the moment out of danger, but her weakness is still very serious. I still receive news of her progress every day by telegram or express letter. You will not be angry with me that in these circumstances I postponed writing.
Otherwise we are getting on well here. We have settled down in our very primitive new accommodation. The big garden is a paradise for the children. My private work has recently increased. I do two hours of analysis daily and shall shortly be doing three. One of them, a case of obsessional neurosis, is improving very nicely.
For the children's holidays, which begin as early as the end of June, I shall probably take leave. Where we are going is still uncertain, but the present travelling circumstances oblige us to remain within the province.
I spent a few wonderful days in Würzburg enjoying art and natural scenery to the full. Apart from its architecture, Würzburg offers exceptional beauties of mediaeval and later sculpture. One evening, incidentally, I made the acquaintance of our critic Isserlin1 in a small circle of colleagues. He sat opposite me and at once paid tribute to Ψα by upsetting his glass. In other ways too I found him rather neurotic; I was also astonished to find he is of our race.
I have not yet managed to get around to writing the reviews on Pötzl and Simmel for the Zeitschrift; perhaps soon!
For a long time I have heard nothing from you and all the Viennese. I wrote a card to Sachs from Würzburg, but it came back recently as “inadmissible” because it was a picture post-card. Please give him a special greeting! I am so little in the mood for writing just now.
What news do you have from your sons at the front, and how are you all at home? Accept the most cordial greetings for you and your family from my wife and myself,
Yours,
Karl Abraham
1. Max Isserlin [1879–1941], Munich neurologist, pupil of Kraepelin. He had criticized psychoanalysis in numerous articles. He went to England as a refugee and died there.
339F
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
29 May 1918
Dear Friend,
You are passing through troubled times, I can tell. How could I take amiss your not writing more often? I know that you like writing when you have anything cheerful to say, but obviously that cannot be all the time.
My mother will be 83 this year and is now rather shaky.1 Sometimes I think I shall feel a little freer when she dies, because the idea of her having to be told of my death is something from which one shrinks back.
So I have really reached 62, still unable to achieve that quiet, firm resignation that so distinguishes you as a German, though you use an Italian motto.2 My prevailing mood is powerless embitterment, or embitterment at my powerlessness. Perhaps you yourself will remember a recent instance of this.
A fortnight ago Reik read us an excellent paper on Kol Nidre3; he has hit on Bible exegesis and will remain with it for a long time. But on Thursday morning he left for Mount Asolone, where violent fighting is taking place now. He is one of our hopes. My three sons are at present out of the firing line.
Ferenczi is taking a great deal of trouble to fix us up again in the Tatras, where he can spend the holidays with us.4 He is likely to succeed for half the holiday period, we have no plans yet for the rest. I am very busy, but am already working grudgingly.
A remarkable feature of these times which I have not yet mentioned to you is the way in which we have been victualled for one year or so by patients and friendly followers. Actually we live on gifts, like a doctor's family in the old days. Our Hungarians, with Ferenczi and Eitingon at their head, as well as some Budapest families who stick to Ψα,5 keep us supplied with cigars, flour, lard, bacon, etc., either free of charge or at incredibly low prices, and I have also found other such quartermasters here in Vienna. Thus the world shows me I have not lived in vain. I am now having my portrait done by a patient who has been restored to art6; it is the last that I am willing to have done for posterity.
I send my cordial greetings to you and your wife, and ask for nothing better than that you in turn should write to me about yourself.
Yours,
Freud
1. Freud's mother Amalie, b. 1835; she died in 1930.
2. The famous “Corragio, Casimiro!”
3. Meeting of 15 May (Nunberg & Federn, 1975, only in German edition: p. 312). Kol Nidre, Aramaic [all vows]: Jewish prayer at the beginning of Yom Kippur (in Reik, 1919).
4. Ferenczi had arranged a stay for the Freuds there in 1917, in Csorbatö [Lake Csorba]. In 1918, Freud first went to Budapest on 8 July, and on 1 August again to Csorbatö, where he met up with his wife; on 11 August Anna, who had remained in Budapest, went to meet them. On 4 September Freud went to Lomnicz, and on 25 September to Budapest for the Fifth International Psychoanalytic Congress [28/29 September 1918].
