The Sigmund Freud/Minna Bernays Romance: Fact or Fiction?
“The Sigmund Freud/Minna Bernays Romance: Fact or Fiction?” is the title of my article that will appear in the spring issue of the American Imago. It is a reaction to an article published by Franz Maciejewski of Heidelberg, Germany, PhD in sociology and author of articles and books on applied analysis dealing with Little Hans, Freud, and other topics, in September of 2006 in the Frankfurter Rundschau and in English in the last issue of the Imago in 2006.Maciejewski’s posthumous birthday gift to Freud, on his 150th birthday in 2006, was a bombshell: he found a hotel log entry of August 13, 1898, in Freud’s handwriting, registering himself and his sister-in-law as “wife” to spend the night an an inn in Majola, a place not big enough to be listed in the 1952 Columbia Gazetteer, to spend the night in a double room. This was supposed to be the smoking gun evidence that Freud made love to Minna. It even convinced Peter Gay, who had fought this theory for years.
Maciejewski’s article in the Frankfurter Rundschau was picked up as a scoop by many leading newspapers, including the New York Times, with front-page reportage on December 24, 2006, following which I sent the following letter to the NY Times, entitled: “Probable or proof positive”:
To the Editor:
While Ralph Blumenthal’s reportage packs a powerful punch (frontpage, December 24), the jury should still be out. Nobody saw what actually happened in that hotel room in 1898.
When interviewed by John Billinsky C. G. Jung was 82 years old and embellishing the memories of his break with Freud: “”It was my knowledge of Freud’s triangle that became a very important factor in my break with Freud. And then I could not accept Freud’s placing authority above the truth. This, too, led to further problems in our relationship. In retrospect it looks like it was destined that our relationship should end that way. It was full of question and doubts from the very beginning.” If Freud emerges suspect, it was Jung who was the womanizer and for whom Toni Wolf became a real “second wife.” Furthermore, as I showed in my research, Jung and Freud broke over their disagreements regarding their respective interpretations of the Schreber Case and Jung’s repudiation of Freud’s libido theory, or sexual theory, of the neuroses.
On 1/23/2005 the late Freud scholar Paul Roazen wrote this in response to my query about the evidential value of the statements made to Billinsky:
“I knew Henry Murray at the time that the Andover [i.e., the Billinsky] article first appeared. “Bilinksi got it wrong.” According to Murray, Jung considered it a sign of his own superiority to Freud that Jung could carry on such an extra-marital affair, with Toni [Wolf], whereas despite Freud’s fantasies, it was out of the question for him, since he was so repressed. One reason I published a photo of Minna in “Meeting Freud’s Family” was so people could see what a spinster she was. Stories from Joan Erikson confirm that. … Esti Freud, and also Eva Rosenfeld, repudiated the idea of such a liaison.”
Why would Minna Bernays make a confession to a stranger who came to visit the Freuds in 1907? Jung’s statements to Billinsky 50 years later are suspect as a belated “tu quoque” (you, too, buddy) to Freud for having mildly chastised Jung over his alleged affair with Sabina Spielrein. (In my research I defended both Jung and Spielrein against such allegations.)
Moreover, even if consummated, would this have been a source of Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex, the euphemism for the incest complex? Highly doubtful. In the article in Frankfurter Rundschau (kindly sent to me by Mr.Peter Swales) Franz Maciejewski suggests that “the possible liaison between Sigmund und Minna would spell incest with the sister. Now it is generally known that in the years that followed Freud set forth incest as the crux of his Oedipus-theory, as a universal drive.” This would be tantamount to Freud projecting his own sexual hang-ups on mankind and thus discrediting the theory as his private neurosis. I called Mr. Maciejewski in Heidelberg and argued that incest was a misnomer, for they were not related: at worst, it could be called adultery, at best, quasi-bigamy, similar to the biblical story of Jacob, Leah, and Rebecca. Maciejewski concurred. Freud had many sources for the role of the incest complex in life, neurosis, and therapy.”
Neither this, nor a shorter letter I sent subsequently, nor any other reader’s letter, for that matter — and I suspect there must have been a few — was ever published by The New York Times. My letter to the Frankfurter Rundschau was refused by the editor with the excuse that there was really not enough reader interest in Freud or Freud controversy around to justify publication. However, that same editor did publish one reader letter: from Dr. Albrecht Hirschmüller, the editor of the charming Sigmund Freud/Minna Bernays correspondence published by edition diskord.
There is no end to the interest in the sex life of the rich, the famous, and the fabled and to converting it into fame (and little) fortune.
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