Before Freud was granted the exit visa he needed to escape from Vienna, he was made to sign a document: “I, Prof. Freud, hereby confirm that after the Anschluss of Austria to the German Reich I have been treated by the German authorities and particularly by the Gestapo with all the respect and consideration due to my scientific reputation, that I could live and work in full freedom, that I could continue to pursue my activities in every way I desired, that I found full support from all concerned in this respect, and that I have not the slightest reason for any complaint.”
Freud signed, but added in his own writing, “I can heartily recommend the Gestapo to anyone”.
From Jonathon Glover’s very interesting website: HT a Philosophy Bites Tweet.
Wunderbar !
Is this for real?
I had to sign a similar disclaimer for Ergon energy after claiming compo when they fried our household electronics last year.
What a complete hoot.
In similar vein I can heartily recommend Ergon to anyone.
The above statement is for real. Whilst the Nazis were quite happy to liquidate most Jews (and would have done so for the Freud family, if given the chance), Freud was too famous a personage in 1938 to be treated like an average Viennese Jew. Roosevelt personally intervened to have his ambassador help out Freud, and the latter was also assisted by a number of very generous connections. The above statement was obtained under coercion, following Anna Freud being arrested by the Gestapo, and repeated raids on Freud’s publishing house. Furthermore, Freud had to surrender much of his fortune to the Nazis, and also needed to cooperate in order to be allowed to bring his extensive (over 2,500 pieces) collection of antiquities across the Channel.
Yeah, THR,
But I was talking about the same thing happening in modern Qld as happened to Herr Freud.
What is it that no one wants to talk about our failure at governance now?
I’m aware that Freud, somehow, managed to get his geegaws out of Germany.
The salient point is about how he managed to thumb his nose at Himmler’s mob.
Don’t recite it.
Tell me how he managed it.
Then tell me how people in similar scenarios in Australia can tweak the same outcomes.
Don’t be shy – reply.
Then tell me how people in similar scenarios in Australia can tweak the same outcomes.
Well, if there’s an attempt to liquidate an entire portion of the population in concentration camps, they can use the same tactics that Freud used, probably with similar success.
Aahh: or should I say – OYYYYY gevahr! Munroe,
Get it right old fruit.
Sigmund Freud was a bloke whose ancestors happened to be vaguely Jewish.
To quote you Munroe –
“Well, if there’s an attempt to liquidate an entire portion of the population in concentration camps, they can use the same tactics that Freud used, probably with similar success.”
Your’s tends to fly in the face of fact.
While I have no doubt that the professional class would sell their mothers to the devil if there was a dollar in the transaction poor old Sigmund was set on escape from what he perceived was a nation state planning towards extirpating his kind and agglomerating their wealth into the state coffers.
The whole point of this thread was, in my view, to discuss the nature of a bloke proud enough to walk away from disaster, bless him, with his head held high.
As it happened Herr Freud not only managed to emigrate from a very dangerous Germany – but as I recall managed to export most of his comprehensive collection of ancient artefacts.
In short, a reasonable person might suspect that he had ‘contacts’ within bureaucracy and the means to bribe them.
Indeed it may well be that since Herr Freud was a pioneer in the art of Psychiatry he may well have had the goods on one or two senior Nazis – and thus negotiated his escape from an oppressive regime.
But why should I be writing history lessons for those with a disinclination to read?
I’m not sure that Freud thumbed his nose at the Nazis. He left with a degree of bitterness. The relatives who he could not smuggle out were killed in camps. But you’re right – he did get out with some dignity in the face of disaster.
All very well but no one else here in this august forum seems inclined to look at our own back yard and give voice as to what is happening here, now, to Australians.
In so many ways and not all of them little, certain types are misusing their positions and their temporary authority to ‘just causing grief’ to others.
Other forums (is that fora?) are full of it and beyond a doubt the fifth estate give up on public interest matters if their quota is up – if the matter is ‘complex’ – and sometimes I plain wonder if some of them are in the corporate psychopath mould themselves.
