Originally published on August 29, 2022 (Episode 277)
Introduction
On March 15, 1938, Adolf Hitler addressed 250,000 Austrians in Vienna, proclaiming the end of the Austrian state. That same day, Nazis entered the apartment of Sigmund Freud and his family. First his wife Martha offered them cash, then his daughter Anna opened the safe and handed over more. At that point “the stern figure of Sigmund Freud himself suddenly appeared,” writes Andrew Nagorski, “glaring at the intruders without saying anything…They addressed him as Herr Professor, and backed out of the apartment.” After they left, Freud asked how much money they had seized—and when he found out, remarked drily, “I have never taken so much for a single visit.”
That Freud—who had written Civilization and Its Discontents with so few illusions about mankind’s “aggressive cruelty”—was still in Vienna during the Anschluss seems astonishing. More astonishing still is that he insisted he could “ride out the storm.” Yet a circle of friends and disciples not only persuaded him to leave, but orchestrated his emigration to England, where he lived the final sixteen months of his life.
About the Guest
Andrew Nagorski was bureau chief for Newsweek in Hong Kong, Moscow, Rome, Bonn, Warsaw, and Berlin. He is the author of seven books, including Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power. His most recent work is Saving Freud: The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom (Simon & Schuster, 2022).
For Further Investigation
Andrew Nagorski, Saving Freud: The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom (Simon & Schuster, 2022)
Andrew Nagorski, Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power (Simon & Schuster, 2013)
Sigmund Freud, Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis (delivered at Clark University, 1909)
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, translated and edited by James Strachey (W.W. Norton, 2010)
Related conversation: Hitler’s First One Hundred Days, with Peter Fritzsche
💬 Listen & Discuss
Freud nearly stayed in Vienna, convinced he was safe. What does his rescue—and his reluctance—reveal about human hope and denial in the face of catastrophe? Share your thoughts in the comments, and pass this episode to someone interested in history, psychology, or both.
