Wilhelm reich record of a friendship the correspondence between wilhelm reich and a s neill

—

•

Record of a friendship
RC339.52.R44 A46 198

the corresponde
18068

lllillililillllliil
Reich, Wilhelm,
NEW COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA (SF)

RC

339.52

Reich, Wilhelm.
Record of a friendship.

R44*

#7398

1982

#7398

FC

339.52
R44
A46
1982

Reich, Wilhelm, 18 97-195 7.
Record of a frie ndship i the
correspondence bet ween Wil helm Reich
and A.S, Neill, 19 36-1957 / edited and
with an intrcdiicti en, by B everley R.
Placzek*
London : Golla ncz, 1982.
xviii, 429 p. ; 24 cm.
Includes biblicg raphical references
and index*
#73 98 Moe's $5.0 0.
ISBN 0-575-03054 -2
1. Peich, Wilhel tn, 1897- 1957.
2. Neill, A.lexande r Suther land, 18831973.
3. Psychcan ily s ts
United States
Correspondence
4. Teac hers
Scotland Correspo ndence.
I. Neill,
Alexander Sut
h erland, 1883-1973.
II. Placzek,
B everley R.
III. Title

28 JUL 87
8192149 NEWCxc

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—

—

—

(


/

NEW C
SAN FRANc
U15) 626-4212



Record of a Friendshi


RECORD OF

VICTOR GOLLANCZ LTD

\

FRIENDSHIP
The Correspondence Between

AVilhelm Reich and
A.

S. Neill
,v

1936-1957

Edited,

and with an

BEVERLEY

R.

Introduction, by

PLACZEK

LONDON

•

1982

*'


'^^

l^

09

©

by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc.
1981 by Mary Boyd Higgins
as Trustee of The Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund; the letters of A. S.
Neill copyright
1981 by Ena Neill; the letters of Use Ollendorff Reich
copyright
1981 by Use Ollendorff Reich
Copyright

The

letters

1981

of Wilhelm Reich copyright

©

©

©

ISBN o 575 03054

2

Printed in the United States of America

DESIGNED BY HERBERT

H.

JOHNSON


Introduction

Wilhelm Reich and A.

Neill

S.

first

mained friends for over twenty

Though they were separated
and

by the

later

change of

letters,

These

alive.

for

met

years,

in

Norway

most of those

travel restrictions of the

years,

McCarthy

first

1957.

by the war

era, a steady ex-

back and forth across the ocean, kept

letters

1936; they re-

in

Reich's death in

until

their friendship

stand as the record of a friendship between two

remarkable men.
Neill

was a Scotsman, a schoolmaster and

for his radical views

on

iconoclastic psychoanalyst

who had been

known

child psychologist

was an Austrian, an

child education. Reich

blackballed by his Freudian

colleagues for his unorthodox theories about society and sexuality.

When

they met, Neill was fifty-three, Reich thirty-nine. Reich, an exile from

Nazi Germany, had been
Neill

had been invited

over, he

living

and working

to lecture at

Oslo for two years;

in

On

Oslo University.

the boat

coming

had by coincidence been reading Reich's Die Massenpsychologie

des Faschismus {The Mass Psychology of Fascism; there was as yet no
English translation) and after his lecture learned with delight that

author had been in his audience.
dinner.

"We

He

its

telephoned and was invited to

talked far into the night," Neill recalls. That was the be-

ginning.

What

grounds. They were half a generation apart

could talk to each other as to no one
often, since

"Forgive

On

else.

you are one of the very few

my

grumble, but you

the face of

attract,

The two men came

held this friendship together for so long?

from opposite ends of Europe and from vastly

it, it

was a most unlikely

and certainly two more

to

in age.

And

yet these

two

Reich: "Please write more

whom

are the only

different social back-

one

I

to

can talk"; and Neill:

whom

I

can write."

friendship. Opposites are said to

different

men can

scarcely be imagined:

Reich, the Central European intellectual, highly educated, enormously

and of driving energy, who moved, thought, and worked always
high gear; Neill, the Scot, intelligent to be sure, even wise, but no

gifted,

in


INTRODUCTION
intellectual,

To

canny, humorous, patient, and pragmatic.

was unstinting

in his love for

always mattered
adults they

VI

humanity

To

than his work.

less

would become

—were

in general,

Neill,

people

—

the very stuff of his

Reich,

who

individual people

children and the

life.

