Finding the Text of Freud’s Nietzsche Evening
When I was researching my article “Nietzsche’s Secrets,” published in Nietzsche and Depth Psychology in 1995, I came across a captivating reference to two of Freud’s Wednesday evening meetings in 1908 that were devoted to Nietzsche’s recently published posthumous memoir Ecce Homo.
The Minutes of those evenings promised to provide a missing link to what Freud knew in 1908 about Nietzsche’s syphilis and his sexuality, answering a question about whether it was Lou Andreas Salome who told him certain things about Nietzsche from the time she had spent with him in 1882.
Lou didn’t join the Freud circle until several years after the 1908 meeting. Oct 30, 1912 is the first time she is mentioned as a guest; after that Rank merely notes “Lou” or “Frau Lou” in the attendees list. The1908 Minutes show that Freud already had an opinion about Nietzsche’s sexuality and his syphilis and that Lou was not the one who revealed that to him.
The Minutes, published in four volumes between 1962 and 1975 by the International Universities Press, were not to be found—at least until I discovered that copies existed in the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute library. That day the biggest storm of the year was raging. Ignoring flood warnings, I raced into San Francisco and, in the warm and dry library, I found what I was looking for—that despite denying that he ever read Nietzsche, Freud was able to mention that he had only missed two things in anticipating psychoanalysis, that Carl Jung, who had interviewed Nietzsche’s colleagues at the University of Basel, was the source when Freud referred to Nietzsche “as a homosexual,” and that Freud had an opinion about Nietzsche’s late stage syphilis, which had been revealed by P.J. Moebius.
Freud’s Wednesday evening discussion group began as informal meetings in Freud’s apartment in 1902. In 1906 Otto Rank was entrusted with recording the meetings as a paid secretary. In 1908 the group was formalized as the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Rank counted the attendance and took notes on the conversations that took place until 1915 when he left Vienna to fight in World War I. Only fragmentary Minutes were kept until the last meeting in 1938 when Hitler occupied Austria.
When Freud escaped Vienna for London in 1938, he gave the Minutes to Paul Federn who soon also left Vienna taking the manuscript with him. Due to ill health and lack of funds, Federn was unable to publish the Minutes but he arranged in his Will for Herman Nunberg and his son, Ernst Federn, to see that they were translated and published.
Although Freud commissioned Rank to memorialize the discussions, the conversations were often so heated that it seems the participants felt the meetings were private, as they were for more than five decades. And now, another half century has passed and the Minutes exist only as rare out of print books.
When I got a notice that the Institute library was have a street sale of old books, I was delighted to find all four volumes for sale for a few dollars.
The following is a fictional dramatization of the two Nietzsche evenings from Otto Rank’s perspective, my attempt to make sense of what transpired there, and to incorporate additional information from biographies about the people who were in attendance.
THE TWO NIETZSCHE EVENINGS : a dramatization
April 1. 1908
Otto Rank sits in excited anticipation as members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society file into Freud's waiting room at Berggasse 19. Eleven present, counting himself. He cleans his round steel-rimmed glasses, checks again to be sure he has an extra pen. Soon he will know if Freud is going to admit his great debt to Nietzsche.
By the window Freud is already shrouded in smoke from his cigar. Three members pay dues. Sadger borrows Archiv #3 from the library.
Hitschmann finally begins the meeting, a discussion of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals, Section 3. He rambles a bit. Otto takes good notes. And then, the discussion period. Graf talks about "something breaking through" as a consequence of Nietzsche's repudiation and repression of sex following in the wake of his infection.
Otto stares out the window, remembering his shock upon learning four years ago that Nietzsche died of syphilis, not hereditary softening of the brain, which he, Otto, had so long feared for himself.
Federn speaks next. Otto writes carefully in neat black script when Federn states that Nietzsche has "come so close to our views that we can ask only, 'Where has he not come close?'" He intuitively knew a number of Freud's discoveries, Federn says, stroking his pointed beard. What garbage, Otto thinks. Freud read every word of Nietzsche beginning when he was a student, and loaded it by the shovelful into his own work.
"He was the first to discover the significance of abreaction, of repression, of flight into illness, of the instincts -- the normal sexual ones as well as the sadistic instincts," Federn continues. "His philosophy is formed in direct contrast to his own existence." So he wants us to believe that Nietzsche did not live his philosophy? Had no life but in imagination? But then Federn adds, "According to a reliable source, Nietzsche had at certain periods of his life homosexual relations and acquired syphilis in a homosexual brothel in Genoa." So, Federn, was he always ascetic? (And what about sadism? Can you even think about that?)
Jung is his "reliable source". We all know it, why doesn't he just say so?
Freud so far is silent. Otto is dizzy with anticipation. Will Freud admit publicly that he in fact cannibalized almost all of Nietzsche's thought?
Finally Freud speaks. Otto writes carefully:
PROF FREUD first emphasizes his own peculiar relationship to philosophy: its abstract nature is so unpleasant to him, that he has renounced the study of philosophy. He does not know Nietzsche's work; occasional attempts at reading it were smothered by an excess of interest. In spite of the similarities that many people have pointed out, he can give the assurance that Nietzsche's ideas have had no influence whatsoever on his own work.
Freud looks over at Otto Rank to be sure that his public disclaimer has been read carefully into the Minutes. Otto nods unhappily.
Freud then says:
"Nietzsche failed to recognize infantilism as well as the mechanism of displacement."
