Mexico's Little-Known Attempt to Save Freud From the Nazis

[G_j]

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/mexico-attempt-save-freud-nazis/

Had the campaign to bring Freud to Mexico succeeded, the imperiled psychoanalyst would have found himself living among the world’s foremost artists and intellectuals.

By: Rubén Gallo

In the spring of 1938, the Mexican press reported on the perils faced by Freud in post-Anschluss Austria: The Gestapo had raided the offices of the Psychoanalytic Publishing House, searched the apartment at Berggasse 19, and briefly detained his daughter Anna. Freud himself — once reluctant to consider emigration — made up his mind to leave Vienna, but his decision seemed to come too late: obtaining an exit visa had become a nearly impossible ordeal for Austrian Jews. Freud would have been trapped in Vienna had it not been for a group of powerful friends who launched a full-scale diplomatic campaign on his behalf: William Bullitt, the American ambassador to France; Ernest Jones, who lobbied British Members of Parliament; and Princess Marie Bonaparte, who was in direct communication with President Roosevelt himself.

In Mexico, President Lázaro Cárdenas — one of the most popular leaders in twentieth-century history — had turned his country into a haven for persecuted intellectuals: after the fall of the Spanish Republic, he offered political asylum to thousands of refugees, and Mexico received a massive influx of artists, poets, academics, and philosophers who played a crucial role in postwar culture. In a world threatened by the rise of fascism, Cárdenas opened his nation’s doors to socialists and fellow travelers of all kinds. Leon Trotsky accepted Cárdenas’s invitation and settled in Mexico City in 1937. He would be followed by an impressive lineup of cosmopolitan refugees from Spain, France, Germany, Austria, and many other countries.

This article is adapted from Rubén Gallo’s book “Freud’s Mexico: Into the Wilds of Psychoanalysis.”
After the press reported Freud’s troubles in Nazi Austria, a group of activists launched a campaign to bring the professor to Mexico. The local chapter of Red Aid International sent a telegram to Cárdenas, urging him to offer asylum to Freud, described as “the greatest researcher of the diverse manifestations of the spirit, who demolished prejudices and has built the foundations of the new universal morality.” Over the next three weeks, the Mexican president received five more telegrams from various organizations urging him to offer Freud a safe haven. Surprisingly, all of these requests came from labor unions: the Union of Workers in the Graphic Arts, the Union of Education Workers, and the Union of Metal Miners all cabled on April 21; the Union of Mexican Electricians followed suit on April 27. Even the Union of Sugarcane Workers jumped on the bandwagon and sent a telegram.



Letter to President Lázaro Cárdenas from the Union of Electricians requesting political asylum for Freud, April 19, 1938. Archivo Histórico, Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Mexico City.


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[defacto7]

1. A nice read and fun speculation.