Reich, like a

magnet, attracted disciples and sycophants, but none could long keep

pace with

new

his

single-minded intensity or follow his leaping shifts to ever

areas of exploration; time after time, he found himself standing

alone at the center of a swathe he himself had carved. Neill had neither
disciples nor sycophants,

some two hundred and
friends

—shared

nor did

his central

people

fifty

—

concerns ever vary, but

pupils, past pupils, parents,

in celebrating his seventieth birthday,

had been children

and

and those who

Summerhill entrusted their own children to him.

at

Reich liked skiing and hiking, and he also played the piano, but
greatest joy

was

schaftskonversation"
things, jokes,

good

and puttering

in his

his

work; he could not stand what he called "Gesell-

in his

(small

talk

—

talk).

Neill

took pleasure in everyday

preferably over a glass of whiskey

workshop. Golf was

children intuitively because

all

his life

his great treat.

—gardening

He

understood

he himself retained something of

the child.

Not only were they unlike
too,

were

in taste

and temperament;

their origins,

utterly dissimilar: rooted Scots-Presbyterian versus

uprooted

Austrian-Jewish. Wilhelm Reich was the brilliant son of a well-to-do

landowner. Born in 1897, he grew up on the family estate in the

Bukovina,

a

on the easternmost confines of the Austro-

province

Hungarian monarchy, a region where German-speaking Jews were a
minority.

have

his

The

tiny

and non-religious, was determined

father, assimilated

to

son brought up within the German culture: the boy was for-

bidden to play with either the local Ukrainian-speaking peasant children
or the Yiddish-speaking children of the poorer Jews; private tutors were

imported

until

he was old enough to be sent away to the German-

speaking Gymnasium. Reich lost his adored mother by suicide

was

thirteen.

sick father,

Four years

and upon

later

he had to leave school to care for his

his father's death, the seventeen-year-old

over the management of the property.

break of World

War

I

the

when he

boy took

was 19 14, and with the outBukovina became contested territory. By

19 1 6 young Reich, forced to

flee

It

before the advancing Russians, had

become an officer in the Austrian army. When, in 1918, Austria and
Germany were defeated, the Bukovina passed to Romania; with it went
all

that

remained of the

he arrived

in

life

Reich had known. Alone and impoverished,

Vienna intending to study law, but soon found that

INTRODUCTION

Vll

medicine was his real vocation. Throughout

years as a student,

his

he endured cold and even hunger, but he learned quickly, and managed

meager

to scrape a

living as a tutor to less talented classmates.

He

dis-

covered Freud and the new science of psychoanalysis, married a fellow
student with

whom

in

due course he had two daughters, and by the age

of twenty-five was himself a practicing physician and psychoanalyst,

much

devoting

time to work in the free mental-health clinics he had

helped to establish

came

know

to

in the

at first

poorer sections of the

hand the

city. It

was here

crippling psychological effects

class people of the sexual hypocrisies

that

he

on working-

and suppressions under which they

The theories on sexuality and society that grew out of this experience made him increasingly suspect to his psychoanalytic colleagues.
In 1927 he joined the Communist Party. Three years later he moved to

lived.

where he hoped

Berlin,

to find support for the social reforms he felt

necessary to achieve sexual

At

first

— and hence mental —

Com-

he was welcomed. Under the aegis of the powerful Berlin

munists, he consolidated

were

health for the workers.

and expanded the various Sexual

Politics

groups into a unified movement that soon counted more than forty

thousand members. As time went on, however, the party organizers,

embarrassed by a success that undercut their authority, became more
and more antagonistic. Then, early in 1933, the Nazis came to power,
the

German Communist

once again forced to

He

Party was outlawed, and Reich himself was

flee.

returned to Vienna.

By now he had moved

a long

way from

the

mainstream of Freudian psychoanalytic thinking, a divergence that together with other, personal, factors led to divorce from his orthodox

Freudian wife and, ultimately, brought about

his expulsion

from the

International Psycho-Analytical Association. Isolated both professionally

and personally, he found the situation

accepted an invitation to

move

to

in

Vienna untenable and

Denmark. Within

a year, in

Copen-

hagen, he had created a circle of students, was busy with numerous
patients,

When
on,

and had generated a Danish movement for sexual

politics.

the authorities refused to renew his residency permit, he

first

to

Sweden, and thence

to

Norway. Here

diminished courage, he assembled a group to share
his living

his

by teaching and practicing vegeto-therapy,

again,

work.
a

moved

with

un-

He made

treatment of

neuroses that combined verbal character analysis with a direct physical
attack

on the nodes of muscular tension

in which,

he held, neuroses are

expressed and preserved. Leaving active sexual politics to others, he

now devoted

all his

free time

and energy

to research in biophysics.


