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J? r> l( >• in: J&e "tj&cvtiU. -ftcc-fnfc^r ,-t-*((tf&o yt emembering Erich Fromm By STEVEN S. SCHWARZSCHILD

ERICH FROMM was a fatherly friend to me— I sometimes wondered why Fromm went out of even in the literal sense that he reminded me in his way to be so gracious to me. He and my father more than one way of my father. had known one another when they were young men. Also, he and I were very self-conscious When he came to Washington University, not German ("Yekkes")—socialists in the tradi the only time, in November, 1967 for a week-long tion that Fromm, in the title of an anthology he symposium, so many students flocked around him edited, designated as Socialist Humanism, oppo that loudspeakers had to be set up outside of nents of political on Jewish, socialist and Graham Chapel for the overflow crowd to hear ethical grounds—and quintessential examples of him. One afternoon during that week he and his wife and my wife and I were sitting around our the "symbiosis" of classical Jewish and classical humanist cultures. But there were also real differ dining-room table for a very Germanic coffee-and- ences between us: he was of a previous generation cake, when our son, who had never seen Fromm, not only chronologically. He had, with wry nos came home from high school. He stopped as talgia, ceased being an observant , and I though thunderstruck in the doorway. Afterwards haven't; he was a psychologist with strong philo he explained: my father had died very recently, but sophical and political interests, whereas my phi our son thought that he saw his grandfather sitting losophizing is strongly anti-psychologistic; he was there—that's how much the two resembled one an a man of world-fame, and I am a modest professor other. at a modest university in the American Middle • There is, indeed, a prototype of German-Jewish West. middle-class intellectual that shares a character istic physiognomy. Fromm, like myself and my I figured out Fromm's reasons for being inter family, came from Frankfurt-am-Main, the most ested in me. For one thing, we did, as I have said, historic German-Jewish community. (In Hebrew share a number of values that greatly mattered to literature it is sometimes referred to as "the Jeru us. Fromm, sure as he was of himself in psychol salem of the West"). Children of its old families ogy, sociology, politics, and basic ethics, felt a lit tend to be very conscious of their lineage, and so tle insecure in philosophical and Jewish sources in was Fromm. I recall that on the same afternoon his later years. He had started out as a student some of our conversation dealt with a significant of philosophy, not of medicine, and his Ph.D. episode in the 19th-century history of Frankfurt thesis at the University of Heidelberg dealt with Jewry: the dispute between Samson Ra the line from Karaism through Hasidism, to Re phael Hirsch, the founder of "neo-Orthodoxy," form . He, therefore, liked to use me, and and Rabbi Seligmann Bamberger, "the Wuerz- I was delighted to let myself be used, as a sort of burger Rav," who was a direct ancestor of sounding board, in which he felt he could trust Fromm's. Rabbi Bamberger, though representing and from whose echo he could measure the unreconstructed Orthodoxy, opposed Hirsch's se strength of his own voice in Jewish and philo cession from the united Jewish community on the sophical matters. Thus he wrote to me on Oct. 11, ground that Reform elements had subverted its 1974: "Indeed our communications are exceed Jewish legitimacy. In glancing over my letters ingly sporadic but whenever they occur they feel from Fromm, I see that on March 30, 1967, he as if they were bits of an uninterrupted discussion. had written to me: "I was always a strong partisan I think the reason is that there is so much in com of the Bamberger standpoint." A lateral forebear mon in our thinking that we feel in many ways at of mine, Emanuel Schwarzschild, published An home with each other, at least I do." Open Letter to His Honor, District-Rabbi S. B. Bamberger of Wuerzburg (Frankfurt: Kauffmann, WHEN I came to Switzerland from , in 1877), in which he sided with Rabbi Hirsch. 1975, I wrote him beforehand that I would be in Zurich. Although he offered to meet us there, he clearly preferred that we visit him in Locarno- Dr. Schwarzschild is Professor of Philosophy and Judaic Studies at Washington University. Muralto where he lived (and died). We spent a

Fall, 1980 29

Schwarzschild, S. S., 1980: Remembering Erich Fromm, In: The Jewish Spectator, Fall 1980, pp. 29-33.

