Trudy Gold
Freud and the Complexities of Jewish Identity
Trudy Gold - Freud and the Complexities of Jewish Identity
- Lots of love and good evening everyone. And of course, within a course on the Habsburg Empire, how can we possibly neglect the towering figure who really, he’s born in the 19th century, but I think he really towers over the 20th and 21st century, and that’s Sigmund Freud. Now, let me say from the outset, I am a historian, I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m not a psychoanalyst. What I am doing is I’m putting Freud in his historic context and even more interesting for us I think, I’m putting him back into his Jewish content because Freud, of course, was very ambiguous about his own Jewish background. And when he, he’s born in, he’s born in 1856 in Freiberg in Moravia. Can we see the first slide please, Judi? That is the town he came from, Freiberg in Moravia. And of course, as we’ve already been discussing about the Habsburg Empire, as Vienna develops as a great centre of a multinational empire, people who want to improve their lot in life, they come to Vienna. And the family of Freud, his father comes, his father and mother come to Vienna, and they come to Vienna in 1859 when he’s three years old. Now, just for your interest, and next time I talk to you about Vienna, I’m going to put these figures up. In 1857, that’s just before Freud came to Vienna. There were 460,000 people living in Vienna, of which there were 6,200 Jews. They were 1.3% of the population. By the time we get to 1880, which is just before Freud goes to university, the population of Vienna had gone up to three quarters of a million. The Jewish population had gone up to 72,000.
So basically, they were nearly 10% of the population. By 1900 the population is exploding. This is what you’ve got to know, it’s the centre of a multiethnic empire. It’s growing up as a huge, by 1900 is the fourth biggest city in Europe with a population of 1.674 million of which the Jews make up 146,000, 9%. By the eve of the First World War there are 2 million people living in Vienna, and nearly 200,000 of them are Jewish. So starting, that’s an incredible, if you look at it, it’s an incredible jump in population from 1857 to 476,000. 1910. Just think about it, five decades, 2 million. And look how the Jewish population shoots up. Just over 6,000 in 1957. In 1857, even the first World War, nearly 200,000, 10% of the population. So, born in Freiberg, now, what do we know about the family? He is the first child of Jacob Freud, who was a wool merchant. He already had two sons, Emanuel and Philip, and by a previous marriage, his wife had died. These two sons, he was, as I said, he was a wool mate merchant and his two oldest sons go to Manchester. Why? Because Manchester, the great manufacturing centre, and that’s where they go and live. Freud’s mother Amalia, was his third wife and 21 years younger. Now, important this, and I’m talking first about his biography, then I’m going to slot him into his Jewish background. His father became a much more modern Jew, but he had a Hasidic background. He was pretty well versed in Torah. They were very poor when they, they were very poor in Moravia. They lived in a rented room above a blacksmith’s house. It’s very overcrowded. And Freud was born with a caul over his face. And if you are at all mystic, and interested in ideas of kabbala and all sorts of things, it’s a kind of magic sort of symbol.
And it, the people born that way are meant to be very, very special. And Freud knew about it, and he played on it later. So 1859, they’re poor. It’s a bit dead end. So let’s try Vienna. They move to Vienna and they go to live, of course, in Leopoldstadt, which becomes the Jewish area of Vienna. He’s there with his parents and his younger sister, Anna. First they go to Leipzig, but they finish up in Vienna. We know that he misses his two elder brothers very much. He goes in Leopoldstadt, he enters the Gymnasium. And I don’t have to tell you this, of course, he is an outstanding student. He’s one of, quite often I mentioned, when I mentioned these characters who walked the world, very often, they have these incredible minds. He loved knowledge. He was outstanding in literature, in German, French, Italian, Spanish. He’s going to have English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew. He studied Shakespeare. He adored Shakespeare in English. He was passionate about Shakespeare all his life. And if you think about a man like Freud, who was so into the ideas of what constitutes our makeup. Of course, if you think of Shakespeare and the brilliant character structure, it’s no accident that someone like Freud would adore him. Also, he reads a lot about the Greeks and the Romans, and above all, he’s fascinated by the character of Hannibal. Those of you who have visited his home in Maresfield Gardens in London, or in the Leopoldstadt in Vienna, where they’ve recreated it, that you will see all these statues, facsimiles of books, Greek, Latin. And of course, he’s a voracious reader all his life. He soaked up knowledge, he sucked knowledge. It was his, it was his, really his oxygen. And from very early on, he had a distaste for authority.
Now, shall we have a look at some family pictures, please, Judi? The first picture I want, oh she’ll be back in a minute. Okay, so I’ll go on. In eight now. Oh yes. There you have Jacob with his son. That is the young Sigmund Freud with his father Jacob, who you can see, although he’s the son of a Hasid, he is dressed in a relatively modern way. Can we go on please? And there, that’s a family photo with his beloved mother and his sister and brother. You can see, you can already see that very distinctive face. So that’s that. And let me give you a little more back background. We’ll keep it on that picture while we do a little bit more background. Now, 1873, it’s, he’s already, as I already told you, he’s already got a distaste for authority. 1873, everything changes in Vienna. And I mentioned this last time I spoke to you. It’s the year of the stock market crash, and it’s the year Freud goes to the University of Vienna. And already nationalist politics are playing in Vienna. The liberal, I think the stock market crash of 1873, to me, it’s the death nail of liberalism. So as I said, we’re going to concentrate on biography, and I’m going to talk more about the ideas and the Jewishness in the second part of the presentation. Anyway, so he, at first the decision was that he would study law. What else does a Jewish merchant want for his son? But in the end, the decision was made to study, to actually enter the medical faculty. He started in philosophy, physiology, and zoology under Karl Klaus, who was a follower of Darwin. Freud later becomes very interested in Darwinism, and many of his ideas are very Darwinistic. And it’s another story for another time.