INTRODUCTION
how

In contrast,

VUl

straightforward Neill's

bom

years older than Reich, he was

life

appears! Nearly fourteen

middle child of a large

in 1883, the

family that was barely emerging from the working class; his grandfather

and

many

his

uncles on his father's side had

miners, "in the pits." His father

two-room

village

was a

spent their lives as

all

teacher, the stern dominie of a

school in the north of Scotland; his indefatigable

mother, herself also originally a schoolteacher, saw to

spoke proper English
they

"kirk"

sat

scrubbed and

—

through

stiffly

starched.

"Allie"; he tripped over his

interminable

the

No

own

one

it

that her children

was broad Scots

the local dialect

in the

— and

that in

sermons freshly

hell-fire

much

family expected

of

forgot his errands, and preferred

feet,

larking with the village boys to the Latin that his father, implacably

ambitious for his numerous children, insisted they learn. Secondary
school,

was decided, would be wasted on him;

it

so,

when he was

seventeen, having failed at a couple of rather menial jobs, young Neill

was taken on

as an apprentice teacher in his father's school. After four

years, he progressed to various

when he was

minor paid teaching

twenty-four, he passed

positions. Finally,

entrance examinations to

the

Edinburgh University. Having acquired a very honorable degree
English, he set off for

war broke out

in

London

to

work

19 14, a severe phlebitis prevented

become

Instead, he went back to Scotland to

him from

by

A

A Dominie in
A Dominie's

Dominie Dismissed, 1916;
Abroad, 1922, and

A Dominie

artillery in

practices

A

and the

Dominie's Log,

Doubt, 1920; followed
Five,

Though he was

of the experiences of those years.)

enlisting.

the master of a small school.

Here he first began to question accepted educational
wisdom of authority. (His charming Dominie books
1915;

in

When

in a small publishing firm.

1924

—grew out

recruited into the

19 17, he never saw action. After his discharge, he taught for

a while in a "progressive" school, but even there his views proved too
radical

and he soon

left.

During

this

period he

came

to

know Homer Lane,

an American social reformer whose remarkable success with delinquent

who had

children Neill had long admired, and

psychoanalyst in London. Asserting that

Lane

offered to take Neill

on

—

all

my

and reinforce

Neill's

own developing

fortune, he soon found a

Era, the journal of the pioneering

he became co-editor. In

as a

analysis as
I

Lane helped

wonder

if

to clarify

ideas about freedom for children.

forum for these

New

this capacity,

The

emotions and

got anything from it"), but the contact with

By good

up

teachers should be analyzed.

Neill accepted.

free.

such was unsuccessful ("It did not touch
I

recently set

ideas in

The

New

Education Fellowship, of which

he also began traveling to Europe

INTRODUCTION

iX

to report on advances in European education. On one of these trips he
met and became friends with a German architect, Dr. Otto Neustatter,
and his Australian-born wife, a woman some years older than Neill.

For Neill the year 1921 was the watershed. He gave up

The

New Era

his job with

and, with the Neustatters and two other friends, opened

a school near Dresden which was to offer

its

pupils that freedom and

"creative self-expression" in which the founders

For three

believed.

all

years, in spite of the growing disapproval of the authorities, the school

managed

to maintain a foothold,

Germany and

first in

later in Austria.

In the course of those years Dr. Neustatter and his wife were divorced

and Neill and she were married.
Tired of constant battles with bigoted

1924 Neill and
and

settled

his wife

them

in a

a year later they

brought their

officials

their

back

England

to

named Summerhill. When

growing school to a large rambling red

brick building in Suffolk, they took the

became

hostile villagers, in

five British pupils

rented house in Dorset

moved

and

the Summerhill School.

name

was here

It

with them.

that,

And

so

it

except for the four

years of wartime evacuation to the safety of Wales, Neill was to spend
the rest of his long active

life.

In the winter of 1937-38, almost two years after that

into the night," Neill traveled to Oslo for a

first

talk "far

few weeks of study and

therapy with Reich. In the long vacation of the following

summer he
make a

went again, and during the Easter holidays of 1939 was able to
before Reich

final trip

left

Norway

the war they wrote to each other.

journeyed from Summerhill

for the United States. All through

And when

in Suffolk to

at last

peace came, Neill

spend ten days with Reich

at

his new summer place, Orgonon, in Maine. They found that the old
friendship was still very much alive. Two days after Neill's arrival, Reich

records in his diary: "Several hours of talk with Neill.
as ever.