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\ week with the Fromms, who had a smallish apart years, never was in contact with that Jewish di ment. In order to persuade their friends to come mension. and visit them they made a practice of renting the In death, Fromm's and Marcuse's kinship can most stunning room and terrace in the hotel where be seen more clearly again. Both belonged to the the Locarno Pact had been signed, in which to put physiognomic type of German-Jewish middle-class up their guests—overlooking Lake Maggiore and intellectuals that I mentioned. Both tried some the snow-covered mountains around it. Fromm how to unite Marx, Freud and Heidegger in their was at the time finishing his last major book, To respective teachings. Both fought valiantly against Have Or To Be, a strange combination of Marx all forms of totalitarianism and of private or col and the medieval German mystic Master Eckhart. lective sacro egoismo. I think that Marcuse occa We spent a part of every day having him "talk the sionally slipped into socialist pseudo-messianism, book at me" and I briefly reacting. which can become an accessory to totalitarianism, , But I left no dent on the book. I have always as in the case of Ernst Bloch, another branch on had my qualms about Fromm's revisionist "soft" the same tree. They all died within a short time of Freudianism. Though I share some admiration one another, almost the last of a great and tragic for. Marx and Master Eckhart, I vehemently reject generation. My remembrance of Fromm cannot the quasi-ontologism of the mystic, conveyed in possibly reach the moral splendor of the short let the word "Being" in the title of the book. Fromm ter that Marcuse's children sent to the N.Y. Re defines that "being" pretty much as "becoming" view of Books (9/27/79) after his death: they as. "active being." Still, looking for "tran said what could also be said of Fromm—that his scendence," he talks about "the x experience" of admirers should act in line with and in memory "being." For example, in You Shall Be As Gods, of their teacher—that he regarded himself first and A Radical Interpretation of the Old Testament and foremost as a universalistic German Jew (so that Its Tradition, he even refers in passing to Rudolf over this atheist's grave kaddish was recited)— Bultmann. Also in his fight against technological and that contributions, if any, should be sent to instrumentalization, there seem to be the under Rudi Dutschke (the leader of the German stu tones of Heidegger, which totally repels me. I, dents' rebellion in the 1960s, then in Denmark, therefore, argued in favor of "Doing," praxis, as since prematurely deceased) on behalf of a dis the antithesis of "Having." But the book is, of senter in the jails of the East-German Stalinists. course, Fromm's. His practiced belief in the value of- mutually respectful argumentation was, how AMERICAN obituaries of Fromm quote him as ever, again substantiated, as it always was. What having said that he left Judaism in the 1920s. he liked to call "the character structure" of sworn Well, yes—and the leopard has removed his spots. enmity to all forms of private or social, capitalist Fromm himself told me the witty pun that the or bolshevik, dictatorship was again displayed by artist Hermann Struck made during Fromm's ob him. servant period: "Fromm ('pious') he is, but he's still Erich." You have to say this with a German accent He and his first wife Frieda Reichmann con THAT BUSINESS of "being" (fuzzy and danger ducted, in the 1930s the only Orthodox-Jewish psy ous as it is) reminds one of the fact that in the choanalytic institute. In the 1960s, Fromm wrote 1920s, when Fromm's mind was being shaped, the to me from Mexico, where he was men living, ask great philosophical event in Germany, and even ing me to remind him of the details of Jewish law tually beyond, was Martin Heidegger's Being and regarding "harugay malchut"—the martyrs of a Time. It exercises, to my continuous chagrin and government—i.e., people killed by a ruling power outrage, tremendous influence also on the avant- because they testified to a higher truth. The Black garde of intellectual Freudians and Marxists. One movement and the struggle against the Vietnam result of this conjunction was the school of "the War were at their height, and we were deeply Freudian Left," of which Fromm and his erstwhile concerned with the innumerable sacrifices, even of colleague Herbert Marcuse, all of "the Frankfurt life itself, that were brought in the wake of Martin School," are the best-known exponents. On the Luther King and Lyndon B. Johnson. Our corre Jewish side of this ambience was Franz Rosen- spondence on this subject is reflected in a study I zweig, in whose famous "Lehrhaus" Fromm taught published after the 1967 War, Fromm would not for a while, also on the subject of his Heidelberg put it in the technical terms of Jewish law—he just dissertation. Marcuse, with whom Fromm's rela wanted to make sure that his general posture was tions became more and more strained through the in conformity with basic .