So this is where it begins. He begins his, he’s an outstanding student having been head boy at school, although he had a huge distaste for authority, he is so bright, and he begins his medical career at Vienna General Hospital, and already there’s a huge interest in mental disorder. Let’s have a look at the picture of the University of Vienna. I keep on mentioning it. There it is, the famous University of Vienna. As we go through this course, so many of the characters I’m going to mention to you were at the University of Vienna. We’re going to talk about, of course, about Herzl, about Schnitzler. And they all knew each other. Herzl and Freud didn’t meet, but they knew of each other because later on in life, Freud’s, Herzl’s daughter was very friendly with Freud’s sister, and they exchanged books. Of course, Schnitzler, who was a very much acquainted, was close to, at one stage, he was very close to Herzl, and he was very much in correspondence with Freud. So amongst the intellectual scene, I am going to use the word Jewish intellectual, but the majority of them thought of themselves as internationalists. So he begins his career at the hospital. And already there’s a huge interest in mental disorders because a Fantasy Echo, what so many writers call the Janus Face of Vienna. It was such a strange centre. How can I get a, give you a smell of the atmosphere?
All you got to do is to think of a huge population explosion. The stock market crash, the wonderful architecture, Patrick’s going to be lecturing on the Ringstrasse later this week. That incredible, the incredible architecture of Vienna. The incredible art of Vienna. The music, think Strauss and the waltzes, think the coffee houses. Why do so many people go to the coffee houses? Because quite often they couldn’t afford, they couldn’t afford to heat their rooms. Plus the other backdrop is a lot of poverty, a lot of people who are suffering as a result of modernity, and the sort of angst of the turn of the century. And there were an incredible amount of mental disorders and actually suicides. And it led to a huge interest in the study of mental disorders. And in fact, his first paper was on palliative effects of cocaine. He begins to take cocaine because he’s very interested in it as a drug. Later on, it’s going to be hypnosis. But he tried many, many things. Freud was above conventional ideas, I think we’ve got to say that. And he spent three years in various departments, and later on he goes to Paris where he studies hypnosis under Dr. Charcot, who he’s later going to, he’s later going to name his eldest son for him. Now, going on, he spent time in a psychiatric clinic as a locum, which led again to a great interest in clinical work. And he was in such, he was such a brilliant student that despite the prejudice against Jews, because one of the problems, 10% of Vienna is Jewish now.
There’s so much unrest, and dissatisfaction, and dislocation of life that the Jew becomes the perfect scapegoat. By the 1870s, 1880s, the student associations at the university don’t want to admit Jews. There’s a lot of problems. And already he’s becoming more and more of an alienated outsider. He becomes a lecturer at the university. He has no salary, but prestige. By 1900, 50% of the lecturers in medicine at the university were Jewish. But that led to an incredible amount of antisemitism. So even in the university itself, you have the liberal professors, and you have the reactionary professors against the backdrop of a very staunch Catholic church and a whole rearguard action that felt that they had to protect what society was. And what was society in Vienna? If you think about it, what was the culture of Vienna? Now, what is so fascinating is the majority of Jews turned to German culture. They saw it as the culture of the most important aspects of the cultural life of Vienna, bildung. So, and this is very much going to be Freud’s, this is Freud’s game. Anyway, that same year, he marries his fiance, shall we have a look at her? Martha Bernays. She was in fact the granddaughter of Isaac Bernays, the chief rabbi of Hamburg. So she comes from a very, very religious background. Can we see their wedding, their engagement photo next, if you don’t mind? Yeah.
He’s good looking, isn’t he? That’s a rather nice picture. The couple, were going to have six children between 1887 and 1895. Three boys, three girls. And it was the youngest Anna, who of course followed in her father’s career. And from 1891, they lived at 19 Berggasse in Leopoldstadt, which eventually is going to become one of the most famous addresses in the world. And in 1896, Martha’s sister Minna, lost her fiance, and she became a permanent member of the household. And there were all sorts of rumours put around about Freud’s relationship with her. But mainly it’s very difficult to get to the truth of this because these rumours were put around by people who began to hate Freud. He became a very heavy smoker by the time he’s 24. First cigarettes, then cigars. He believed it sharpened his concentration. There were many warnings from his colleagues, but he never, he never moved away from that path. Tragically, later it killed him. He actually put forward all sorts of strange notions on addiction. I’m not going to go into his theories. Those of you who are interested, I’m sure there are many who know a lot about his psychology and his theories, but it’s, it’s very interesting. Anyway, from 1886, he begins using hypnosis on his patients.
The talking cure, the important case of Anna O. He becomes very interested in the work of Nietzsche. He said, “Text to be resisted far more than studied.” He also said that about his own work. He also began to realise he’s so acutely aware of all the mental problems in Vienna. Most of his, of his patients actually are women. And he began to encourage free talking without censorship or without any kind of repression. And of course, interested in the analysis of dreams, which I’m going to come back to later. By 1896, he has abandoned the term hypnosis and has created the term psycho-analysis. This is itself links to an incredibly difficult period in his life, his father’s death. And that put him into a huge period of self-analysis of his own dreams and his own memories. Let’s have a look at some of the other, there you see Dr. Martin Charcot, who he studied with in Paris. He so admired him. He later named his child for him. His eldest son. And can we have a look at the house in Leopold? Yes, that’s the famous Leopoldstadt house. Those of you who have never visited, it is really where, you know, please let this horrible COVID thing be over so you can go travelling again. Because despite all my ambivalence about Vienna, it is one of the most exciting cities in the world, even today, I would say. It’s a ghost city in many ways, but if you walk the streets, you get a sense of what it might have been. And by the way, Freud, he believed strongly in exercise, and he would walk around the whole of the Ringstrasse every day, stopping, of course, at various cafes. One of his favourite, later on, one of his favourite chess partners was in fact a man called Leon Trotsky, who arrived in Vienna in 1907, escaping trouble in Russia. And he stayed there for seven years, and he and Freud played chess together. Can you just imagine what it must have been like there?
Anyway, he, can we go on and have a look at his room? There you see, it’s not a brilliant picture, but that’s his consulting room. And before his, and I’d like to show you the next picture, please. That’s the lovely picture of his father with his two eldest sons. And I think we could keep it on that. Anyway, he spent a lot of time exploring his feelings of hostility towards his father, jealousy over his mother, which led to a fundamental revision of many of his theories and the theory of, and his theories of neurosis. It’s fascinating, you know, whether he was right or wrong. We use his language today, don’t we? He’s a giant that towers over the 20th century by making us think inside ourselves. What actually creates, what makes us act in the way we do. Do you realise how dangerous he must have seemed? Of course, he then writes many books, “The Study of Hysteria,” his book on “The Interpretation of Dreams,” “The Psychopathy of Everyday Life,” three essays on the theory of sexuality. He’s fascinated by sexuality as the prime mover. And from 1886, he’s gathering around him a group of followers, and he delivers the Wednesday lecture to a small group. Of the original group, every one of them were born Jewish. Now let me say very, very carefully, Freud was not a practising Jew. He’s moving away. The majority of people he dealt with, they saw themselves as walking the world.