I

could joke with him and be simple.''

A

He

is still

the

same

year later Neill re-

young second wife and their small
daughter. He stayed for over a month and, when it was over, wrote to
Reich: "Hated to leave you"; and Reich, noting that "when you left
there was quite a gap at Orgonon," consoled himself and Neill with the
promise that "we shall have it again." But in this he was wrong. Two
turned,

this

time

bringing

his

years later Neill's application for a visa was refused without explanation.

The McCarthy era had begun. When the ban was finally lifted and Neill
could once more enter the United States, Reich had been dead for over
twelve years.

For

all

their differences

—

of origin, of education, of age, of tempera-


INTRODUCTION
ment

—Reich and

Neill

X

were

alike in

one way: both were dedicated men.

Reich, dominated by a passion to discover the single underlying principle

from which

all

phenomena could be

biophysical

spare dollar and every spare hour on research

up a

lucrative practice to

derived, spent his every

—

work. Neill lived his whole

life

financial worry, fighting cagily

as a

1950, giving

finally, in

immerse himself wholly

in

his

orgonomic

poor man, constantly plagued by

and stubbornly

to

keep

so that "a few hundred children be allowed to

his school afloat

grow

freely." Their

dedication was based on an assumption which they shared, an almost
religious faith in the redemptive

power of unconstricted, natural develop-

ment, in what Reich saw as "the inherent decency and honesty of the
process

life

if it is

been

millennia

not disturbed."

"armoring," as they called
attributed

human

all

by

distorted

it.

To

failings,

Human

beings, they believed,

conditioning

social

made

had

for

"structuring"

or

such "anti-life character molding" they
all

human

woes.

necessary and certain triumph of "unarmored"
that

—

Their trust

man was

the

in

the lode star

present disappointments bearable and justified every sacrifice.

In this sense, Neill's

work was important

to Reich.

By

entrusting real

children with real freedom, both social and sexual, in "that dreadful

school," Neill was bringing into actuality tenets in which both believed.

"The only hope," Reich wrote, "is, I firmly believe, establishment of
rationality in children and adolescents," and demanded: "Why should I
go into child biology
A.

S.

Neill

.

.

.

if

there are such marvellous child educators as

?" Also, he appreciated the childlike quality in Neill,

noting about Neill's Problem Family in his diary:
written

by a child 64 years

"A

very good book

old; honest, playful; frank; full of love for

children."
Neill held Reich to

be a genius whose work was bringing humanity

closer to the goal of self-understanding

and freedom: "Reich, you are

one of the great men of our time;

it

meaning of

flattery

I

say

as a simple fact without

central fact in his relation to him, even

when Reich went beyond what

Neill himself could accept or understand.

orgone work

really;

any

or worship." Neill's sense of Reich's greatness was a

too old, too

set,

"I never understood

your

too conditioned," he wrote in 1956,

and on reading the account of UFO's

in Reich's journal,

CORE:

"If I

had never heard of Reich and had read CORE for the first time, I would
have concluded that the author was either meschugge [crazy] or the
greatest discoverer in centuries. Since

I

know you

aren't

meschugge

I

have to accept the alternative."
Neill's belief in

Reich had been

laid

down

in the

Norway

years;

work


INTRODUCTION

XI

new

with Reich, as his patient and student, had given him a whole
of confidence;

it

had

also, incidentally, freed

aches that had plagued him

important

in the

much

of his

him from the

life.

fierce

sense

head-

Furthermore, and more

long run, Reich's teachings on sex-economy had pro-

vided Neill with a firm theoretical underpinning for ideas he had arrived
at

him

you have given me for years," and shortly after his

refused: "For two years I had looked forward to great
Maine, and when

talk to,

whole world

a sense of sharing in a

and discovery; he writes of "the inspiration

of intellectual excitement

in

The con-

pragmatically and been practicing at Summerhill for years.

tinued contact with Reich gave

that anticipation

was shattered,

I

no one who could give me anything new." And

"How

very simply, extremely fond of Reich:

could

I

had been

visa

talks with

you

had no one

was

Neill

ever

to

also,

come back

to

was no dear warm friend Reich to greet me?" In
again
on his visits to the States, he had come to know at
Norway, and
something Reich's
first hand Reich's enormous warmth and charm
the States

if

there

—

when I asked her about
She had met him only during that one

convey. (Thirty years

letters often fail to

Reich, Mrs. Neill's face

lit

up.

