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Sigmund Freud, Margarethe Hilferding Break Silence in Shocking Conspiracy Reveal!

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By Cameron Aldridge

Sigmund Freud, Margarethe Hilferding Break Silence in Shocking Conspiracy Reveal!

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By Cameron Aldridge

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In anticipation of International Holocaust Remembrance Day next week, the Lost Women of Science initiative is spotlighting the life of Margarethe Hilferding, a trailblazing psychoanalyst and physician from Vienna, who tragically perished in a Nazi concentration camp in 1942. She achieved historical milestones as the first female to receive a medical degree from the University of Vienna and as the first female member of Sigmund Freud’s Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Her groundbreaking paper, “On the Basis of Mother Love,” presented in 1911, challenged the prevailing views of her time by arguing that maternal instinct is developed post-birth rather than being innate. Despite facing rejection from Freud and her peers, Hilferding dedicated her career to serving working-class women and advocating for reproductive rights, leaving a controversial yet influential legacy in psychoanalytic theory.

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TRANSCRIPT

Marcy Thompson: The year was 1945. After the conclusion of World War II in Europe, a soldier named Peter Milford returned to his native Vienna.

Eveline List: He had fought in the army to liberate Austria.

Marcy Thompson: He returned to discover the remains of his beloved city and the fate of his mother, whom he had left behind.

Eveline List: The city was in ruins. Amidst the debris, he searched for any surviving friends.

Marcy Thompson: Before the war, he was known as Peter Hilferding, having changed his name in New Zealand where he found refuge.

Eveline List: …an hour’s walk led him to a house that was once a hub for Social Democratic Publishers.

Marcy Thompson: Before the conflict, in this very building, Peter’s mother had published articles addressing hunger, housing, and labor rights on behalf of the Social Democratic Party.

She was a trailblazer, the first woman to graduate from the University of Vienna Medical School, tirelessly championing women’s health and reproductive freedoms.

Eveline List: …at the door, late at night, he revealed who he was, and they welcomed him and provided a bed for the night.

Marcy Thompson: His mother, Margarethe Hilferding, or “Margaret” as pronounced in English, had insights into psychoanalysis that were so advanced they remain radical even today. She challenged the entrenched belief that a mother’s love for her child is instinctual.

Eveline List: Then he walked to the edge of Vienna where his aunt lived. His cousin, her father, handed him a suitcase left by Margarethe Hilferding.

Marcy Thompson: What Peter fled from was the grim reality that his mother could not escape. The Hilferdings were Jewish, and in wartime Vienna, that was a death warrant.

Eveline List: …contained some belongings she could gather in the terrible place where she was confined with other Jews, some old clothes, and that was it. They also handed him her farewell letter.

Marcy Thompson: I’m Marcy Thompson. Today on “Lost Women of Science,” we delve into the fragmented yet remarkable life of Margaret Hilferding, a woman whose contributions might have been merely a footnote or another tragic casualty of the Holocaust.

But as we will see, Hilferding left behind much more than that. Starting with that suitcase and the relentless curiosity of a few women, a group of historians and psychoanalysts who revisited the foundations of Sigmund Freud’s groundbreaking work and uncovered—to their astonishment—the contributions of a female doctor present at the inception.

Eveline List: My name is Eveline List. I initially studied history and psychology. Following my doctorate, I pursued psychoanalytic training to better understand the connections between people and events.

Marcy Thompson: It appears Hilferding pursued her studies with a similar curiosity.

Eveline List: Absolutely.

Marcy Thompson: What led you to her? How did you come across her?

Eveline List: I spoke to a friend who headed the documentary archives of resistance movements in Vienna. He asked if I was interested in some materials, and I was intrigued by what he had on Margarethe Hilferding.

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I’ve always been deeply interested in the history of psychoanalysis. Knowing she was the first woman in the field piqued my interest. They had little about her, but what he offered was a starting point.

Marcy Thompson: Eveline List would soon connect with Hilferding’s son, Peter Milford, who had returned to Vienna many years later.

They discovered they lived quite close to each other. When Eveline met Peter, he was well into his 90s.

Eveline List: He was intellectually sharp, witty, yet remarkably humble.

Marcy Thompson: Peter Milford provided Eveline with firsthand accounts of his mother’s incredible achievements.

He traced her story back to the turn of the 20th century, a time of significant cultural change.

In the late 1800s, Margarethe Hilferding was part of a unique historical phenomenon, a burgeoning group of highly educated, liberal Jewish women who pursued medical studies in Europe. A subset of these women were drawn to the emerging field of psychoanalysis. These women remain largely unknown outside academic circles, and even within academia, their pioneering work has received scant attention.