They saw themselves as internationalists, but they were of Jewish birth. And in 1902, he’s actually made a proper professor at the university. But there was meant much opposition to the poster, by the way. It was only stopped because one of his, one of his patients, a Baroness, Maria Ferstel, was a patient of his, and she bribed the Minister of Education because not only were they horrified by Freud’s ideas, if you look, if you read some extraction in “The Catholic Press” at the time, they found him absolutely horrific. Remember the Janus Face of Vienna, conservative Vienna, bourgeois Vienna. And along comes this man. And there are many others, not such great figures, but there are many others in the field of music, in the field of art, in the field of architecture. They are creative, this is the sharp edge of modernity. And for many people who suffer, or many people who feel safe within their own niche, this is dangerous. So of course, despite the fact that he’s becoming more and more famous, the books, the lectures, and please don’t forget, it’s a far more global world now. He’s beginning to have followers in Britain, in America. So, he’s a famous figure, and he’s a very, very controversial figure. Now, it’s really by 1906, there are 16 members in his group. And it’s really, this is the beginning of the worldwide movement. One of the members, Wilhelm Stekel had studied with Krafft-Ebing and Freud actually cured his sexual problems. So he said, Freud cured his sexual problems. Now, in 1906, Freud began his correspondence with Karl Jung, who was working in a hospital in Zurich. And in 1907, he came to Vienna for important discussions with Freud. Now, in 1909, the two of them embarked on a lecture tour to America.
And Freud said to Jung, as they got on the boat, “They don’t realise we’re bringing the plague with us.” I mean, Freud, you know, he loved jokes. And he had, he wrote his own book of jokes. He had a very urbane, sophisticated sense of humour. Now, in 1911, two women joined the group, Tatiana Rosenthal and Sabina Spielrein. Now, Sabina Spielrein had been a former patient of Jung’s, and Jung’s mistress for a while. And later on she came to Freud, she worked with Freud and later joined the group. She had a tragic end. She, after the first World War, she went back to Russia. She married, she had children, and they were of course murdered by the Nazis. So, but at this stage, there are two women in the group. And for the first time though, he goes outside of his house and they meet at the Bristol Hotel in Salzburg, the 27th of April 1908. This is the first ever psychoanalytical conference, and it’s convened at the suggestion of Ernest Jones, who of course, the London-based neurologist who’s discovered Freud’s writings and later is going to be so important in the saving of Freud. Who else was there? People I’m going to talk about soon. Karl Abraham, Max Ettinger from Berlin. Sandor Ferenczi from Budapest, Abraham Brill from New York. They’re all Jews.
They don’t, they’re not religious practising Jews. They don’t think their Judaism, their Jewishness is important, but the point is, they are seen as Jews. Now, they launch a journal under the editorship of Jung. A lot of opposition from Freud’s followers, and I’m going to talk about that later. A monthly paper is then issued. And in 1911, “Imago,” which was a journal dedicated to the application of psychoanalysis in literary and cultural studies. So that was very, very important. You see what he is doing? He’s saying, “This is the most important thing.” Now, sorry, somebody, I beg your pardon. In 1910, there’s a Nuremberg Conference, the International Association of Psychoanalysts, and Freud supports Jung’s election as president against the wish of most of Freud’s friends. This is what, in the end, there’s a great split in the movement, Jung. Gradually the relationship between Freud and Jung completely deteriorates. And there’s a lot of pain on both sides. I think Freud, in many ways did think of Jung almost as a son. And I think it really did break him. Now, continuing with the biography, he becomes more and more famous. He lives in Vienna through the First World War, through the twenties, through the thirties. And of course he’s there when Hitler comes to power in Germany. And when, and of course, those of you who studied Nazism will know that May the 10th, 1933, when they threw the books into the flames outside the wonderful Humboldt Enlightenment University, that the university students threw the books into the flames. And what was the first book? “The Works of Sigmund Freud.” And he said, “What progress we are making.
In the Middle Ages they would’ve burnt me. Now they only burn my books.” Now tragically, as you all know, he was wrong. It was going to get much, much worse. And of course, he is, he’s withdrawing more and more from politics. And of course after , he remains in Vienna. His daughter is detained, and then Freud himself. But because he is world famous and he has wonderful friends like Ernest Jones and Princess Marie Bonaparte, they exert pressure and the British grant an entry permit. In fact, there are many very good books on this, how they got Freud out of Vienna. They also had support from the American Ambassador who was also a former patient of Freud. And when Freud left Vienna, he had a meeting with the Gestapo. He is hauled into Gestapo headquarters. By this time, he’s quite a sick man. The smoking, he had developed throat cancer. And the Gestapo wanted him to sign a piece of paper saying he hadn’t been ill-treated. And he actually said, he wrote, “I can heartily recommend the Gestapo to everyone.” Now ironically, the Nazi who was in charge of Freud’s assets, a man called Anton Sauerwald, had studied chemistry at Vienna University under Professor Josef Herzig who was a friend of Freud. And as a result, his library was saved and Freud didn’t have to pay the flight tax. He journeys to London, first to Elsworthy Road, and then of course to Maresfield Gardens. Before we do that, can we have a look at a couple of the other slides, please? You see, this is the family growing up, that is the family on holiday. But I want to show you the last holiday photo, because that is actually in Berchtesgarten. It’s extraordinary, isn’t it? And you will see that the boys are dressed in lederhosen. And that of course became Hitler’s playground. By the way, when Freud’s books were burned by Goebbels, this is what he shouted from the podium. “Against the soul-destroying overestimation of the physic life for the nobility of the human soul, I consign to the flames, these works of Sigmund Freud.”