later,

1948 and yet she still remembers with affection his
friendly welcome, his directness, and how "easy" it was to be with him.)

summer
It

is

visit in

to this

never

warm and

"easy"

lost sight, in spite of

man

that Neill wrote,

whom

and of

he

Reich's frequent scoldings, his diatribes, and

the general mistrust that darkened his final years. But for

all

Neill's

loving admiration and his self-deprecatory view of himself as Reich's

"good John the Baptist,"
never got caught

in

Neill,

absorbed as he was

Reich's orbit; he

knew

that there

own work,

in his

were two sides

to

He was distressed by
because "I know you need

their relationship, that he gave as well as received.

the refusal of the visa not just for himself but

me

and we are separated by a futile suspicion."
in some way
Did Reich indeed need Neill? The continuing flow of letters

itself

.

.

.

an answer: Reich could so easily have

let

it

is

in

lapse, unless for him,

was important. Far from doing so, he tells Neill that "it is always
a great thing to have a letter from you," and adjures him over and over
to "keep writing please." He depended on Neill's unswerving friendship,
writing at one point: "I hope you don't mind that I am pouring out my
too,

it

doctrine

heart to you." Also, that Neill was preaching Rcichian

to

audiences three thousand miles away gave Reich a sense of enlarged

reach and impact. Though he often scolded Neill: "I
don't follow
is

my

advice

.

.

."

or

"Why

of the utmost importance that

you

can't

you

am

see, Neill

cross that you
.

.

.

?" or "It

revise your basic attitude

."
.

.


INTRODUCTION
he respected

one

in

Xll

independence of mind and

Neill's

Europe who could

listen better

know no

his honesty: "I

and understand better what

is at

stake at the present time in the development of our work," and wrote
appreciatively of Neill's "unique position, being in the orgone fold but
at the

same time independent."

During the 1950's, as the pressures on Reich increased, he became
mistrustful even of Neill, but
late as 1956, the

it is

a

measure of

his real affection that, as

year before his death, he wrote to Neill: "It would be

splendid if you came to the U.S.A. this summer. You could stay at my
summer house as my guest. Though things have greatly changed since
1950, and much new has happened, I am certain we would get along."

But the ban

stood; Neill could not come.

still

Even had he been
whether, for

able to accept Reich's invitation,

all Neill's

could have influenced the course of events that
friend.

doubtful

is

it

steady good sense and even-tempered realism, he

Reich's passionate intransigence

finally

destroyed his

made him unable

accept

to

him perilously exposed to his enemies.
For a number of years after his move to the States, things had gone
well with Reich: he had remarried, had established the Orgone Institute
and the semi-independent Orgone Institute Press, which put out a
advice and

left

journal and published his books; he had acquired a beautiful tract of

land in Maine, intended as the future center of orgonomic research

and teaching;

his

practice flourished

siderable following of student-physicians

and he had attracted a conand supporters. Then,

the hostility which, time and again throughout his

had aroused came

life,

his

in 1947,

theories

An article by a freelance
"The Strange Case of Wilhelm
a respected periodical, The New Republic. Widely

to the surface in America.

reporter, Mildred Edie Brady, entitled

Reich," appeared in

quoted and repeated,

this clever

mixture of half truths, snide distortions,

and suggestive misrepresentations came

to

be accepted as

who found Reich's views on the primacy of
objectionable. Some righteous citizens alerted the
those

Drug Administration
article

alleged,

fact

by

all

orgastic fulfillment

Federal

Food and

to the possibility of fraud in the claims which, the

Reich had made for the orgone accumulator.

then on, for ten years, the

FDA

pursued

its

investigation

From

of Reich

with relentless zeal. Finally, in 1954, having failed to uncover the vice
ring for

which the Orgone

Institute

was purportedly

a front, the agency

succeeded in persuading the attorney general of the federal court

Maine

to

issue

Foundation, as a

a

in

complaint against Reich and the Wilhelm Reich

first

step to banning the sale or rental of accumulators.