5. Mainly Anton von Freund, Kata and Lajos Lévy, and Ferenczi's relatives.
Anton von Freund (Antal Freund von Tószeghi) [1880–1920], Ph.D., the wealthy director of a brewery in Budapest, an analysand and friend of Freud's, who intended him to become a member of the Secret Committee. In 1918 von Freund donated a sum of almost two million crowns for the advancement of psychoanalysis; as a result of inflation as well as political and administrative problems, only a part of it could be used, and that primarily for the founding of the Verlag. Von Freund died of prostate cancer in the Vienna Cottage-Sanatorium, where Freud visited him daily during his last days.
Kata F. Lévy [1883–1969], sister of Anton von Freund. Social-worker; analysed by Freud during the following summer. Later psychoanalyst and member of the Hungarian Society. In 1954 she and her husband emigrated to London, where they were both supported by Anna Freud. (Cf. Roazen, 1995: pp. 143–165.)
Lajos Lévy [1875–1961], renowned Hungarian general practitioner, editor of the journal Gyógyászat [Medical Science]; founding member of the Hungarian Psychoanalytic Society [1913]. After the First World War he was director of the Jewish Hospital. Lévy was Ferenczi's friend and at times his analysand and physician; he was also consulted by Freud in the 1920s.
6. A pencil drawing by Rudolf Kriser, which seems to have been lost.
340A
Allenstein
21 June 1918
Dear Professor,
I received news practically at the same time from yourself and from Sachs, and am now once more well informed about everything that is going on in Vienna. I shall therefore write about myself again today.
Concern about my mother is less acute at present. She is no longer in immediate danger but still suffers from the persistent oedemas. I shall visit her at the beginning of July, when my leave begins. I am staying some 5–6 days in Bremen and shall then go east again and travel with my family for a few weeks to the seaside resort Rauschen [Address: Villa Benedicta, Seaside Resort Rauschen, East Prussia].1 Apparently we have been lucky there with our room and board. Rauschen is a spa consisting only of villas, completely surrounded by a forest, which stretches down to the sea, dropping 20–50 metres to the beach in the form of a cliff. The landscape is very beautiful. I feel very much in need of a rest. My military duties are constantly quite exhausting, and in addition, my Ψα practice has developed during the last few months. I have to be pleased about this from a financial point of view, but it is an extra burden of 3–4 hours daily. These cases are partly also theoretically quite productive.
After my return from leave, the hours I have available are already filled. Thanks to your recommendation, Fräulein Haas from Mainz has turned to me, and we have arranged that she will arrive here at the beginning of August. She is also bringing her nephew, aged 11, for treatment.2 From your letter written in January, which she enclosed, I have already acquainted myself with the difficulties of this case. Strangely enough, I had intended to write to you in this very letter that I should like to do some special work on this kind of resistance (on patients who do not associate during the session but do so at home instead). I've had a small number of cases of this kind—they appear rather difficult and therapeutically less favourable. It is reassuring to hear that you too have had difficulties with this kind of resistance. I was always afraid that this is due to some lack of technique. I should be very grateful for your advice in the matter of the honorarium. As far as possible I now usually ask 20 marks per hour; what do you think in the case of H.? Can I go beyond this rate?
What you write about the return to the system of payment in kind in your practice is quite familiar to me. These are strange times.
I hope your sons are still standing up well to all the vicissitudes of war. I wish you and yours a good rest in the Tatras. I was extremely pleased with your report on Reik's scientific achievements. I think highly of him.
I have not yet quite abandoned the hope of seeing you this year, dear Herr Professor! It would be a great joy, after almost four years.
With cordial greetings from house to house,
Yours,
Karl Abraham
1. Square brackets in original.
2. Probably the case of a phobia mentioned in Abraham, 1918[57]: pp. 66–67.
341A
Allenstein
11 August 1918
Dear Professor,
I have heard nothing from you for a very long time. But you received my last letter, as I know from Fräulein Haas. I assume that you have not had much inclination for correspondence. I very much hope that the planned meeting1 will be ample compensation for the decline in our correspondence. I also hope that you and your family are as well as circumstances allow, and that you are having a good rest in the Tatras.
Fräulein H. has been here since 1 August. We are making good progress in illuminating her resistances; I am nevertheless very sceptical about success. Her twelve-year-old nephew, whom I am also treating—my first child analysis—promises very well.
