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Erich Fromm and Frieda Fromm-Reichmann Their Years in Germany

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Erich Fromm and Frieda Fromm-Reichmann Their Years in Germany Propriety of the Erich Fromm Document Center. For personal use only. Citation or publication of mate- rial prohibited without express written permission of the copyright holder. Eigentum des Erich Fromm Dokumentationszentrums. Nutzung nur für persönliche Zwecke. Veröffentli- chungen – auch von Teilen – bedürfen der schriftlichen Erlaubnis des Rechteinhabers. Erich Fromm and Frieda Fromm-Reichmann Their Years in Germany Klaus Hoffmann Paper presented at the Erich Fromm International Symposium in Cooperation with the Washington School of Psychiatry, the William Alanson White Institute New York and the Mexican Psychoana- lytic Institute at Washington, May 5-8, 1994. Copyright © 1994 and 2011 by Professor Dr. Klaus Hoffmann, Sonnenblumenweg 5, D-78479 Rei- chenau; E-Mail: K.Hoffmann[at-symbol]ZFP-Reichenau.de. I am indebted to Ed Brooks, Norman Elrod, 1. Life history until the First World War Heinz Faulstich, Gerhart Fichtner, Michael Schmidt-Degenhard and Ann-Louise Silver Frieda Reichmann was born on 23 October It is a great honour for me to speak here in 1889 in Karlsruhe, the oldest of three daughters. Washington about a psychoanalyst who lived The parents were middle-class Jews, „solidly and worked 44 years in Germany. I will deal rooted in middle class respectability (Hoff, 1982, also deeper with two of the four colleagues p 115). Her father (1859-1924) worked in a Frieda Fromm-Reichmann devoted her principal bank; her mother (1867-1952) was a trained work „Principles of Intensive Psychotherapy“, teacher and worked at home. Kurt Goldstein and Georg Groddeck, and I will Karlsruhe had been for nearly a century the mention further colleagues who worked to- capital of the Grand Duchy of Baden, one of the gether with her, Hans Prinzhorn, Karl Landauer, more liberal German states. There, the 1848 Heinrich Meng and Sigmund Heinrich Fuchs, revolution found many adherents. Even the better known under his later English name Foul- Grand Duke himself supported it at the begin- kes. ning. The revolutionaries became so powerful in For the paper presented, I owe a lot of 1849 that the Prussian army intervened and de- credit to Ann-Louise Silver whom I met in feated the revolutionary army in the field. The Stockholm at the International Congress for the Prussians remained in Baden until 1852. After- Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia in August 1991. wards, many people left the country, due to There, we developped the idea to compile the poverty and to political disappointment, most biography of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, and do- of them for the United States. In most of the ing this work, I could learn a lot about psychia- towns (Mannheim, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, try and psychoanalysis in Germany before 1933. Freiburg, Konstanz), there were quite a few Frieda Fromm-Reichmann never wrote an Jews, not only in private enterprise, but also (in autobiography, she even left orders to have all contrast to Prussia) in the Civil Service and bank- documents in her house burnt. In 1956, one year ing. before she died, she gave a recorded interview The younger sisters, Grete and Anna, fled to Dr. Irwin Kasle and Edna Cailie Scott where after 1933 to Palestine and lived in Israel. Anna she spoke about her years in Germany. Parts of lived to be more than 80 years old (Hoff 1982, it are published in Ann-Louise Silver’s „Psycho- p 119). „These two sisters of mine had to suffer analysis and Psychosis“ (1989). terribly because I worked out to the dot exactly the way mother had dreamt it should be until I began to outshine her. That was not in the pro- Page 1 of 15 Hoffmann, K., 1994 Erich Fromm and Frieda Fromm-Reichmann. Their Years in Germany Propriety of the Erich Fromm Document Center. For personal use only. Citation or publication of mate- rial prohibited without express written permission of the copyright holder. Eigentum des Erich Fromm Dokumentationszentrums. Nutzung nur für persönliche Zwecke. Veröffentli- chungen – auch von Teilen – bedürfen der schriftlichen Erlaubnis des Rechteinhabers. gram.