I mean, what can you say? Now when he finally comes to London, remember he’s ill, he’s old, but he’s greeted as a total hero by his followers. In fact, my friend Felix Schaff had come to London in 1938 and they all knew that, you know, he of course, he’d never met Freud. He was a young student, he was a member of the revisionist party. And he actually went to the station to see the great man arrive. And in London, he’s visited by all the intellectuals who’ve made it to London. Stefan Zweig came to visit him, Leonard and Virginia Woolf, H.G. Wells, Salvador Dali. And the tragedy was that his sisters were left behind and they were murdered in 1942. Mitzi Freud, who was 81, Paula Winternitz who was 78, they were transported Theresienstadt. They were murdered near Minsk. Dolfi Freud died in Theresienstadt, tragically probably of starvation. Rosa Graf was deported to Treblinka. His brother Alexander, managed to escape to Switzerland. But this is a family, an incredibly intellectual family, and that is what happened to them. Now in London, as I said, he’s quite ill. And by mid-September of ‘39, he had terrible pain. And when the pain became too much, evidently he read Balzac at one sitting, and then he turned to his friend, Dr. Max Schur, who gave him morphine. He gave him a extra dose. He’s buried in the columbaria in Golders Green. This is what W.H. Auden wrote. “To us he is no more a person now, but a whole climate of opinion under whom we can conduct our different lives.” Let me read that again. “To us, he is no more a person now, but a whole climate of opinion under whom we conduct our different lives.”
And this is what his son Martin said. “Father died in London on September the 23rd, 1939. He received several visitors during the last months of his life. Although the great pain from his illness made him weak. One visitor certainly didn’t tyre him, but left him happy, excited, and elated. That was Chaim Weizmann who had expressed a wish to visit Freud. My brother Ernest and I were both present when he arrived. What did the Leader of Jewry tell my father to make him so happy? That’s really a tantalizer from what I’m going to talk about next. Can we move on please? Okay, I’m going to leave that on the screen. I’m going to read it with you in a minute because now I really want to talk about Freud and his Jewishness. Bearing in mind that he never, he was anti-religion. So when I’m talking about his Jewishness, I’m not talking about the practise of Judaism. I’m talking about an ethnic identity, how he saw himself. Now remember, he’s the grandson of a Hasid. His father was strictly observant until he was 20. His mother had an Orthodox funeral. He loved her very, very much. She died when she was 95 years old. He didn’t go to the funeral. But he did have, and this is something he played down, but you can imagine how researchers have been over his life with an absolute tooth comb. He had 12 years of exposure to Hebrew studies. He denies this. But if you look at the markings, scholars have looked at the markings in his Bible in red, blue, and green, the same way he read and marked other books. We know that he knew Yiddish because it was his mother’s language. Why did he play it down? And also, when Freud was 35, his father gave him a copy of a Bible that he had read as a boy, but it was rebound. And this is what his father wrote on the fly leaf, "To my dear son, Solomon, in memory of paternal grandfather. It was in the seventh year of your life that the spirit of God began to stir in you and speak to you thus. Pour over this book, which I wrote.
And there will burst open for you wellsprings of understanding, knowledge, and reason. It is indeed the book of books. Sages have delved into it and legislators have derived from it knowledge and law. Thou has seen the vision of the Almighty, Thou has listened, and mentioned, and achieved soaring on the wings of the wind.” Now this is a letter of 1930, which he writes, he was a great letter writer thank goodness, which he writes about his father. “It may interest you to know that my father did indeed come from a Hasidic background. He was 41 when I was born and had been estranged from his natural environment for almost 20 years. In later life, I often regretted my lack of education in Jewishness.” On Freud’s, now it was on, as I said, it was on his 35th birthday that his father gave him the book. This is what he said about his mother. He had a very complex relationship with his father. As I said, you all know he adored his mother. And this is Freud’s son Martin who wrote his autobiography. He actually, this is what he record. “My grandmother was absolutely different from Jews who had lived in the West for generations. The Galician Jews had little grace and no manners. And their women were certainly not what we should call ladies. They were highly emotional and easily carried away with their feelings. They were not easy to live with, and grandmother was a true representative of her race. She was no exception. She had great vitality and much impatience.” Martin, you will see he talks about the Jewish race.
Now this is though, this is another letter that he wrote. Again, this was to one of his psychoanalytical friends. “My early familiarity with the Bible stories before I had learned to read properly, had I recognised much later on, an enduring effect on the direction of my interests, particularly Joseph’s interpretation of dreams.” Also, we know that in his early years, in his teens, he did dream in the liberalism of the Habsburg Empire, which was very, and he was already screaming out against the problems with the Catholic church. And at high school, most of his friends were Jewish. Victor Adler, Heinrich Braun, also are they going to have very interesting careers. Now this is in 1873. This is in his writing, that he’s writing later about the university. And this is very, very important. “Above all, I found that I was expected to feel inferior and alien because I was a Jew. I refused absolutely to do the first of these things. I have never been able to see why I should be ashamed of my dissent or as a people who are beginning to say of my race. I put up with without much regret with my non-acceptance into the community. It seemed to me that in spite of all this exclusion, an active fellow worker could not fail to find some nook or cranny in the framework of humanity. These first impressions at university, however, had a consequence, which was afterwards to prove important. For at an early age, I was made familiar with the fate of being in the opposition and of being under the ban of the compact majority. The foundations were thus laid for my independence of judgement .” Let me repeat because I think this is absolutely key. “For at early age, I was made familiar with the fate of being in the opposition and of being under the ban of the compact majority. The foundations were thus laid for the independence of judgement .”
He also writes about antisemitism. “We know that one of the important professors in the medical school, professor Billroth, he proposed to numerous classes on Eastern European Jews flooding into the faculty.” He used the word “flooding” because the point was, as all these Jews are coming to Vienna, and look, 40%, 50% of the faculty by the turn of the century were Jewish, mainly Eastern European. You can imagine in the insecure nationalism of German Austrians, how they felt about this. Because race theory is now a fixture in Vienna. And I’m going to be talking about that next week. And this is what Billroth said. “Jews could never hide their natural characteristics. Jews can never participate in national struggles.” And we also know that Freud had a huge admiration for the Talmudic method of study. He, not for its content, but many, many people have talked about this. And as an educator, as far as I’m concerned, I think it is one of the greatest methods ever devised. You have younger pupil under the tutorship of an older pupil under the direction of a master. And also if you think about Talmudic logic, there are certain writers, and I’m going to leave it to you to make your own minds about this, who actually say that much of Freud is Talmudic reasoning. You can make your mind up about that because then we get into genetic imprints and go along roads that I am not qualified to deal with. We also know that he was shaped when he was a young man by a religious instructor called Samuel , who taught him the Bible under his father’s wishes.