Klara Naszkowska: It’s common for historical narratives to exclude minorities, including women.

Marcy Thompson: That’s Klara Naszkowska, a cultural historian, professor of women’s studies at Montclair State University, and editor of the book, “Early Women Psychoanalysts.”

Naszkowska’s research focuses on a somewhat better-known Russian physician and pioneer in the field, Sabina Spielrein.

Klara Naszkowska: As I researched Spielrein, I kept uncovering more names. I wasn’t the first to discover this, but for me, it was a revelation that there were so many of these women.

Almost all of these women were also Jewish, another factor contributing to their historical obscurity. And while each had a unique story, there were also many common threads related to gender, Jewishness, and anti-Semitism.

Marcy Thompson:  By the late 1800s, a cultural shift was occurring among progressive Jewish families in Europe and Russia, particularly those aligned with Marxist ideologies. They began educating their daughters.

Klara Naszkowska: We see a typical family here. A Jewish family where parents may observe some religious traditions. Typically, especially fathers, they supported their daughters in pursuing university education, becoming doctors, psychoanalysts, and generally financially independent professionals, often encouraging them not to marry.

Marcy Thompson: This describes Margarethe Hilferding’s family perfectly, but it doesn’t fully explain why she was drawn to this new field or what shaped her into the formidable figure she became. For that, we need to delve into her deep intellect and her overriding desire to advocate for women.

Candice Dumas: She made significant contributions across several fields, including medicine and psychoanalysis, and she was a staunch advocate for contraception and abortion rights. This was in the early 1900s.

Marcy Thompson: Candice Dumas is a clinical psychologist with a practice in Cape Town, South Africa. She was also interested in tracing the first generation of women in psychoanalysis.

While Dumas was familiar with pioneers like Sabina Spielrein, she was unaware of Margarethe Hilferding, despite Hilferding being one of the original figures in the field of psychoanalysis.

Candice Dumas: I believe she paved the way for other women to join and be accepted in the field.

Marcy Thompson: Like many lost women scientists, Hilferding was exceptionally brilliant, excelling beyond the expectations set for her or even her male contemporaries at the time.

Candice Dumas: From the start, she knew she wanted to study medicine and was prepared to overcome any obstacle to achieve her goal.

Marcy Thompson: To put these obstacles in perspective, in 1897, Margarethe was one of only three female students enrolled to study for an academic degree at the university. That’s out of 15 million women living in Austria-Hungary at the time.

She enrolled to study physics and math but could only attend classes if professors permitted women in their lectures. Here’s Eveline List.

Eveline List: They were ridiculed, and some professors outright ignored their presence or barred them from attending lectures. The arguments against women studying were far-fetched and absurd.

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For example, there were claims about bald men as a sign of their brain functioning. It was argued that if women began studying, they would lose their hair and their fertility.

Marcy Thompson:  Despite these ludicrous attitudes, Margarethe persisted in pursuing her goal. Here’s Candice Dumas.

Candice Dumas: She started taking medical courses unofficially until women were finally allowed to officially study medicine.

Eveline List: The opening of the medical university to women wasn’t due to a sudden enlightenment but because there was a dire need for female doctors. In Bosnia, which Austria had occupied, local women refused to be treated by male doctors, necessitating female medical practitioners.

Marcy Thompson: In 1903, at age 32, Margarethe Hilferding became the first Austrian woman to receive her medical degree from the University of Vienna after completing her entire formal education there.

As societal attitudes began to shift, although anti-Semitism and misogyny were still prevalent in Austria, the progressive modernist movement in Vienna was gaining momentum.

It was a time of radical social change.

Eveline List: Several emancipatory movements were active at that time.

Marcy Thompson: Austria had been under the conservative rule of the Habsburg dynasty and was predominantly Catholic, but more progressive ideologies were beginning to take root.

Eveline List: The most significant was the labor movement, but there were also women’s movements and various health movements.

Marcy Thompson: In the iconic coffeehouse culture of the era, Margarethe connected with a group of radical intellectuals who shared her progressive aspirations—the Socialist Students League.

Eveline List: They met regularly in one cafe, reading and discussing the “Neue Zeit,” a social democratic periodical from Germany, along with the works of Karl Marx.

Marcy Thompson: Margarethe was the group’s first female member, and it was there that she met her future husband, Rudolf Hilferding, who was seven years her junior. He was also a medical doctor with a broad range of interests. Candice Dumas explains their relationship.

Candice Dumas: Theirs was an intellectual partnership and a marriage of equals. Both raised Jewish, they opted for a civil marriage instead of a religious ceremony.

Marcy Thompson: Margarethe worked at the Vienna General Hospital, striving to be addressed as Frau Doktor rather than merely Fraulein. Meanwhile, Rudolf’s interests expanded into economics and the necessity for political reform.