Our holiday gave us quite a good rest. My colleague Liebermann is going on leave soon. He hopes to meet you in his hometown, Hamburg.
It is now nearly four years, dear Herr Professor, since I saw you. I am looking forward to Breslau to a quite extraordinary extent, and I expect these days—apart from the pleasure of anticipation, which is already doing me good now—will leave a really intensive effect.
With cordial greetings from house to house,
Yours,
Karl Abraham
1. The Fifth International Psychoanalytic Congress, originally planned to be held at Breslau.
342F
Csorbató
27 August 1918
Dear Friend,
You are right, I have not seen you since the beginning of the war. Correspondence has been no compensation for that. I am therefore quite specially looking forward to our meeting at the Congress in Breslau and hope that I shall have no travelling difficulties.
I did not answer your last letter, I think because I was then too angry and too starving. Here I have recovered and regained my composure. The reception in Budapest by my new friends was charming, the mountain air of the Tatras did the rest, and so for a time I can venture to join again in
Bearing the world's pleasure and the world's pain.1
I ascribe a good share of my better spirits to the prospects that have opened up in Budapest for the development of our cause. Materially we shall be strong, we shall be able to maintain and expand our journals and exert an influence, and there will be an end to the begging we have had to do heretofore. The man whom we shall have to thank for this is not merely a wealthy man, but a man of sterling worth and high intellectual gifts, who is greatly interested in analysis; he is in fact the sort of person whom one would have to invent if he did not already exist. Faithlessness on his part is out of the question. He is a Ph.D. but a beer brewer, and I think his youthful model was Jacobsen2 in Copenhagen.
I think Sachs has already told you something about Dr von Freund, whom I am here describing. I shall have more to tell you when we meet. It is to be expected that Budapest will now become the headquarters of our movement.
Two of my sons are near us here in the Tatras, and there is no bad news of the third.
Cordial greetings to you and yours from
Your…
Freud
1. “…der Erde Lust, der Erde Leid zu tragen” (Goethe, Faust I).
2. Jens Peter Jacobsen [1847–1885], Danish novelist.
343A
Allenstein
2 September 1918
Dear Professor,
Your letter gave me twofold pleasure—because it brought me a sign of life from you after a long break and because it contained good news. I am eagerly looking forward to everything I shall hear in Breslau about Dr von Freund and his plans. Even more, though, to our meeting after such a long time. The programme already seems very full. I think the participants will exceed the number originally anticipated.
Fräulein Haas and her nephew left on 31 August. With her, I had not inconsiderable success in view of the short time, and with the boy I achieved what appears to be a breakthrough. Frl. H. will probably come back in October.
No news from us. Please send my cordial regards to all your family and also to those who signed the card I recently received,1 and accept cordial greetings for you from my wife and myself!
Everything seems to be working out with accommodation in Breslau.
Yours,
Karl Abraham
1. Missing.
344A
Allenstein
27 October 1918
Dear Professor,
Exactly a month has passed since our pleasant days in Budapest.1 The opportunity for discussion we had there made correspondence dispensable for a while, but I should now like to resume it.
In the meantime, the conference on the neuroses has taken place in Berlin, and, as I already foresaw in Budapest, I was delegated to it. The political situation made it impossible for Simmel and me to intervene successfully for our cause. Since an early peace was then anticipated, one could hardly expect a receptive mood towards new ideas. Moreover, I was able to convince myself that hostility from psychiatric circles has remained unchanged. I cannot even say that I am unhappy about this, for I did not like the idea that psychoanalysis should suddenly become fashionable because of purely practical considerations. We would rapidly have acquired a number of colleagues who would merely have paid lip service and would afterwards have called themselves psychoanalysts. Thus our position as outsiders2 will continue for the time being.
On the return journey from Budapest, and also more recently in Berlin, I have become more closely acquainted with Simmel. He has not yet in any way moved beyond the Breuer–Freud point of view, has strong resistances against sexuality, which he himself does not see clearly, and has unfortunately even stressed, at the Berlin meeting, that, according to his own experience, sexuality does not play an essential part in the war neuroses and the analyses. Perhaps he will develop further. But we must by no means overrate him. The letter you showed me in B. therefore does not give the complete picture.
