Sigmund Freud: Conflict & Culture
From the Individual to Society

Freud's initial response to World War I was patriotic, and he closely followed the unfolding events of the war. Two of his sons volunteered for duty in the Austrian army. But Freud grew disillusioned with the conflict, and the war seemed to have had a decisive effect on Freud's thinking. Death and violence became more prominent in his theories, and he emphasized the ways participation in mass society released deep-seated aggressive impulses. Social crises, he argued, allow us to see aspects of human nature normally hidden in everyday life.

Albert Einstein and Freud exchanged letters for purposes of publication in this book. Both expressed a horror of war and the belief that it could be avoided only if nations were willing to renounce some of their sovereignty in favor of an international body. Neither was optimistic that this renunciation would happen.

In this essay, Freud explored the consequences of repressing impulses in order to live in society. Civilization must curtail the death instinct, but, if people are denied the satisfactions of aggression, they turn against themselves. Freud saw no way out of this dilemma and noted that "they all want consolation, from the wild-eyed revolutionaries to the conservatives. . . ." He offered none and instead emphasized the conflicts he saw at the heart of all human life.

This short text is comprised almost entirely of a long quotation about Jews from a source Freud claimed he could no longer trace. In 1925 he wrote: "My language is German. My culture, my attainments are German. I considered myself German intellectually, until I noticed the growth of anti-Semitic prejudice in Germany and German Austria. Since that time, I prefer to call myself a Jew."

The German army marched into Vienna in March 1938, and Hitler annexed Austria to the Reich. As a Jew and as the founder of psychoanalysis, Freud was regarded as an enemy of the new Germany. Shortly before he was allowed to leave the country in June, a photographic record was made of Freud's residence, Berggasse 19. In his final interview with the Gestapo, who insisted that he sign a statement saying he was not mistreated, the 82-year-old Freud is said to have sarcastically asked if he could add: "I can most highly recommend the Gestapo to everyone."

Freud's sisters, Dolfi, Mitzi, Rosa and Pauli remained behind in Vienna. As the Nazi's anti-Semitic pogroms grew ever more violent, it was clear that even these women in their late seventies would not be safe. Various efforts to secure them visas in 1939 were of no avail, however. Dolfi died of starvation in a Theresienstadt concentration camp, and the other three were murdered in the death camps. Freud's brother, Alexander, successfully escaped from Vienna in 1938. His sister, Anna, had emigrated to the U.S. many years earlier after her marriage to Eli Bernays.

In the last years of his life, Freud once again returned to the story of Moses and reflected on themes common to his early and late work: the impact of trauma on memory and the identification of people with a leader whom they both love and hate. Freud seized on the notion that Moses was an Egyptian and based a story of the evolution of Western religion and the role of Judaism in European culture on it.

Freud left Vienna on June 4, 1938, and arrived in London two days later. "The triumphant feeling of liberation," he wrote, "is mingled too strongly with mourning, for one had still very much loved the prison from which one has been released."

This text records Freud's sense of how the context of his Jewishness -- and of anti- Semitism -- helped form his character and his work. Freud viewed religious belief as an avoidance of reality, but he also recognized how religious identity powerfully shaped both individuals and groups.

On December 7, 1938, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) came to Freud's Maresfield Gardens home in London to record a short message. By this time his cancer of the jaw was inoperable and incurable, making speech difficult and extremely painful. A photograph of Freud was taken as he prepared to read the statement you are listening to now. After his long struggle with cancer grew intolerable, Freud asked his physician for a fatal injection of morphine. He died on September 23, 1939.

These "Home movie" clips provide a glimpse into Sigmund Freud's domestic life. The documentary footage was shot in Berggasse 19 and various summer retreats between 1929 and 1937. The scenes include Freud:

• walking with his sister-in-law Minna Bernays
• in his study at Berggasse 19
• receiving a book from a child
• with neighbors on the Freuds' fiftieth wedding anniversary
• with friends Ruth and Mark Brunswick and their daughter, Princess Marie Bonaparte, and Freud's wife Martha and his brother Alexander
• conferring with archaeologist and friend Emanuel Löwy
• with family and friends on a veranda
• with one of his beloved chows
• his daughter Anna