30 The Jewish Spectator

Schwarzschild, S. S., 1980: Remembering Erich Fromm, In: The Jewish Spectator, Fall 1980, pp. 29-33.

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.. I know, that whenever Akiba Ernst Simon (an tions that produced it are clearly stated at the be other marvelous member of that generation, with ginning of You Shall Be-As Gods. He mentions whom Fromm had studied in Heidelberg, who be his three teachers, Rabbi Nehemiah; Nobel of came Martin Buber's and Franz Rosenzweig's Frankfurt—also the inspiration of Franz Rosen closest associate, an Orthodox Jew, and now re zweig, Zalman Rabinkov and Hermann. Cohen— tired as head of the School of Education of the the latter his teacher only by indirection but the Hebrew University) and Fromm were in New more often quoted for it throughout the book. As York at the same time they got together every the book's title indicates,' Fromm.certainly wanted morning, into their old age, to study . to put man, and his autonomy, in the center of the There.are essays in Fromm's The Forgotten Lan universe. But, like all of the Frankfurt School, guage which offer lovely modernist translations of though abjuring metaphysics, he looked for "tran historic Jewish institutions—the more eloquent for scendence," i.e., a way of breaking out ofthe moral the .elegiac note of wistfulness of a writer who invidiousness of the world as it is (the Hegelian "can't go home again." collapse of transcendence into immanence, where "the actual is rational"). How could he achieve Fromm "left Judaism"? Balderdash. Sure, these two apparently contradictory purposes? Here Fromm had his profound misgivings about tradi he acknowledges the influence of Hermann Cohen, tional theology and conventional religion. He the neo-Kantian philosopher, Jewish philosophical . wrote to me on Jan. 9, 1970: "I am happy to do theologian, and ethical socialist. Reason, man's what God commands, without the support of the highest power and the divine in him, the capacity belief that God exists." (This is in fact an old - for what Kant called "the primacy of ethical rea ,dish joke.) And in Locarno he once said to me son," is both autonomy and transcendence.; With so impressively that I wrote it down when I got reason as his tool, man could and should, Fromm back to the hotel: "I can't use the word 'God' un argued, incrementally transform the world as it is less I am praying." Rosenzweig once said about into the world as it ought to be. The Bible, Juda someone: one has to be extremely religious for ism, Christianity, Marx and Freud all strive for this such atheism. "eschatological" goal—or so Fromm held, surely Above all, Fromm couldn't stomach the social in part rightly, although his "soft" revisionist opti politics of the Jewish "establishment"—its eco mism may have blinded him to some harsh,dis nomic arrivisme and its chauvinism. But Fromm tinctions that must be made. ,~«- did not leave Judaism. Judaism left him, or rather Jewry left him. He identified (he, the "Yekke") with the sparse remnants of Yiddishist, anti-Zionist FROMM was close to a full-time Zionist. In going through his letters to me I note that nary one fails territorialists and socialist folkists. He liked to listen to me talk about religious, intra-Jewish op to talk about Zionism and Israel, and each time position to political Zionism, in which he, regret the subject comes up the letters turn prolix. fully, could not partake because of his "a-religion- Phrases occur like "caused me an almost sleepless night" and "I get carried away by my feelings when ism." ever I think about it." (Jan. 9, 1970) His biting cri He displayed his wide-ranging knowledge of tique of contemporary Jewish politics was moti Judaism in You Shall Be As Gods—an interpre vated by total identification with the Jewish people tation of Judaism from the Bible, through the Tal and with what he believed (I think, rightly) to be mud, Maimonides and beyond the Gaon of Vilna, its highest values. Thus he would expect that pub (as he put it.) He could strongly affirm his lic dissent from official Jewry be "based on love faith in Judaism as a singular, history-spanning for Israel, as well as objectivity and reason," effort for human liberation. In To Have Or To Be, (April 11, 1969) and in the previouslycited letter he put it like this: "The question is not one of he writes about "the great idea of the eventual re religion or not! but of which kind of religion!" turn of Israel to their land." And a typical passage in this book, entitled "The Humanist Protest," then lines up Ernst Bloch, In some lengthier passages Fromm expressed Hermann Cohen, Maimonides and Marx in the himself on the total political situation in unusually religious, albeit occasionally atheist, service of broad-gauged as well as provocative terms. Al mankind. though I cannot agree with every part ofhis analy sis, I hope that readers will discern in them his Fromm's general ideological position and the pervasive concern with racial and economic prog profoundly autobiographical and ethical motiva ress, his correct historicaland political stipulations,