Both felt their medical training was inadequate for understanding the psychological and social conditions affecting their patients’ lives.

Candice Dumas: Rudolf eventually shifted away from medicine to focus entirely on politics.

Marcy Thompson: The couple moved to Berlin, where Rudolf was invited to lecture for the German Social Democratic Party.

They had two children, Karl and Peter, and while Rudolf immersed himself in writing what would become his influential Marxist treatise “Finance Capital,” Margarethe found herself isolated, managing the household and raising their children without the ability to practice medicine in Germany.

Without a degree from a state-controlled university, it was impossible for her to utilize her extensive education and passion. So much for the Marxist ideals of emancipation. Here’s Eveline List.

Eveline List: They espoused all these enlightened, revolutionary ideas, yet he expected her to handle everything alone while pursuing his interests. All her hard work suddenly became unfeasible.

Marcy Thompson: Margarethe faced a difficult decision.

Candice Dumas: He chose to stay, but she needed to return to a place where she could be free. She took her two young children back to Vienna and raised them alone. She loved her children dearly, but she also loved her work.

Marcy Thompson: Rudolf stayed in Germany, eventually becoming the Finance Minister in two Social Democratic-led governments. Their marriage ended, and Margarethe returned to Vienna with her children, establishing a medical practice serving women in a working-class district.

Margarethe’s patients likely had never seen a female doctor before. As their physician, she served not only as a gynecologist but also as a counselor, witnessing firsthand the impact of their social conditions and listening to their struggles. Here’s Candice Dumas.

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Candice Dumas: She delved deep into the psyches of her patients, exploring their burdens. She saw firsthand how overburdened women were and how this affected them economically and physically.

Marcy Thompson: However, her medical training did not include methods to understand how these factors contributed to her patients’ health or empirical approaches to alleviating their mental suffering.

Psychological training was not yet offered by universities. It simply didn’t exist. But the nascent field of psychoanalysis, which had originated in Vienna just a few years earlier and was beginning to establish itself, provided both a framework for understanding internal psychological struggles and a way to place patients within a broader social context.

This aligned perfectly with Margarethe’s personal mission. Klara Naszkowska explains that psychoanalysis would have given Margarethe some insights, particularly in light of the political turbulence of the era.

Klara Naszkowska: In Europe, psychoanalysis was part of a broader cultural and socio-political project. It offered a new way to understand people, incorporating various factors, with therapy being just one component.

Marcy Thompson: The pioneering efforts of Sigmund Freud redefined this internal unrest in novel ways. Here’s Candice Dumas.

Candice Dumas: Freud sought to uncover the underlying drivers of people’s behaviors, emotions, and the difficulties they faced.

This realm isn’t just about getting patients to talk and focusing on the spoken words but also about exploring the underlying, potentially unspoken elements.

Marcy Thompson: Margarethe was undoubtedly familiar with Freud’s lectures in Vienna and his writings. His theories were frequently discussed, especially among those involved in progressive movements.

Eveline List believes there was a clear reason Margarethe was drawn to Freud.

Eveline List: She saw an opportunity to better understand her patients.

Marcy Thompson: Margarethe Hilferding and Sigmund Freud shared many mutual acquaintances, and she soon found her way to Freud himself.

Candice Dumas: It seemed almost destined that their paths would cross.

Marcy Thompson: The all-male Vienna Psychoanalytic Society initially convened at Freud’s apartment on Wednesday evenings. But in this intimate setting, where the inner lives of men and women were explored, there was skepticism about whether a female doctor could contribute anything of value. Klara Naszkowska explains.

Klara Naszkowska: There was a significant debate about whether women possessed the cognitive abilities to become doctors and psychoanalysts, and the discussions were not favorable.

Rosemary Balsam: Some of the comments were outrageous.

Marcy Thompson: That’s Rosemary Balsam.

Rosemary Balsam: Particularly from one of my adversaries, Fritz Wittels, who claimed that women medical students were harmless because any typical, robust man in medical school would treat them like prostitutes. But once they graduated, they posed a real threat. He argued that no one should give power to a woman because they would misuse it.

Marcy Thompson: Rosemary Balsam is a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists of London and an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale Medical School.

Rosemary Balsam: This attitude was somewhat tolerated by many. Freud himself seemed to dismiss Wittels’ views as boys being boys.

Marcy Thompson: Despite Freud’s assertion that women could not match men in their capacity for sublimating sexuality, he recognized the progressive thinking in the cultural circles around the group and advocated for the intellectual openness needed to accept women as members.

In 1910, 38-year-old Margarethe

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