“Anyone who becomes a biographer is obliged to lie, to conceal, to flatter, to beautify, because biographical truth cannot exist and, if it did, we could not use it.” Sigmund Freud

Respecting this saying, to this day all biographers of Freud present him only during the process of creating his theories, they talk about his travels, his illnesses, but they leave almost untouched what he himself called the 'family novel.' Of his six children, only Anna is mentioned in the biographies. The other five, Mathilde, Martin, Oliver, Ernst, and Sophie, might as well not exist. His wife Martha appears at most as a shadowy figure, destined to keep the misery of everyday life at bay.

Eva Weissweiler takes on the task of filling this gap. She explores the role of Sigmund Freud as a brother, father, grandfather, uncle, and husband, giving a voice to people who until now appeared only in footnotes, using numerous unpublished letters from archives in London, Washington, and Jerusalem, which she interprets critically and sensitively. The result is a biography of a family and a revealing portrait of the patriarchal figure.

The shocking and tragic family history of the Freuds, which begins with the birth of Sigmund Freud and spans the two world wars up to the present day.