INTRODUCTION

XIU

Reich, arguing that no jurist was competent to judge matters of science,
refused

appear

to

court

in

challenge

to

complaint;

the

FDA

terms of the injunction obtained by the

the

thus,

were extremely broad:

accumulators on hand were to be destroyed and, on the grounds that
the literature of the

Orgone

of these devices,

publications were also ordered destroyed. Having

its

Institute Press constituted "false labeling"

FDA,

procured the injunction, the

Some months

temporarily,

left

Reich

in peace.

however, an event occurred that was to be

later,

outcome of the agency's dogged resolve to get Reich.
During the winter of 1954-55 Reich spent some time in Arizona on a
research project. A young associate, Michael Silvert, was left in New
decisive for the

York

to deal with routine administrative matters. In Reich's absence,

and without his knowledge, Silvert had some books and accumulator
parts sent

from Maine

to

New

York. The questing agents of the

got wind of this shipment and, asserting that

commerce" and hence

FDA

constituted "interstate

it

demanded

violated the terms of the injunction,

that Reich be indicted for contempt of court. In the spring of 1956,
and this time Reich did appear to present his
hearings were held

—

views.

However,

in the trial that followed, a jury

he was sentenced to two years

in prison.

pending appeal. In the interim, the

Orgone

Institute journals

under the supervision of
tion of the

same

on the shelves

FDA

sort took

journals, pamphlets,

and

number

the relatively small

at

Orgonon were duly burned

which a much larger opera-

agents, after

place in

guilty,

to the destruction ordered

saw

The few accumulators and

in the injunction.

of

FDA

found him

The sentence was postponed

New

York. Huge quantities of

and books were removed from the Foundation's
off to the incinerators of the

warehouse, loaded onto a truck, and carted

City Sanitation Department, where they were burned.

By

the following spring,

it

was

clear that Reich's year-long effort to

have the verdict of the Maine court overturned had

failed.

On March

11,

1957, in Portland, Maine, after a last desperate effort to have the sentence reduced or suspended, he was led out of the courthouse in handcuffs to begin serving his prison term.

November

3,

Less than eight months

1957, in the federal prison

died of heart failure. "I

came

written to Neill, "that almost

in

to think in

all

later,

on

Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, he
earnest," he

all

had once

heart diseases are originally heartbreak

diseases."

Reich kept
tions, Neill

all

Neill's letters,

typed

all

and copies of

his letters,

his

but he never

own. With rare excep-

made carbons and

quently repeats some piece of news or asks "Did

I tell

you

.

.

.

fre-

?" this


INTRODUCTION

Xiv

or that. Usually, Reich noted the point he intended to take up

may

be, his reactions to

what

had written

Neill

—

directly

—

on the

or,

it

letters

themselves: passages are underscored, vivid exclamation marks dot the

"NO"

page, and here and there, particularly in later years, a large

"LIARS," "SCOUNDRELS," or

or

the like, will be scrawled in the margin,

the very vigor of the marking suggesting a shout.
In

there are close to five hundred letters. Spread over the twenty

all,

man

years of their friendship, this would average a letter from each

every month. But that, of course,
until

when

1938,

men knew

went

Neill

to

is

how

not

war was coming, and there

that

was. There are few letters

it

Oslo to study with Reich.
is

much

By

then both

discussion about the

protection of Reich's microscope slides and the possibility of his moving
to England.

crucial letters are missing, the

they did

good

letters

read those

first

We know
was

"It

saying you had arrived"; and again, in October,

letter

letter";

and

finally,

by the same post."
first

some

here

he wrote from the States.

because in September of that year Neill writes:

your

your long

"I got

two

exist,

to get

And

1939, Reich emigrated to America.

In

impressions!

How

on January
fascinating

Though through

it

5,

1940, "I got your

would have been

to

the war the mails must

have been uncertain, the flow continues with seldom a pause of more
than a few weeks. Plans for Neill's
of those years; then, in 1950,

thwarted by the ban, more
year:

more than one

letters

a week!

of 1947 and 1948

fill

the letters

his expectation of joining

Reich was

visits

when

went back and forth than

(It

is

Maine

quickly a letter could get from Rangeley in

some

letters are

1950 on,

answered a mere three days

as the realization

grew

in Neill's

never see Reich again, the number of
find only

one

letter of Reich's,

in

any other

quite startling, incidentally,

letters

though from

to Leiston in Suffolk

after they

mind

how

were

that he

From

sent.)

would probably

diminished. In 1955

Neill's responses,

we

clear

it is

he wrote more often.
Despite the enormous differences in background and outlook between
the two men. despite separation and the pressures of a censorious society

and

their

own

sharply defined personalities, the letters they wrote to each

other through the years glow with their affection and the enrichment

each brought to the
thoughts

other's

both.

