Freud's Free Clinics

1933
while he officially disallowed the Austrian Nazi Party as well, he formed his
own coalition with the paramilitary Heimwehr. “The political situation is of
the greatest interest here,” Edith Jackson observed with characteristic New
England reticence in letters to her Bostonian sister, “only it is almost impossible
to know what it is. No one knows from day to day what new direction
it will take.” 29 Nevertheless, as the year advanced, Jackson’s Jewish friends became
visibly more affected by the Nazi’s growing strength. They knew that all
of Alfred Adler’s school-based child guidance clinics had been closed. Some
of the analysts were already leaving for Prague, London, and the United
States. When Erik Erikson left for Boston with his family, Edith Jackson (with
whom he had worked at Anna Freud’s nursery) set up a contact with her sister.
The analysts endured the pressure of Germany’s Election Day, now called
Republic Day, in Vienna. “The streets are as quiet as can be,” Jackson wrote
on November 12. “All celebrations have been prohibited. There are policemen
on corners everywhere to ensure the maintenance of the prohibition.
There seems to be no attempt to overstep it. There is no threat, no alarm—
just a Sunday quiet. ... One still doesn’t know what may burst forth at any
moment. But the fear of something desperate happening has already lasted so
long that it isn’t acutely felt anymore.“ 30
Just this kind of numbness seemed to prevail over the Ambulatorium in
1933. Hitschmann’s mid-October report on the state of the clinic did little for
the society’s mood; nor did Edward Bibring’s treasurer’s report, which he presented
as the clinic’s new vice chairman. At the same time, Hans Lampl, widely
regarded as a particularly thoughtful colleague, carefully prepared his remarks
on his recent experiences in Berlin. Contrasting the Ambulatorium’s
position to the Poliklinik’s and pointing to the conditions under which the
German clinic would more or less survive, he seemed to spare Freud, Anna
Freud, and his society friends the increasingly tyrannical reality of Nazi life.
Lampl’s account deliberately fell short of alarming the Ambulatorium’s governing
council, perhaps to protect Freud. The board did agree to curtail some
of the society’s public lectures and consulting functions. But Hitschmann,
who had rescued the Ambulatorium time and again, insisted on keeping the
clinic open and active. Exploring everything from fixed fees to paying lectures,
the psychoanalysts invoked the spirit of Budapest 1918 and decided instead to
voluntarily decrease their personal salaries. At the same time, those who made
financial contributions in lieu of work at the clinic would increase the sum of
their Erlagscheine. 31 General dues would remain fixed at an affordable ten
shillings while the substitutive contribution would be raised to twenty
shillings a month. Some analysts worried about the widening fascist presence
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