Private Letters from Sigmund Freud at Auction: A Rare Insight into the Psychoanalyst’s Life and Times

Two personal letters from Sigmund Freud and a card from his wife, Martha Freud, will come up for auction at Bruun Rasmussen in Denmark on 17th November. Preserved in the Danish branch of the Freud family for generations, the correspondence ranges from a humorous remark about the family’s handwriting and romantic entanglements to a poignant account of loss and persecution during the Second World War.

Sigmund Freud is best known as the founder of psychoanalysis, but in these two letters, he emerges as an uncle, great-uncle and family man. With humour, he comments on the family’s handwriting and writes candidly about his niece’s marriage, while also sending a witty greeting to his grandnephew, who was just one year old at the time. The correspondence is accompanied by a card from his wife, Martha Freud, written after his death in London in 1939. The three items will be offered at auction at Bruun Rasmussen with estimates of DKK 50,000, DKK 50,000 and DKK 10,000, respectively.

“It is quite an event on an international scale when letters of this kind come to light after being preserved within a family for generations. They offer a direct connection to one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century and a rare insight into Freud as a person, his close relationships and the concerns that occupied him beyond his professional work. At the same time, the letters reach beyond the personal story, offering a tangible, human perspective on a family whose fate became intertwined with some of Europe’s darkest chapters,” says Ralph Lexner, specialist at Bruun Rasmussen.

Freud: Humour and Personal Concerns

In a typewritten letter bearing his handwritten signature, dated 1927, Freud writes to his niece Margarete, known as Gretl, the daughter of his sister Marie, known as Mitzi. Gretl married the writer Erwin Magnus and settled in Denmark, where the Freud family established its Danish roots. In the letter, Freud pokes fun at the illegible handwriting of Gretl’s sister Lilly, comparing it to viewing paintings in a gallery through a fine mesh screen, before concluding: “But then, there are also typewriters.” He also touches on Gretl’s marriage to Magnus and mentions Georg Brandes, the influential Danish literary critic and intellectual, whom he had been introduced to through her.

Another letter, dated 18 October 1925, is addressed to Freud’s grandnephew Max Michael Maurice Freud Magnus, who was only about one year old at the time. Freud teases him about his early interest in the opposite sex and encloses an American banknote to help cover the expenses of the boy’s first encounter.

Martha Freud Writes of Grief and Loss

The final item is a card from Freud’s wife, Martha, dated 25 October 1939, containing a personal message to Gretl following Sigmund Freud’s death in London. She thanks her for the family’s heartfelt sympathy and describes the overwhelming outpouring of condolences from around the world, while also conveying her own profound grief. She further mentions four of Freud’s sisters, with whom the family had lost contact and who were later deported and murdered during the Holocaust.

The letters and card will be offered at Live Auction at Bruun Rasmussen on 17th November. Together, the correspondence offers a glimpse of the man behind the well-known theories and his intellectual legacy, while placing Freud’s family life and personal history in the context of some of the defining events of the 20th century.