Now, and it, he later said, “This man helped me towards my love of humanities.” But this is a letter he writes in 1926, looking back on his life. “By the end of 1883,” he said, “my language is German. My culture, my attainments are German. I consider myself German intellectually until I witnessed the growth of anti-Semitic prejudice in Germany and German Austria. Since that time, I prefer to call myself a Jew.” So he’s not saying, he’s not coming back to being a religious Jew, but this is so important. “My language is German. My culture, my attainments are German. I consider myself German intellectually until I witnessed the growth of anti-Semitic prejudice in Germany and German Austria. Since that time, I prefer to call myself a Jew.” This is a letter to his wife. “A man from Billroth’s clinic called Cholera, 'Jewish swine.’ Now you must try to imagine the kind of atmosphere we live in. It’s general bitterness.” This is a letter of 1900. “I hate Vienna with a positive personal hatred. And just the contrary, I draw fresh strength whenever I, whenever I remove my feet from its soil.” And this is another letter. This is when he’s, right before he marries Martha and he’s writing to her. He’s on a freight, he’s on a train and he talks about it. He’d inadvertently disturbed some travellers because he opened a window and somebody shouted at him. “Dirty Jew.” Quoting now. “One declared, ‘We Christians consider other people. You better think less of your precious self and muttered abusers befitted his education.’ His companion said he was going to climb over the seats and show me. Even a year ago I would’ve been speechless with agitation, but now I am different. I was not in the least frightened of the mob and asked the one to keep to himself his empty phrases, which inspired no respect in me and the other to step up and take what was coming to him.
I was quite prepared to kill him, but he did not step up. I was glad I refrained from joining in the abuse. Some things one must lead to another.” Now let’s look at something very, very complicated. Karl Abraham was the closest friend of Sigmund Freud. He’s part of the circle. And when Freud began to make a lot of Jung, Abraham was quite upset. And this is what Freud wrote to him. “You are closer to my intellectual constitution because of racial kinship. Whilst he, Karl Jung as a Christian, and a pastor’s son, finds his way to me only against great inner resistances. His association with us is the more valuable for that. And nearly said that it was only by his appearance on the scene that psychoanalysis escaped the danger of becoming a Jewish national affair.” Can we go to the next slide please, Judi? Now I’m going to read you the whole address, but I think it’s important that we just take this out. “It was only to my Jewish nature that I owed the two qualities that have become indispensable to me throughout my difficult life. Because I was a Jew, I found myself free of many prejudices which restrict others in the use of the intellect. As a Jew, I was prepared to be in opposition and to renounce agreement with the compact majority.” Very important. Now writing, this is another letter to Karl Abraham from Berchtesgarten, where he often went on a holiday.
You’ve seen the picture. This is 1908. “May I say that is, that it is the consanguineous Jewish traits that attract me to you. We understand each other. I know there’s a suspicion that the suppressed antisemitism of the Swiss, that spares in me, is deflected and in reinforced form upon you. We Jews, if you wish to join in, must develop a bit of masochism, otherwise there is no hitting it off.” He is so aware of the anti-Semitism. He doesn’t, he’s not tribal, or is he? It’s very complicated. You see, he’s such an internationalist and yet he’s realising. You know, Einstein did exactly the same in Prague. He surrounded himself by what I call the non-Jewish Jews. People of Jewish birth alienated outsiders. That’s who he felt comfortable with. That’s who Einstein felt comfortable with. And later on, of course the two went into correspondence. And Professor will be dealing with that on Saturday, I think. This is a letter to Jung. “For my peace of mind, I tell myself that it’s better for psychoanalysis that you’ll respired part of your position that would be awaiting me. That nothing but useless repetitions will be heard if I was to say the same thing all over again. And that you are a more suitable propagandist for I have invariably found that something in my personality, my words, my ideas, strike people as alien. Where to you all hearts are open.” And that’s why he made Jung Chair of the International Psychoanalytic Society against the wishes of his Jewish friends. It’s interesting because when he proposed that the movement join up with this international fraternity, he wanted to get involved in ethics, in culture. His dream was really to fight for a common progressive idea of improving the world and oppose the injustice of reactionary states and the Catholic church.
And this is where Jung and Freud parted company, because Jung completely dismissed these ideas, because he says, “They are not rooted in the deep instinct of the race and that you cannot replace 2,000 years of Christianity.” Anyway, this is another letter to his Hungarian disciple, Jewish again, Sandor Ferenczi. “Certainly there are great differences between the Jewish and the Arian spirit. We observe it every day. Hence, there would assuredly, differences here and there, differences in outlook, on art, and life. But there should not be such a thing as erring on Jewish science. Results in science should be identical. Though the presentation of them must vary.” And this is also interesting. One of Freud’s circle, Alfred Adler, converted, and he actually died very unexpectedly in Scotland in 1937. And this is a letter of Freud to Arnold Zweig about Adler’s death. It’s quite nasty. “I don’t understand your sympathy for Adler. For a Jew boy from Vienna suburb, a death in Aberdeen is an unheard of career move in itself, and proof how far he has got on. The world really rewarded him richly for his services in having contradicted psycho-analysis.” So, in his book “Moses and Monotheism,” he wrote this, and it’s a very strange book. “In the Mosaic doctrine of chosenness lay the deepest hatred of the Jews and jealousy of the people who declared themselves to be the first born favourite child of God, the Father.”
Now, this is some things he wrote in the First World War, which I also find interesting, on the subject of his Jewishness. “When war breaks out, for the first time in 30 years, I feel myself to be an Austrian. I’m giving this not very hopeful empire another chance. But by the 10th of December, 1917, the only thing that gives me pleasure is the capture of Jerusalem and the British experiment with the chosen people.” He also wrote, “I am a fanatical Jew despite my efforts to be impartial.” Now in 1930, this is a letter to Marie Bonaparte, “The Jewish societies in Vienna and in the University of Jerusalem.” He was on the board of the Hebrew University. You know, that was such a wonderful board. It had Einstein on it, it had , it had Freud, of course, Weizmann. It would, in fact, I think we should do a series of lectures on the personalities at the Hebrew U. So let me repeat, “The Jewish society, it’s 1930, and the Jewish societies in Vienna, in the University of Jerusalem, of which I am a trustee. In short, the Jews altogether have celebrated me like a national hero. Although my services to the Jewish cause is confined to the single point that I have never denied my Jewishness. The official world, the University of Vienna, the Academy, the medical association completely ignore me. Rightly, I think. It was only honest. I could not have looked upon their congratulations as sincere.”