Admittedly, sometimes its just stupidity – but the souls of far too many are sinister.
Nevertheless sometimes if a wad of money is available justice can happen –
http://www2b.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/archives/archive54/newposts/474/topic474346.shtm
Hello Nicholas,
Received today a message – extract below –
–=======AVGMAIL-3AD8370C=======
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=”us-ascii”
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Hi there,
I’m just e-mailing to request that you try to make sure that your comments
are reasonably relevant to the thread.
Regards,
Nicholas Gruen
+61 3 9646 0553 P
+61 3 8648 6317 F
+61 403 077 732 M
Google Talk and email:
Twitter: @nicholasgruen
Skype: nicholas.gruen
And for me to presume that is you both above and below –
Club Troppo » Zimbabwe and Burma – international salvation?
9 May 2008 … You’re signed in as – Sign in with a different account. Posted on 09-May-08 at 10:03 pm | Permalink; Tim Quilty said: …
clubtroppo.com.au/…/zimbabwe-and-burma-international-salvation/ – Cached
Okay Nicholas –
Hello and Trust I find you doing well.
Firstly I happen to have seen and experienced myself a fair deal of hate on these blog/forums things.
It amazes me to see decent reasoned comment literally shot down with the authors disappearing after a few efforts. Let me reinforce that by saying that I’ve seen reasoned and benign comment from newcomers met with utter filth and invective from the ‘blogestablishment’. Then once the newcomer is gone then the polysyllabic dross continues as if that newcomer never existed.
As it happens I took the time yesterday to ‘Google’ “Nicholas Gruen” by way of trying to understand what sort of people I’m dealing with when I write into these crackers.
Then your message today?
It interests me that you have taken the time to contact me outside the professed ‘confidentiality’ of the forum.
You suggest the matter is about my inputs towards the thread –
http://clubtroppo.lateraleconomics.com.au/2010/04/12/sigmund-freud-and-the-gestapo/#respond
If that is so you convince me that you deny my personal belief (supported by the record of history) that small detriment to individuals, if left unchecked, leads ultimately to
Holocaust.
If you represent yourself as a ‘man of the world’ and therefore pretend some grasp of history there is no way you could deny this.
Then there is the question of discourse.
It strikes me that anyone familiar with the failings in our system is suppressed. Anyone willing to share their life experience in this ‘Banana Republic’ is definitely censored.
So tell me Nick – Freud was smart enough to depart from a collapsing democracy in Germany. Meanwhile I have to be incredibly more smart to continue just existing as a peon in the utterly collapsed ‘Queensland Corporation’.
Why shouldn’t I just move this on to ‘Club Troppo’?
Or would the fact of free discourse upset you?
For what it’s worth I completely agree with you as to the nature of this danger, but present day Australians don’t have it all that bad. Admittedly, every year that goes by we slip closer, and the natural defenses of a free people are eroded away but I personally believe that the next big political disaster will strike elsewhere long before it hits Australia (and I secretly hope we have a chance to learn something).
Although elements of this exist, I think you are being a little unfair. I’ve tried terribly hard to get Nick’s back up over the years and found him to be very reasonable in return.
I’m sure you could have refused to sign without your life being in danger.
Just to make some tangential link to the topic, that phrase is excellent T-Shirt material (or even a bumper sticker):
… perhaps with a rough approximation of Freud’s signature underneath.
Meandering further: does anyone remember back to when police would dress in respectable clothes, straight-cut uniform and decent shoes? Now they have giant boots for the purpose of walking on city streets, and their trousers have started to billow around the thigh area and tighten around the calves — adapting to urban-jungle warfare I guess.
That said, the USA now has police carrying fully automatic long arms (as well as exposed side arms) for the purpose of guarding the crowded subways. They also have census collectors who tie themselves into trees and write “FED” on their chest in some sort of elaborate ritual suicide. I’m not rushing to relinquish Australian citizenship just yet.
Sorry, I just can’t stop saying it now.