Die Rundbriefe des >Geheimen Komitees< Vols.1-4, Edited by Gerhard Wittenberger and Christfried Tögel (Edition Diskord)
The 4 volumes reproduce over 400 circular letters of Freud’s ‘Secret Committee’ between 1913 and 1927.
Volume 1: https://pep-web.org/browse/document/RGK.001.0000A
Volume 2: https://pep-web.org/browse/document/RGK.002.0000A
Volume 3: https://pep-web.org/browse/document/RGK.003.0000A
Volume 4: https://pep-web.org/browse/document/RGK.004.0000A
Established in 1912 in order to advance the cause of psychoanalysis and defend it against external attacks, the group corresponded intensively with each other for many years.
The newsletters deal with topics such as congresses and committee meetings, translations of Freud’s writings, financial issues, the editorial policy of the journals, book reviews, training issues, personnel policy, events in the local branch associations, and occasionally personal matters.
Conflicts and tensions shine through the discussion of these topics, which turn a business correspondence – which the newsletters superficially represent – into documents into the inner dynamics of a group of men, each of whom had more or less hopes of being chosen as Freud’s successor.
Image / Members of the secret committee at the 7th International Psychoanalytic Congress, Berlin, 1922. Clockwise: Otto Rank, Karl Abraham, Max Eitingon, Ernest Jones, Hanns Sachs, Sándor Ferenczi and Sigmund Freud; Anna Freud inset.