A recently rediscovered satirical novel about WWII by the eldest son of Sigmund Freud
In 2008 a faded typescript was discovered in a suitcase in the attic of the Freud Museum in London. It was a satirical novel written by Sigmund Freud's son Martin, but never published and apparently forgotten about. Now translated into English and published for the first time, this
is not only a satirical and dramatic novel about a Jewish refugee who returns to Hitler’s Germany as a rather inept spy, but also the testament of a man who lived through the most dramatic moments of this period as part of a famous and fascinating family. Freud and his family had escaped from Nazi-occupied Vienna in 1938, narrowly avoiding losing everything, including their lives. Arriving in England, Martin, formerly an eminent lawyer in Vienna, was interned as an "enemy alien," and later ran a shop near the British Museum (his son, Walter, fought for the British in the SOE during the war). It is known that Martin wrote numerous poems and pieces of fiction, but the only books he ever published were a fictionalized account of his experiences during World War I,
Parole d’Honneur
, in 1939 and a biography of his father,
Glory Reflected: Sigmund Freud—Man and Father
, in 1957.