“ (Tape, p 2). education combined with manual training. The family moved to Königsberg in East Prussia Workers were granted free housing and worked in 1890 when Frieda was one year old. Her fa- not more than 10 hours a day. Sunday was a ther had found there a better position and once day off for everyone. According to Helene in Königsberg the Reichmanns belonged to the Simon his knowledge of economics was excel- more influential orthodox Jewish families. lent, his knowledge of psychology quite bad Founded in 1242 by the German Order, (1919, p 13). Towards the end of his life, he Königsberg became an important German town even fought for sexual liberation. From the age for trade with the Baltic countries and Russia. In of two years on, children should be educated in 1525, it became the capital of the Protestant work schools - education with production! More state of Prussia, and in 1544 the university was and more, Owen became critical towards the founded. Famous philosophers like Immanuel church, which promoted individualism too Kant (1724 - 1804) and Johann Georg Hamann much and did not care about ethics at the work (1730 - 1788) lived there. After the union of place. Because of this he encountered more and Brandenburg - Prussia in the 18th century it was more difficulties, and he eventually emigrated to the most eastern larger town in Germany. Hav- the United States in 1825. He bought a colony ing suffered during the First World War, it was there founded by the Suabian pietist Rapp, destroyed and nearly all the German inhabitants which was operated under strict Christian prin- expelled between 1945 and 1947. ciples. But also here he found no bed of roses. Very late in her life Fromm-Reichmann The inhabitants of the colony were forbidden to (1989, p 471) remembered how her father had consume alcohol or drugs, but they had a fa- loved his wife very much. She recalled how her mous distillery. Owen also bought a place called motherdid everything she could to make the New Harmony in 1825. It was supposed to be marriage harmonious. And she succeeded! When run according to communist principles, but she said „Move“ to a mountain, the mountain losses caused by fraud and corruption cropped moved. up quite soon after the takeover costing Owen Both Fromm-Reichmann’s mother and fa- $200,000, 80% of his fortune. Owen returned ther suffered from deafness which developed in to England in 1829 and spent the rest of his life late adulthood, and Frieda was also to suffer there. His main concern remained the coopera- from it later on. In her mother’s case, it started tive movement. He founded a consumers’ and after the youngest girl’s birth. In 1956, Frieda producers’ cooperative in London. From 1836 (1989, p 470) recounted what she heard her to 1844, Owen wrote his principal work „The parents say at that time. Her mother was un- New Moral World“. The term Socialists ap- happy that she could not have any more chil- peared here for the first time in history. dren, although she had very much wanted six Helene Simon considered Owen’s Socialism further children and a boy. By the time Frieda humanistic, although it was not party-bound. It was 16 years old, her mother was almost com- was a personal allegiance to a good idea. Her pletely deaf. niece Frieda took a similar stance in the psycho- Fromm-Reichmann’s aunt on her mother’s analytic movement. side was HELENE SIMON, who published a Getting back to Königsberg, it should be book about the socialist Robert Owen (1905, said that girls there could not obtain a regular second edition 1925) and a collection of Owen’s school matriculation. Frieda’s mother was a papers (1919). Robert Owen lived from 1771 to member of the Association for Women’s Educa- 1858. He grew up in conditions of poverty. But tion and Women’s University Studies. She he became a self-made man, founding a cotton founded a private high school where girls could factory. Needless to say he became quite rich. earn their „Form One“ in four years. Frieda But rich or not he established a cooperative for completed the course. „I was everything mother his workers in New Lanark in England. Local ag- wanted. „ (Tape p 2) In 1956 she recalled (tape, ricultural production oriented towards healthy p 2) that she had always been the smallest child, food was promoted. The children received free be it in competition with the boys or in compe- Page 2 of 15 Hoffmann, K., 1994 Erich Fromm and Frieda Fromm-Reichmann. Their Years in Germany Propriety of the Erich Fromm Document Center. For personal use only. Citation or publication of mate- rial prohibited without express written permission of the copyright holder. Eigentum des Erich Fromm Dokumentationszentrums. Nutzung nur für persönliche Zwecke. Veröffentli- chungen – auch von Teilen – bedürfen der schriftlichen Erlaubnis des Rechteinhabers. tition between Jews and non-Jews. Following showed a disturbed pupillary reaction to light. her family training, Frieda obeyed the Jewish Differentiating between the different forms of laws strictly up to 1926. schizophrenia, 53.4% of the hebephrenics, Having finished Form One in 1907, she 77.71% of the catatonics and 19.23% of the stayed at home for a year as she was too young paranoids showed this changed reaction. to start university studies. At home, she learned From 1914 to 1918, she worked as an assis- sewing, knitting and cooking. She played the pi- tant at this very psychiatric and neurological ano quite well. university hospital in Königsberg under Kurt Goldstein as her director. He kept this post al- though he was then already working in Frank- 2.
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