For the anniversary of, for his 70th anniversary, it really was only the Jewish organisations that actually, that actually honoured him. And the B'nai Brith, this is what he wrote to the B'nai Brith That’s what they wrote to him, and he wrote back and he said, I’m just going, because it’s so long. I’m just looking for. He says, “Your lodge was described to me as the place where I could find men of honour. That you are Jews would only be welcomed to me for I am a Jew myself. And it has always appeared to me, not only undignified, but outright foolish to deny it. What tied me to Jewry was, I have to admit it, not faith, not even national pride. For I was always a nonbeliever having been brought up without religion.” Not true, “But not without respect for the so-called ethical demands of human civilization. Whenever I’ve experienced feelings of national exhortation, I’ve tried to suppress them as dangerous and unfair, frightened by the warning example of those nations amongst which we Jews live. But there remained enough to make the attraction of Judaism and the Jews irresistible. Many dark emotional powers, all the stronger, the less they could be expressed in words. Because I was a Jew, I found myself.” And then we come to this. “As I was a Jew, I was prepared to be in opposition and to renounce agreement with the compact majority.” So, and don’t forget what his son Martin said, how proud Freud was when he had that conversation with Weizmann. We don’t know what was said. We only know that the meeting happened. And in fact, Martin, when he was a student at the University of Vienna, he joined Kadimah, which I’ll be talking about later on in the course. That was the Jewish Students Association. And he fought a dual. He fought a dual over his Jewishness and he was very much a Zionist. And later on in the war, in the first World War, he was taken prisoner, and Freud adored this son.
And he said, “Martin’s captivity has sapped my soul.” Now, he comes to London with his father. His brother Walter, I think I better mention him. He was actually, and I owe a bit more knowledge I have of Walter to my friend, Helen Fry. His brother Walter was deported to an internment camp in New South Wales. He comes back to the UK in 1941. He’s recruited by the Pioneer Corps and subsequently, he’s in the SOE. And in April 1945, he’s parachuted behind enemy lines. He was told to change his name because of, in case he was captured. He refused. “I want to know.” He said, “I want them to know that a Freud is coming back.” And he managed single-handedly to secure the strategically important aerodrome in Southwest Austria. And at the end of the war, he was actually assigned to war crimes investigation in Germany. And he actually was involved in the securing the prosecution of the firm that supplied Zyklon B. And in fact, two of those characters were actually executed for war crimes. He became an industrial chemist in Britain. Now, of course, Freud’s children, he has many, many grandchildren, many of them and great-grandchildren. Many of them have had illustrious careers, but none of them are, see themselves as Jewish. And I would also, if you think about Freud and Zionism, I’ve already said he was very pleased to meet Chaim Weizmann. He was pleased that his son was in Kadimah. He was on the board of the Hebrew University. So as far as I’m concerned, the jury is still out. So thank you very much. Should we have a look at the questions? Yes, people are wishing you better, Wendy.
- Thanks.
Q&A and Comments:
Jack,-
you mentioned “Vienna Blood,” the TV series. That’s right. And Frank Tallis, who wrote it and is at the moment writing a huge book on Vienna. He’s coming in on February the 10th to talk about it. He’s an extraordinary individual. Again, lots of good wishes for you from Adrian. From Jennifer.
[Wendy] Thanks, Trudy. Thank you everybody. I appreciate it.
And yes, and they’re saying it’s good to hear us cheerfully chattering. We cheerfully chatter.
Vivian. Oh yes, Vivian, “For your US participants ‘Vienna Blood’ is being screened on PBS Sunday evening.” Yes. I really think you should, you should watch it because it’s exciting. It’s a detective series, but it’s, Frank Tallis is a psychiatrist and he’s also a very good historian. I think you’re going to enjoy him, but it’d be great if you watch “Vienna Blood” in advance.
Oh yes. This is from Martin, “A small but very interesting exhibition about Muriel Gardiner at the Freud Museum, many rescued Jews in Vienna before World War II. A friend of Anna Freud.” “Born with a caul.” It’s like a membrane over his face, Jerry. It’s a sort of, it has to be taken off immediately so the baby can breathe. But it’s seen as a sign of greatness, a sort of touch of greatness.
[Wendy] Trudy, can I ask you a question?
Yes,
[Wendy] It was interesting that Freud nominated Jung.
Yes. Well, he basically, Wendy, he did it because, look, I think he admired Jung, but he nominated because he said, look, basically our organisation will be just known as Jewish science.
[Wendy] You expect.
It’s one of the things I’ll be talking about in the next couple of weeks because the liberalism of Vienna is smashed by the 1880s. But against that backdrop, you nevertheless, you have a sort, an incredible group of intellectuals. Not all Jewish. Vienna becomes a really intellectual mecca. But at the same time, it’s a very reactionary city. And Freud believed that by Jung spearheading the movement, it would open it up to the world. He believed, because look, the beginnings of his circle, they were all Jews alienated.
I’d like-
[Wendy] to look at patterns. I’d like to look at patterns, actually. We could examine that in terms of Jewish thought leaders.
Yes, I think that’d be very interesting. I mean, particularly at the end of the 1930, 20th century. So many of the characters, I think it’s probably because Jews were outsiders. And I think, you know, it’s that Isaiah Berlin parable. He said you imagine a people from another planet and on that planet, you a had a dream of education even if you weren’t educated. And you land on planet Earth and it dazzles you. And because you fall in love with it, you push it. But you are always going to be the outsider. I mean, you know, frankly, those of you who’ve got businesses, those of you that are professions, when you’ve got a problem, you do tend to bring in the outsider with expertise, don’t you? And don’t forget that other book by Yuri Slezkine, where he talks about the Jews and modernity. He said, “If you think about it, look how often Jews have had to move. Look how often they’ve been persecuted, oppressed. Look how many career patterns they had to take.” He goes as far as to say, you know, Jewish history prepares the Jews for modernity. Look, even, look, we could have fun and talk Hollywood. We can look at the film business. We can look at the Rag Trade. Arbiters of popular taste, arbiters of intellectual taste. It’s no surprise that you’ve always got a bunch of Jews at the front of Western thought. It’s interesting. Then go to China where there was once a large Jewish community, China was good to the Jews and they all assimilated.