Fall, 1980 31

Schwarzschild, S. S., 1980: Remembering Erich Fromm, In: The Jewish Spectator, Fall 1980, pp. 29-33.

Propriety of the Erich Fromm Document Center. For personal use only. Citation or publication of material prohibited without express written permission of the copyright holder.

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•1 ' his' unrestricted humanism, and the broad frame of •• Semitic (as is so often foreseen by the Zionists) reference within which he envisioned the role of the country might stop supporting Israel, with the consequence that everybody would be killed the Jewish people in the world. there more efficiently than Hitler did it ... . One June 6, 1975 Fromm wrote as follows:

-I believe that Vietnam is the most drastic sym FROMM was perennially youthful, even in his last bol for the end of the white man's exploitation years when he suffered various physical handicaps. of the non-industrial world, which happens, or I do not know whether my congratulations on his happened, to be at the same time people of a '"• different color. It seems to me that this reaction 80th birthday still reached him. He died a few is also related to the sympathy for Israel which days before the event He always worked very is so astonishingly great in the United States. I hard. He exerted real influence on many indi cannot believe that this is all caused by the fact viduals and on society at large. His books were that many senators get some, money indirectly by very popular throughout the world. I remember making speeches and so on. They also react that way because the public is so strongly pro-Israeli, his description of the former prime minister of as the polls show. Why is it? Certainly not out Turkey, Ecevit, as a student of his. He was self- of sympathy with the Jews. Even when Hitler's lessly helpful to innumerable people all his life, to murders became known, there was no great re total strangers as well as to friends. I remember action. I think the sympathy is to a large extent his inquiries about a psychiatric patient in trouble derived from the fact that the Jews fight the Arabs. The Arabs, although of the same race, in St. Louis who had written to him out of the culturally speaking, are 'uncivilized,' like the blue, and how he went to infinite trouble on behalf blacks, like the North Vietnamese, and 'uncivil of a Yugoslav dissenter to whom I had drawn his ized' means 'not industrialized,' and hence not attention. exploitable. The Israeli arrogance toward the Arabs (in fact even against their own oriental It cannot be denied that he paid a price for his brothers) is the last time probably in which white popularity. As was said generally during his life arrogance toward the uncivilized has succeeded. It seems to me that is enough reason for the time and as has been intimated again on the occa white world to admire them and to support them. sion of his death, Fromm's psychology lacked the Certainly that the Arabs dared, on the basis of severe rigor of Freud (whether Freud was right or their strength in oil, in very practical terms to wrong); his sociology lacked the severe rigor of challenge the political and economic superiority Marx (whether Marx was right or wrong); his -of the white world makes them particularly hate ful. By this act they have shown the final col Judaism lacked the severe rigor of Jewish law lapse of the political and economic superiority (whether or not one subscribes to it); his philoso of the industrialized world. ... The gooks in phizing lacked the severe rigor of analytical South East Asia, as well as the gooks in the Near scholarship. East or anywhere else—they should not dare to defy the white man's weapons. But there was something more important about Fromm: he had personal and universal values, for Fromm dealt with the socioeconomic infra which he worked incessantly, that transcended his structure in this letter of 1975. I