Political events absorb so much of one's interest at present that one is automatically distracted from scientific work. All the same, some new plans are beginning to mature. I am making progress with Fräulein H. It remains to be seen what the therapeutic success will be. I have, though, discovered something new about obsessional counting. I shall only say for now that the connected compulsion to establish symmetry is among other things directly linked with the hands (fingers). In these, as in some cases I have previously analysed, the hands are an important erotogenic zone. So far nothing has been written in our literature about patients who at times of libidinal excitation get congestion in their hands. Fräulein H. for instance, during an infantile vision of an approaching large body (father), had the feeling that her fingers were swelling.—There seems to be complete success with the patient's young nephew.
I hope you are not suffering too much from the economic poverty in Vienna about which we now constantly read.3 Here in East Prussia we are tolerably well off in this respect. But the political future is dark.
My wife is at present in Berlin. I am expecting her back tomorrow. How are you and all your family?
The change in my handwriting has to do with the new fountain pen I had from van Emden. It has much too fine a nib, but as you cannot buy a good system here now, I must be glad to have it.
With cordial greetings to you all,
Yours,
Karl Abraham
When you write to me, dear Herr Professor, please let me know how Sachs is. I should also like to have van Emden's address.
1. The Fifth Psychoanalytic Congress [28–29 September 1918], organized by von Freund and held under the chairmanship of interim president Abraham, at which Ferenczi was elected president and von Freund secretary of the IPA. It was not truly international, as only citizens of the Central Powers could participate. Freud presented a paper on “Lines of Advance in Psycho-Analytic Therapy” (1919a [1918]), Abraham was discussant in the panel on war neuroses (1918[57]), the contributions to which were published as the first book of the Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag. The congress was attended by high-ranking politicians and military officers, interested in psychoanalysis as a method for restoring war neurotics to health and thus to active service. (Cf. Clark, 1980: pp. 387–389; Freud, 1919c; Gay, 1988: pp. 375–376; Harmat, 1986: pp. 65–69; Jones, 1955: pp. 197–198; the report in the Zeitschrift, 1919, 5: 52–57.)
2. In English in original.
3. Vienna was facing a famine, as the “non-Austrian” provinces of the monarchy no longer delivered food to Vienna.
345A
Allenstein
24 November 1918
Dear Professor,
I do not know whether you have received the letter I wrote several weeks ago. I am writing again today to give my agreement to the draft1 you sent me. I could scarcely propose changes or additions. I shall only express the hope that circumstances will soon enable us to make use of the fund.
We often talk about Vienna and all of you, but have no idea of how you are, not even whether you are staying in Vienna or whether you are suffering hardship. If it comes to a union between Germany–Austria and the Reich, I very much hope for easier contact between us in the future. Here in Allenstein the revolution took its course swiftly and bloodlessly. We have no reason to complain of the present order; on the contrary, we may feel satisfied if everything goes on developing so smoothly. Only the latter is questionable.2
Everything concerning our personal destiny is also questionable. I do not know yet when I can go back to Berlin, and whether I can— whether return with the family will be advisable because of the shortage of food.
I should be glad to know how you all are, and whether your sons have all come back in good health, also where Sachs is and how he is. Are Rank and Reik there again? Dear Herr Professor, I would not at all like to ask you for a detailed report. But perhaps you would encourage one of the younger friends to write to me. I do not know who is there, or I would approach one of them direct.
With the most cordial greetings and best wishes from house to house.
Yours,
Karl Abraham
1. See the next letter.
2. In a rapid succession of events, the German and Austro-Hungarian monarchies had collapsed: 3 November, armistice between Austria–Hungary and the Entente; 7 November, general demobilization, proclamation of the Bavarian People's Republic by Kurt Eisner in Munich; 9 November, abdication of Wilhelm II, revolution, and proclamation of the Council Republic by Karl Liebknecht in Berlin; 11 November, armistice with Germany and end of the war.
346F
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
2 December 1918
Dear Friend,
I received your letter of a few weeks ago, but did not answer it immediately because there was something that I wanted to let mature first, and meanwhile I wanted to send you the statutes to have your opinion on them. When the latter failed to appear for such a long time, I also postponed the other news I had for you.
