Context

The book was written in 1915 by Sigmund Freud and was published in 1916 by Hugo Heller & CIE. in Leipzig and Vienna. The text technology used to create the book is print. The book was mainly meant for students and scholars in psychology. This book was banned in Nazi Germany during the reign of Adolf Hitler.

A book burning refers to the ritualistic destruction by fire of books and other written materials. It is form of censorship that is usually carried out in a public context. In 1933, under the Nazi regime thousands of books were burned by Nazi-dominated student groups across 34 different university cities and towns. Along with the burning of the books students read specific statements that were circulated by circular while burning specific texts. These statements were called “fire oaths”. Some of the authors who had their work burned in this incident had their citizenship revoked, some were put in concentration camps and later ended up dying there, some driven to exile, and all of those who had had their work burned could no longer continue publishing. This burning is said to be the most famous book burning in history.^[2][3][7]

All of Freud’s works published before May 1933 were a part of the nazi book burnings, including Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse. “Against soul-shredding overvaluation of sexual activity. For the nobility of the human soul” was the fire oath that was read along with the burning of Freud’s work.^[2][5]

The 1933 Nazi book burnings were part of the Nazi’s massive propaganda campaign to synchronize ideology and policy among Germans and win their loyalty and cooperation. Joseph Goebbel headed the campaign and sought to seize and censor any and all forms of media that represented a threat to the Nazi ideology. In the spring of 1933, Long lists of books that were not to be read by Germans were put together by students, professors and librarians. On the night of May 10th 1933, Over 25,000 books were then burned at over 34 university cities and towns across the country. The largest of these burnings happened in Berlin where over 40,000 spectators watched books from the library of today’s Humboldt university burn at a plaza across the street.^[4]

Even though the Nazis didn’t agree with content of Freud’s work, the primary reason that his works were burned was because he identified as being Jewish. The Nazis were extremely antisemitic and considered any book written by a jew to be “un-german”. Freud did comment on the book burnings saying the following "What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.”^[6]

After the Nazi regime annexed Austria, Freud’s house was raided by the nazis and all the money was confiscated. Since he identified as a Jew, his life was also threatened. Fearing for his life, he fled to England along with his daughter, wife and caretakers in 1938.^[5]