Discussions

life

of the other.

Each was

about the things that
of

how

the

intensely interested in the

seemed important

to

world should be run recur:

them
Reich

believed that the world of the future would be governed by what

he called "work democracy"; although Neill agreed with the

doubted

its

practicability. Surprisingly, they

ideal,

he

seldom comment on actual


INTRODUCTION

XV
events except in personal terms

only as

it

—even

end of the war

the

is

mentioned

allows Neill to return from Wales to his beloved Suffolk. In

men became

the 1940's, both

fathers

and thereafter exchanged constant

bulletins on the progress of their children: Reich's son, Peter, born in

bom

1944, and Neill's daughter, Zoe,

The tone and content

men

themselves.

He
He

and deeply depressed

them with everyday

fills

England, always responds

and

is

often

these simultaneously.

all

Reich's

news of friends.
work known in

at length to the publications

Reich sends him,

make

may

passes on any comments he

faithfully

school

—

things, concrete activities,

of his unceasing efforts to

talks

later.

humorous, speculative, pene-

variously

are

Neill's

tratingly realistic,

two years

of each man's letters are as different as the

When

have gleaned.

the

evacuated to Wales during the war, he writes about the narrow-

ness, the overcrowding, the cold,

Reich's advice about psychology,

and the damp. He frequently asks

how he might

what he has

best use

learned on behalf of individual children. In later years he confides his
worries
his

—over

the nuclear threat, the school's financial situation,

daughter Zoe's future: "Well, Reich, bless you,

especially

when

And

listen."

I

am

work and

curiously impersonal.

who

his ideas

on

He

social

his

In contrast,

life.

speaks, always in general terms, of the

and academic standing

literature here

and

deride him

someone who will
him with
Reich's letters seem

to talk to

many

believe in him, of the growing success and acceptance of

—"My

and "Our
theories

and want

and

think of you often

always he wants to hear of Reich's doings, plying

questions about his

people

in trouble

I

interests.

or,

his efforts.

worse

As

still

sells like

in the U.S.

warm bread"

is

— and

very strong";
of his current

Frequently he inveighs against the scoundrels
still,

who

the years went by, he

the right politically: the

meaning and

distort his

moved

who

ride to wealth

further and further to

hand of Moscow was behind every disappointFDA and McCarthy. Occa-

ment, every harassment, behind even the
sionally, his

proud optimism

is

shot through by a premonition of his

1946 that "there is only one
thing I still fear. That is, some crooked frameup, some abysmal Gemeinheit [meanness] which may hit me in the back and destroy my work";

coming tragedy: writing

to Neill as early as

and elsewhere, comparing himself
enjoying a sunny morning

to a "fiery horse racing over

fall.

Sometimes there were arguments,
attempts to justify the United

you have appeared

to

me

how

in the spring," describes

of 20 inches brings the horse to a

as

It

breaks

when

its

Neill

neck."

demurred

States' refusal of travel visas

pretty close to the

meadows

"a small stick

Reich's
— "of

Americans who

at

late

are witch


INTRODUCTION
hunting"

—

XVi

or took exception to Reich's growing tendency to attach the

any person or action of which he disapproved.

label of "red fascist" to

But these disputes were always ultimately
increasingly discordant exchange,

Neill

between us never gets us anywhere.

It just tires

when Reich

affectionately suggests that

soda would

suffice to clear

autumn

bom

when,

set aside, as

writes

that

"all

after

an

dispute

this

us and saddens us"; or

"two glasses of good whiskey

up our disagreement." Only once,

him

of 1956, did Reich allow suspicion to blind

the

in

to Neill's stub-

During the preceding summer Reich's son, Peter, had

loyalty.

stayed for a while at Summerhill.

Some

of his talks with Neill,

when

later

reported to Reich, led the latter to believe that finally Neill, too, had
failed him.

Reich expressed

mutual

his feelings of betrayal to a

friend.

This was more than even Neill could bear: "So our long friendship has

come

to an

me

end because you consider

"Goodbye, Reich, and

bless you."

unreliable"

— ending

his letter:

But the friendship did not end. Reich

disregarded the reproach and the farewell, only telling Neill not to

"worry," and a few weeks

keep

silent or

later

begging him to "be patient, please,

do not reply promptly.

I

am

extremely busy."

