Sigmund Freud’s Final Home

ABSTRACT

Sigmund Freud’s escape from Austria at the end of his life, and his experiences during his last year in London, are explored. The two homes where Freud lived in London and Vienna are compared, and their unique characteristics examined. During Freud’s final year at home in London he was busy and active, writing, seeing patients, receiving visitors, surrounded by family and friends, until his cancer was no longer treatable. Freud died at home in September 1939. Freud’s legacy is preserved today in museums in both his homes, Berggasse 19 and 20 Maresfield Gardens.

KEYWORDS:

• Sigmund Freud
• Anna Freud
• Martha Freud
• Athena
• Berggasse
• Maresfield Gardens
• Vienna
• London
• death

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Freud-Ernst Freud 12.5.1938, FML, quoted in ed. Ernst Freud, Letters of Sigmund Freud 1873–1939, 1957, p. 438.

² Freud- Lampl-de-Groot, 22.8.1938, FML.

³ August Aichhorn, quoted in interview with Edmund Engelman, The Independent newspaper, 31.7.1999.

⁴ Freud-Sam Freud 4.6.1938, Freud Museum London (FML).

⁵ Freud-Eitingon, 7.6.1938, FML.

⁶ Hilda Doolittle (HD), Tribute to Freud, 1956.

⁷ Freud- Marie Bonaparte, 8.6.1938, FML.

⁸ Freud-Silberstein, 1875, Sigmund Freud Archive, Library of Congress.

⁹ Freud-Lampl-de-Groot, 13.6.1938, FML.

¹⁰ Freud – Alexander Freud, 22.6.1938, Sigmund Freud Archive, Library of Congress.

¹¹ Freud-H.G.Wells, 16.7.1939, FML.

¹² Ivan Ward, Freud’s English Home, Education Blog, 14.4.2020, www.freud.org.uk.

¹³ FML Archive material.

¹⁴ Gay, Peter Freud: A Life for Our Time, 1971 p. 635.

¹⁵ Freud -Lampl-de-Groot, 8.10.1938, FML.

¹⁶ Freud -Lampl-de-Groot, 13.6.1938, FML.

¹⁷ Freud-Eitingon, 19.12.1938, FML.

¹⁸ Martha Freud-Lilly Freud Marte, 22.6.1938, LOC.

¹⁹ Freud-Lampl-de-Groot, 20.11.1938, FML, quoted in Michael Molnar, The Diary of Sigmund Freud 1929–39, 1992.

²⁰ Kurzeste Chronik, 10.11.1938, quoted in Michael Molnar, The Diary of Sigmund Freud 1929–39, 1992.

²¹ Anna Freud-Clinton McCord, 28.8.1938, FML.

²² Preface, 20 Maresfield Gardens, A Guide to the Freud Museum, 1998.

²³ Victor Mazin, Art Dreams and Revolution, chapter in ed. Monika Pessler & Daniela Finzi, Freud, Berggasse 19, The Origin of Psychoanalysis, 2020.

²⁴ Victor Mazin, Art Dreams and Revolution, chapter in ed. Monika Pessler & Daniela Finzi, Freud, Berggasse 19, The Origin of Psychoanalysis, 2020.

²⁵ Tom Derose, “Home is Where the Heart is”, Education Blog 7.4.2020, www.freud.org.uk.

²⁶ Letter Freud-Fliess, quoted in Burke, Janine, The Gods of Freud, 2006, p. 139.

²⁷ “My Recollections of Sigmund Freud”, in The Wolf-Man by the Wolf-Man, ed. Muriel Gardiner (1971), quoted in Freud: A Life for Our Time by Peter Gay, P. 170.

²⁸ Hilda Doolittle (HD), Tribute to Freud, 1956.

²⁹ Kurzeste Chronik, 8.8.1938, quoted in Michael Molnar, The Diary of Sigmund Freud 1929–39, 1992.

³⁰ Hilda Doolittle (HD), Tribute to Freud, 1956.

³¹ Jones, Ernest, Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 1953.

³² Freud-Eitingon, 8.10.1938, FML, quoted in 20 Maresfield Gardens: A Guide to the Freud Museum London, 1998.

³³ Hilda Doolittle (HD), Tribute to Freud, 1956.

³⁴ BBC- Freud recording 6.12.1938, FML.

³⁵ Freud-Stefan Zweig, 20.7.1938, quoted in Jones, Ernest, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 1957 Vol 3, p. 235.

³⁶ Freud- Ludwig Binswanger, 8.10.1936, Library of Congress.

³⁷ Freud-Marie Bonaparte, 15.6.1938, quoted in Schur, Max, Freud: Living and Dying, 1972.

³⁸ W.H. Auden, In Memory of Sigmund Freud, 1939.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carol Seigel

Carol Seigel, MA (Cantab), was Director of the Freud Museum London from 2009 until summer 2022. She studied History at the University of Cambridge, followed by Masters’ degrees in Modern History, and in Museum Studies, at the University of London. Carol worked in different museums in London in a variety of roles for over twenty-five years, developing expertise in curatorship, exhibitions, and museum management.