Q: “Why did Freud send his first two sons to Manchester?”
A: Yes, of course it was the centre of the cotton industry, not the war. I think he just sent them there so they’d have a chance of making a living. They were very poor. The father was very, very poor.
“A filmed version of Tom Stoppard’s play is being released on the 27th of January.” Yes. Those of you who’re lucky enough to live in London have seen it. It is quite extraordinary. And can I mention, Wendy, may I mention Holocaust Memorial Day?
[Wendy] Yes .
We’re having a ceremony online, and just to give you a heads up, it’s my five o'clock slot. And may I ask you, those of you who got children or grandchildren, we’re very lucky that we have four Holocaust survivors joining us. [Professor Josef Perl who was, who was hidden in plain sight in Amsterdam. Joanna Millan, who I think some of you will have heard speak. She in fact went into Theresienstadt as a baby, and was liberated when she was, well liberated, we don’t use that word. When Theresienstadt was taken from the Nazis, she was not yet four. Susan Pollack, who was a Hungarian Jew, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch from Breslau and then Berlin, and Howard Jacobson is joining us. He’s a wonderful, those of you who don’t know his work, he’s an award-winning writer. And Dame Janet Suzman is going to do the readings. So I think it, it would be an interesting opportunity for you if any of your grandchildren want to hear, the survivors are not necessary talking about their testimony. They’re going to talk about their thoughts today, on the 27th. So I’m giving you a heads up.
Q: “Did Freud have a bar mitzvah?”
A: No, he didn’t.
His Jewish name is Shlomo. I don’t, I’ll check that. Yes.
“Bergasse is not in Leopold, it’s the Ninth District.” Thank you for that, Petra.
“My father lived in Glashaus Kassel, very near Freud in the ninth, he was also a doctor and told when he was a student that Jewish students were leaving the lectures. They’d beat with wooden sticks by the non-Jews who were waiting to come out. It was a regular occurrence.” You know what was very interesting though, at the University of Vienna, and I’m going to be talking about this, Kadimah, the Jewish Students Association, they got together, they became so good at duelling that the German, the German students associations, you had them all over Germany and in Vienna, they refused to give satisfaction to Jews because they said Jews had no honour. The reality was Jews were winning at fights. So that’s very interesting. Kadimah is the first Zionist organisation of young people anywhere in Europe at the University of Vienna. And a man called Max Nordau addressed them. And he basically, he called, when he addressed them he talked about Jews of muscle. And of course he became a great Zionist leader with Herzl. He said, “What we must create is a new brand of Jew.” A Jew who…
[Wendy] I’m sorry, I’m have to jump off. I just want to say thank you very, very much. I need to, I’m jumping off. I’ll leave it to you. Thank you.
Okay. God bless, Wendy and wish you better. Better, better.
That’s fine.
[Wendy] Absolutely fine. Thank you.
Q: - Why did I call Vienna a ghost city?
A: Because it was once the capital of one of the greatest empires in the world, and now it’s the capital city of 7 million people. And it’s, there’s nothing wonderful, no wonderful culture. I hope I’m not upsetting anyone. But for me there’s nothing great coming out of Vienna as it came out in turn of the century. You wouldn’t know where to turn for intellectual or artistic stimulus. We’ll be looking at all of this as we go through the course. I mean, Patrick’s going to look at the Ringstrasse, but he is also going to be, Patrick and Dennis are both going to be talking about some of the great musicians. So, and then Patrick’s going to be talking about the succession school. It was so extraordinary, and there are so many different areas of interesting intellectual experimentation.
“Thank you for including Freud. He deserves to be…” I just, I wanted to, I wanted to give him back his Jewishness. I just did. People think I’m peculiar.
Ron Bick, “There’s an interview with Jung from 1959 on YouTube, which by chance I watched a few weeks ago. Very interesting. And he talks about his friendship with Freud.” And Ron has very kindly put the link in.
Q: “Was Jung antisemitic?”
A: Oh, Adrian, I’m not sure. He hated Freud. “Was he antisemitic?” I actually, I had a meeting with Frank Tallis today. I put that question to him. He thought not.
Now, this is Michael. “The Judean version of bildung is Hazak Hazak Ve-Nit'Hazek Strong, strong and strengthen yourselves. You ask you once asked what the Judean definition of bildung.” Michael. That’s interesting. It’s the Bacrock debate again, isn’t it? “How sad that escaped to London without telling his mother and sister begged him.” I think by then his mother had gone. But I think, I think he did try. I’ll have to check that for you. But of course it’s tragic.
This is Ramelli, “This lecture and your description of Vienna so resonate with me. My mother born in 1910, grew up in a prominent religious but very cosmopolitan Viennese family. I feel the same ambivalence. Wonderful, beautiful city. The language so familiar. And yes, as a friend said the air is anti-Semitic.” Look, it’s no accident that so many of the senior Nazis were Austrian. We’re going to go all the way through before Pesach, I promise you. We’re going to go all the way through and then we have to decide after Pesach which direction we go in next. That’s a very complicated story, Lawrence.
Q: “Why were Freud’s sisters left behind?”
A: Yeah, Anna survived. That was his daughter.
Q: “Why wouldn’t he go to his beloved mother’s funeral?”
A: I don’t think he approved of the religious ceremony.
He’s buried in the columbarium in Golders Green. Yes.
“Freud’s grandson Walter was World War II hero for his services in the British Army.” Yes, of course. Thank you Adrian.
Q: “That’s interesting. Racist kinship. Did he believe Jews were a separate race?”
A: I don’t, racial, racial kinship. Not racist kinship.
It’s a complicated one. He’s used. You’re back to that terrible argument. What does it mean to be a Jew, Steven. Is it religious? For some it is. Is it national? For those who live in Israel, it is. Or those who have chosen Zionism, it is. The Nazis certainly said we were a race. I have a problem with the word race because logically to talk about a pure race, you’d have to geographically isolate for thousands of years. Maybe you could make the case for the Maoris. For the Eskimos. But I don’t, obviously, you know, Jews are, they’re a people of conversion as well. Let’s be careful. “Jung was certainly Freud’s.”