Otto, stunned, writes it down. I never read a word of Nietzsche, and by the way, he missed exactly those two things? In a stew of emotion, he hears little else and finally Stekel closes the meeting saying, "The sexual enigma becomes the enigma of the world."
October 28, 1908
Otto Rank has been waiting six months for the second Nietzsche evening, a discussion of the recently posthumously published Ecce Homo. In preparation he has reread everything he can find by Nietzsche. Thirteen men attend, a good turn-out.
Hautler begins, speaking of Nietzsche trying himself out in ever new forms. He says of Nietzsche's meeting with Lou that there was nothing more than a flirtation and a single "though erotically highly charged" meeting. Add Lou's last name? No, everyone knows who Lou is. Of course he's wrong, Otto thinks, about only one meeting with Lou; they often met between March 1882 and the Fall when they had their disagreement, and he’s just making it up about the erotically charged part. But Hautler is so often wrong.
Federn once again adds to the record the report about Nietzsche being homosexually active and in this way having been infected with syphilis.
Otto waits for a good moment and then delivers his own carefully rehearsed thought. There is no reason to diagnose neurosis in Nietzsche. The mainspring of Nietzsche's entire creativity is in his originally "sadistic" disposition and its tremendous repression. Otto scribbles good notes on his comments as he speaks, pleased with what he has said.
And then Freud takes over the meeting. Otto moves forward in his seat, pen poised. Nietzsche was a paretic, Freud says. The euphoria is beautifully developed. We just have not succeeded in understanding Nietzsche's personality. One could look at the matter this way: this is an individual about whom we lack some prerequisite information. Some sexual abnormality is certainly present. Jung claims to have learned that Nietzsche acquired syphilis in a homosexual brothel.
Finally! Otto thinks. I can put Jung in the record as the source on this issue.
The Freud family maid brings a tray with coffee and cakes. Rank helps himself and during the break thinks about Jung chasing after every snippet of Nietzsche gossip in Basel. Otto is aware of his envy of Jung.
Jung, the giant, the chosen son, obsessed with Nietzsche like all of us. He knew everyone in Basel who knew Nietzsche, that’s where he got his gossip. He spoke the local language. Would he go to Genoa to look for the record of a shy, semi-blind German professor in the sun-drenched Platonesque bathhouses? Not likely, too pompous. What was it he said about Overbeck? That he handled Nietzsche carefully, with gloves. Gloves. I know about that: no one could touch me without wearing gloves. Transient phobia, that, good thing. Seduced by a man when I was seven years old. Jung's problem, too, seduction by an older man. There it is: the Cornerstone of my suffering, the Gravestone of my joy. Gloves and germs. Danger of masturbation, makes you go blind. Danger of syphilis, the spirochete creeping up your spine toward your brain. Is that what Nietzsche feared? Or was it his father’s insanity that he awaited? I changed my name to Rank, Ibsen's syphilitic doctor. Jung said he knew the doctor who treated Nietzsche for syphilis. Of course that was Binswanger, Otto that is, uncle of Jung’s colleague Ludwig. Did Nietzsche wake up one morning and find a nasty oozing chancre on his penis? Did he think they were just blennorrheae and therefore a lesser infection? Did he think he was cured when they went away? Jung knew everybody. He wants to be Nietzsche's posthumous doctor, the pretentious ass. Freud does too.
The session begins. Otto snaps to attention as Freud continues.
"With Nietzsche there is no evidence whatsoever of a neurotic illness." (So he agrees with me! Otto thinks happily).
"Completely cut off from life by illness Nietzsche turns to the only object of investigation that is still accessible to him and which, in any event, is close to him as a homosexual, i.e., the ego."
So, Freud has made a clear statement for the record about Nietzsche's homosexuality and its childhood narcissistic origins! Rank holds his breath and hopes Freud will not stop there.
Nietzsche, Freud says, makes a number of brilliant discoveries in himself. But now illness takes hold. And Nietzsche projects the insights about himself outward as a general imperative.
The degree of introspection achieved by Nietzsche had never been achieved by anyone, nor is it likely ever to be reached again, Freud says.
Nor is it likely ever to be reached again. Otto feels a chill of anticipation. How can Freud not admit his debt after this introduction? Freud puts down his cigar and signals Otto to pay attention. Otto writes precisely:
“Professor Freud would like to mention that he has never been able to study Nietzsche, partly because of the resemblance of Nietzsche's intuitive insights to our laborious investigations, and partly because of the wealth of ideas, which has always prevented Freud from getting beyond the first half page whenever he has tried to read him.”
Otto Rank’s head spins. Freud has just given a case history, relating Nietzsche's life to his work, without reading a word of what he has written? Where did he get his information? From Lou’s biography of Nietzsche? From his friend Josef Paneth who spent time with Nietzsche? Protocol demands that he not question. Otto feels his youth, his position as "little Otto Rank," paid secretary of the Society.
The most essential factor must still be added, Freud continues, the role that paresis played in Nietzsche's life. He was able to see through all layers and recognize the instincts at the very base.
In that way, Freud concludes, he placed his paretic disposition at the service of science.
Amazing! In that way, Freud is saying, Nietzsche placed himself at my service. Sigmund Freud, the scientist. Sigmund Freud, the posthumous heir. How much, Otto ponders, does Freud, the doctor, see himself as Nietzsche's diagnostician? The group breaks up. Freud stands by the window, staring down into the lamp-lit street of Vienna. Otto Rank carefully organizes his precious Minutes. He does not dare speak to Freud.