And

if

I

Neill

responded, damning "this 3000 miles separation," and then, writing of
his

concern

at the turn

events were taking: "Reich

I

love you.

I

cannot

bear to think of your being punished by an insane prison sentence.
couldn't do

How
months

it

and you know

right Neill was:
later

it."

though Reich had committed no crime, a few

he died of the punishment.

Sixteen years later, just before his

summed up

Neill

You

his feelings in his

died in vile captivity.

I

own

death in September 1973,

autobiography:

think that Reich will not

"A

come

great

into his

man had
own as a

genius until at least three generations from now. I was most lucky to

know him and

We

learn

from him, and love him."

too are fortunate that now, with the publication of this eloquent

record of their friendship,

men

in their full

we can come

to

know

these two extraordinary

humanity.

BEVERLEY

R.

PLACZEK

New York
December 1980


EDITOR

NOTE

S

All the letters published here are taken from Reich's

Very few of

Neill's letters

contained only carbon copies of Reich's

A remark

are missing.
that

file.

appear to be missing, but the

may

of Neill's

Use has gone, you seem

have

to

letters,

"Now

explain this:
to write

file

and many
by hand";

when that was the case, Reich would, of course, have made
no carbon. Neill signed all his letters just plain "Neill."
None of Reich's carbon copies are signed, but Mrs. Neill
tells

me

"Reich signed his

that

WR

sometimes

just

REICH or

W.Reich."

As

far as possible, Reich

speak each

in his

letters in

a variety of ways:

or Wilh. Reich and sometimes just

own

voice.

and Neill have been left to
At the start, Reich's English

was uncertain, but I have altered it only where the sense
was unclear; and in translating the few letters he still wrote
in German, I have tried to maintain their flavor. Though
Reich never

and

lost his accent,

command

his

he was always highly

the

of

written

language

articulate,

improved
he used

steadily. Neill talked directly into his typewriter:

slang

when

it

suited

words and phrases;

him and dotted

his letters with

German

his abbreviations are idiosyncratic

,

his

punctuation and capitalization irregular, and, of course, his
spelling

is

British. All this

has been

In preparing so large a body of

some abridgment was
abrupt,

it

is

essential.

left

unchanged.

letters for publication,

If

some

appear

letters

for this reason. I have deleted repetitions,

redundancies, and passing allusions to people
part in the story. I have also

who

play no

somewhat reduced

Neill's

descriptions of his health problems: Reich, as well as being
his friend,

had also been

his doctor.

have retained every sentence
aspect of the

life,

the other hand, I

might shed

light

on any

the thought, or the personality of either

man, even such as perhaps
or

that

On

in

themselves seem unimportant

trivial.

The people mentioned

in the letters, unless identified in

the text, are identified in footnotes, as are events, current

and important
context.

at the time, that

may

not be clear from the


EDITORS NOTE
/

am most

XVIU

grateful to Mrs.

generously allowing

me

Use Ollendorff Reich for

to include a long, important letter

she wrote to Neill in 1952, which contains a description of

an event not covered elsewhere.

My

very

warm

thanks go to Miss

Mary Higgins

unfailing help in elucidating obscure points

and

for her

tirelessly

searching out relevant material.
B.R.P.


Record of a Friendshi



I936-I939
Summerhill School
Leiston, Suffolk

March

1936

22,

Dear Reich,

You remember
come

to you? I

She

analysis.

is

I

mentioned a Mrs. Tracey who wanted

would be very

grateful

a parent here and

you would take her on

if

to

for

tried to analyse her myself, but

I

me made it impossible. She wants if
possible to go to Oslo about May loth, and as she is very unhappy
and having ghastly dreams I am hoping you can find time to analyse her.

found her emotional attitude to

She has a dream of dealing with children analytically
Let

me know

Oslo,

Norway

Dear

Neill!

as

later on.

soon as you can. Best Wishes.

March
Before
Tracey,
self

I

would

about her

I

can decide myself to

like to

26,

1936

an analysis with Mrs.

start

have entire information through you or by her-

difficulties,

her age

have to reserve an hour for

etc. I

am

rather occupied and

her. Besides I

means my circumstances don't admit

to take

am

would

rather expensive, that

low

prices.

My minimum

would be too much a character
analysis with a lower price, about ten norv.Kr. would be possible by one
of my pupils. I could guarantee for a very good one.
fee

is

20 norv.Kr. for the hour.

Please

let

me know

If that

about what Mrs. Tracey

is

going zu decide.