This is from Emman Heller. “Freud’s bridge to the Gentile world. Hence the tragedy of their rupture. As I commented during an earlier lecture, my colleagues who are Freud scholars and I agree that psychoanalysis is secular humanistic Judaism. Each paragraph in any of Freud’s papers is a missioner to examine from every angle each patient’s expression similarly conceptualised to be analysed and understood. My personal analytic providence goes directly back to Karl Abraham.” Oh, that’s fascinating.
Oh, thank you so much for that. So you are, you are talking then about, you know. Is it, is it Talmudic the way they, the discourse? I’m asking. I read that.
Yes. Ernest Jones also. Yes. Freud wanted the non-Jewish world to take it on. He said if it’s going to be Jewish, it’s a Jewish science. Judith Hyman, “Rev. Bernays, a former vicar of St. John’s Church, Stanmore was of German Jewish descent. His son died of drowning while a student of Oxford. Bernays Garden Hall of commemoration to his son around 1900. I think Rev. Bernays was the son of a Diane.” That’s strange.
Martha Bernays. Yes. Is that the family, Judith? It’s so strange. Monty Golden, “Non-Jewish Jews. , ran out of cream cheese. The council of seven convened and after some deliberation, arrived at an unanimous decision, decided the water will now be called cream cheese.” I love that. So would Freud.
Q: Jacqueline, “Am I aware of any statements by Freud speaking of the compatibility of Judaism and Freudian psycho analytic theory?”
A: No, I’m not.
Q: Thank you. Jennifer. “Was Clement Freud Jewish?”
A: Well, I remember years ago when the “Jewish Chronicle” wrote an article about him. He wrote a note saying, I’m not Jewish. I don’t want to be regarded as a Jew.
Q: No. Romaine, “Did Freud make references to his Judaism as informing his thinking as an analyst?”
A: No.
And again, more best wishes to Wendy. Yes.
Watching Myrna saying, watching “Vienna Blood.” Yes. It’s going to be on February the 10th that Frank Tallis is coming in. Yes, the caul is the amniotic membrane. Yes. But the point is many people, and of course it’s, yeah, it’s, yes, Mr. Doctor, Mr. Scientist. But many people thought it was something magical. That’s the problem. I do love you.
Again, Barbara. Thank Wendy, Martin.
“I thought Jung rejected Freud because of the latter’s belief in infantile sexuality.” Yes, of course. There were all sorts of intellectual arguments, of course there were. “It was reported that when Freud was in extreme danger and friends, friends were urging him to leave, he said, "I will not leave my country.” To which a friend replied, “Dr. Freud, your country has left you.” I don’t know. I haven’t read that, Josie. It’s interesting.
Sharon, “An anecdote, when Gustav Mahler, a former Jew, was always considered to be Jewish, realised his well, Alma was having an affair with Walter Gropius. Mahler had a four hour visit with Freud to help him save his marriage. Freud must have helped Mahler as Alma decided to stay with him, and their marriage was much happier. But secretly she continued her affair with Gropius who became her husband after Mahler. See, Freud seems to be a fairly good marriage counsellor.” Sharon, you have just opened up a huge area and you’ll be pleased to know that Patrick Bade later on is giving an lecture, which he has entitled “Alma, The Loveliest Girl in Vienna,” which is a line from Tom Lehrer. Of course, and some of you may have seen Mahler’s Conversion, which was a Harwood play that starred Anthony Sher. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very good.
Again, Karen. Oh, everybody’s telling Wendy to take care. Loads and loads of people who love you.
Myrna, “Please mention the name of Stoppard’s play.” It’s “Leopoldstrasse.” “Leopoldstadt,” sorry.
Franklin, “There was a philosophy expounded by Jews in Europe. They can take everything from us, but not our knowledge.”
This is from Valerie. “My husband was a survivor at 13 and one of the boys.” Yes. Yes, in fact, Joanna Millan came out with that group. She said there were girls too. She was the second youngest. Yes.
This is from Tony. “Freud’s son as an SOE agent, captured the airfield by stealing a fire engine and with bells and lights flashing, was allowed non-stop through the Nazi roadblock. He then talked the Airfield Commandant into surrendering. No doubt, using psychology.” Yeah, it’s a lovely story, Tony.
Q: “Can anyone recommend a book about Freud in World War I? I’ve read some of his letters to his son who served at the front.”
A: Oh, there are so many. You see, I tend to cull books. If you want to read about Freud and his Jewishness, Wistrich has got a brilliant chapter in the “Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph.” Miriam, “Where was I referring to the events of the 27th under the , Memorial Day Trust.” No, no.
This is something, it’s in, it’s on our programme. It’s Lockdown University. It’s commemorating the 27th of January. So all you have to do is on the 27th of January, You just, it’s at five o'clock in the evening. My regular time slot, where I have these extraordinary guests. So that’s all you have to do. It is Hazak Hazak Ve-Nit'Hazek. I hope I’ve got that right. Ve-Nit'Hazek. I’m very bad at languages.
Q: “What is the meaning of the altering Orthodox increase in Vienna in recent years?”
A: What I’m going to, that’s a good question, Lawrence. And what I’m going to do is actually, I have a friend, a Jewish friend who lives in Vienna and I’m going to try and persuade her to come on. She works for IRA. She’s on the board of IRA, you know the, which I used to be on for Britain, and she’s going to IHRA. I’m going to ask her if she will join us in the next few months. Valerie, “Being Jewish is like being part of an extended family.”
This is from Maggie. “My Jewish grandmother studied chemistry at the University of Vienna, graduating with a PhD in 1921. I imagine what the environment was like in terms of the experience for women.” It’s fascinating. A friend of mine did his PhD on this. There was a disproportionate number of Jewish women at the University of Vienna. Much more to talk about on that. Yeah.
“Thank you so much for including Freud as a great Jew and nonbeliever as Ben-Gurion who never denied his Jewish identity. We should be proud of him.” Yeah. Yes, “It’s absolutely Talmudic.” Yes. Freud’s approach was Talmudic.
Q: “Is the painter, Lucian Freud, the grandson of Freud?”
A: Yes.
“As a student of theology, No doubt in my mind he was influenced by the Talmud.” Did he study it? Anyway, I think I better stop there, because I think we’ve had, Judi enough. Do you agree?
[Judi] We do have another lecture starting in 45 minutes.
I wish you all safety. Thanks a million, Jude, and I’ll see you all next week.
[Judi] Thank you so much everybody. Bye-Bye.