You will have seen from the statutes that I have undertaken the administration of the Bárczy fund.1 From the interest I propose to award two annual prizes, as an honour to the winners, of course, not for the enrichment or compensation of the authors. One prize is to be for an outstanding medical paper, and the other for one of the Imago type. Provision is made for the division of the prize if two works are of outstanding merit, but the greater or smaller cash value of the prize should not be connected with any greater or smaller estimation of the value of the work. Each prize is of 1,000 crowns, which nowadays means very little. I chose the period of war up to the Budapest Congress as the first for which prizes are to be awarded; subsequently they will be awarded annually. In order not to have to exclude the best from the potential prize-winners, I did not appoint a panel of judges. What remains is my own unvarnished arbitrary decision, the reverse of the statutes!
On this occasion, I have decided to award the medical prize for two papers: your investigation into the earliest pre-genital stages of development of the libido (1916)2 and Simmel's familiar booklet3 (500 crowns each). The Imago prize is to go to Reik for his work on the puberty rites of savages.4 You will already have noted that the prizes go, not to authors, but to their works. I must ask your forgiveness for the small scale of the whole arrangement. I did not want to put a heavier burden on the fund until its potentialities and the demands that will be made on it have grown clearer. Actually the revolution has limited it for the time being to a total of 250 m[ille], and Freund is now trying to reinforce it by associating it with the larger, already existing, fund for the city of Budapest. The interest of ¼ million amounts only to 10,000 crowns, and the foundation of the publishing house will rapidly reduce the capital. It is extraordinary how much money you have to have before you can do anything decent with it. Thus the prizes are only honours, an encouragement for the younger, recognition for the mature.
As I do not know whether Simmel is still in Posen, I shall ask you to trace his address, give him the news of the prize together with comments, and send him half of the amount when you receive it from me. I shall find out whether it is now possible to transfer money from Vienna to Germany. Otherwise please wait until this can be done.
I shall now answer your questions. Sachs is in Davos Platz, Eisenlohr Hotel, writes often and is very well. He wants me to emigrate to Switzerland!! He owes many thanks to Liebermann, to whom I send my best wishes, for his advice. Reik is in Vienna. Rank is not yet completely fixed, as he has to travel between here and Budapest. His fate, and that of the publishing house, will be decided in the next two weeks. He has, to everyone's surprise, brought home a little wife5 from Cracow, who up to now has not met with the approval of any of the friends. Whether it will be a big mishap will appear only gradually. A direct letter arrived from Jones by way of Zurich, with the news that he has lost his young wife, apparently in the course of an operation.6
My son Martin has not come home, and all the information points to his whole unit having been taken prisoner without a battle.7 Thus this would not be the worst. We have had no news about his personal fate since 25 October. Ernst is in Munich, and Oli reached home unrobbed.8 The restrictions are serious here, the uncertainties great, and my practice naturally minimal. The Society has not yet met. Eitingon is back in Berlin, 3 Güntzelstrasse; did you know that?
I send my cordial greetings to you and yours.
Your faithfully devoted
Freud
1. Von Freund's donation, named after Dr István Bárczy [1866–1943]. From 1906 to 1917 he was mayor of Budapest, from 1917 to 1918 Lord Mayor, from 25 November 1919 to 14 March 1920 Minister of Justice, then member of parliament until 1931. He had participated in the Budapest Congress as the official delegate of the capital. There, Freud had reported that “the mayor of Budapest, who presided over the collected sum [of von Freund's fund], had placed it at his (Professor Freud's) personal disposal” (Zeitschrift, 1919, 5: 56–57). (Cf. Freud, 1919c.)
2. Abraham, 1916[52].
3. Simmel, 1918.
4. Reik, 1915b.
5. In November, Rank had married Beata (“Tola”) Mincer (Münzer) [1896–1967], born in Poland, and for this reason he reconverted to Judaism. Beata Rank became an analyst herself, was a co-worker in the Verlag, and translated Freud into Polish. She tried to mediate in the later conflicts between Rank and Freud and maintained amicable relations with Freud. In 1926 she emigrated with her husband, first to Paris, where the two separated, and in 1936 to Boston, where she became a noted child analyst, training and supervision analyst, as well as chair of the “Educational Committee” at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. (Cf. Roazen, 2001a: pp. 205–215.)
6. Jones's wife Morfydd, née Owen [b. 1891], a composer and singer from Wales, had died in September 1918 amid circumstances that are not entirely clear even today (see Freud & Jones, 1993: p. 324).
7. The Austro-Hungarian High Command had ordered the cessation of hostilities for 1: 20 p.m. on 3 November 1918, but Italy complied on 4 November, in accordance with the terms agreed upon, whereby four hundred thousand Austrian soldiers—among them Martin Freud—were taken prisoner by the Italians without a struggle.
8. Referring to the revolution.
347A
Allenstein
15 December 1918
Dear Professor,
Your letter of 2 December has had a lengthy journey. Before taking up all its other contents, I should like to express the hope that your son Martin has in fact suffered no worse fate than being taken prisoner with his unit. Perhaps you will have had news of him meanwhile, or at least have found out more about the whereabouts of his regiment.
Now, my thanks for your award for my 1916 paper! I had not expected, as one of the older men, to be considered at all. But as it was, compared with the older ones, the younger colleagues were in fact less able to produce any scientific work during the war. Apart from your own work, there have been very few contributions to clinical Ψα during these years. The sum of money, though it has little value in these times, will be used for a long-postponed wish-fulfilment—a visit to Vienna— as soon as circumstances permit. I shall write to Simmel today. The money has already been confirmed by my Berlin bank. I shall pass half of it on to Simmel as soon as I have his present address.
I was very pleased to hear good news of Sachs. And I hope that what you tell me about Rank is nothing unpropitious. I did not know that Eitingon was in Berlin.
I was discharged from the army yesterday, but shall stay here with my family over Christmas, partly because of my practice—3 analytic cases—and partly for other practical reasons. I was in Berlin at the beginning of last week and took a furnished flat on a temporary basis. I dare not, in these uncertain circumstances, enter into a long tenancy agreement for a fixed period. Our present flat is outside the city. It will also give us some indication as to whether it is possible to practise away from the centre. The address is: 6 Schleinitzstrasse, Berlin-Grünewald. We have the lower floor of a two-family villa with veranda and garden, seven rooms and entrance hall, respectably furnished. The practice promises well: two analyses certain, two probable, one still uncertain. When I have announced my return in B. there will probably be more to come. I hope that living outside town will be good for my health, which suffered from the eastern climate. It is glorious for the children, especially as there are excellent schools in the garden city.
Liebermann is staying here a little longer, as at first only one of us can be spared.
When you write again, dear Herr Professor, please write to the Berlin address, where I hope to arrive on the 30th. With the most cordial greetings from house to house and with the wish that 1919 will be better than previous years,
Yours,
Karl Abraham
348F
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
25 December 1918
Dear Friend,
So I can write to you in Berlin again! The nightmare of war has ended for you too. I feel convinced that your practice will quickly regain its old level, and my only wish is that your health will improve to the same extent. What you say about the prize was not without a certain sting for me. Having suddenly acquired wealth, I have simultaneously to admit how inadequate it is in relation to my intentions. I did not want to make any distinction between the beginners and the masters of analysis, because in this case I should not have found the models to hold up for aspirants to follow.
The publishing house has not yet been established; like everything else one sets about doing nowadays, it is meeting with great difficulties, but I think that we shall succeed. We have appointed you and Hitschmann to be among the editors of the Zeitschrift and wish you in particular to concern yourself with the preparation of the annual report, which will be published as a supplement to the Zeitschrift. Hitschmann's special task will be to look after the reviews, which are intended to be models of thoroughness and seriousness. I am already in direct touch with Jones by way of Sachs, but we cannot yet get material from him. Rank seems to have done himself a great deal of harm with his marriage. A little Polish–Jewish woman whom nobody likes, and who does not seem to have any higher interests. It is quite sad and scarcely comprehensible.
I have no news of Martin, and still do not know where he is. That contributes to the depression of these times.
Deuticke announced today the payment for the Danish translation of the five lectures1; thus a minor victory. One of these days I shall be entrusting to the post the fourth volume of my Kleine Schriften,2 directed to your new address.
Freund turned up at my house today to continue his analysis.
I wish you from the depths of my heart all the luck you deserve in the new life you are beginning!
Your faithfully devoted
Freud
1. Freud, 1910a [1909], Danish edition, in Det ubevidste, transl. O. Gelsted (Copenhagen: Martins, 1920).
2. See letter 336F, 22 March 1918, & n. 8.