All you need is Liebe

The most important information about Freud's life, during his relationship with his boyfriend, Wilhelm Fliess, lasting seventeen years (1887-1904), comes from his love letters to the latter. The correspondence was highly intimate - Freud was hiding nothing - containing lots of information detrimental to Freud's image should it be published.
Freud wanted the letters to be destroyed. His daughter was highly reluctant to allow anyone to access the letters, but, in the end, someone did. Having, gained Anna Freud's confidence, Jeffrey Masson, a former Sanscrit scholar, and a wannabee psychoanalyst, at the beginning of the 1980s, managed to get his hands on the correspondence between the two lovers.

The complete edition

This is how Masson explained what happened: Anna Freud has given me her father's letters to Fliess, to prepare a new, complete edition. ... Lottie Neuman and I are translating the letters and I am introducing them and annotating them. (1)

Unlike the first edition of the Freud's letters to Fliess of 1964 which was severely bowdlerised – cut, cut, cut, falsify - by Anna Freud and her dutiful Freudian collaborators, this new edition was supposed to be, both complete and unexpurgated, (2)
Notably, Masson, the editor of the new edition, had limited German knowledge, making him especially qualified for the task.
I didn't really speak fluent German and didn't really know it all that well, (3) he admitted to Robert S. Boynton, in 1994, nine years after the publication of the letters. 

Nonetheless, the work was progressing. Thus, Masson explained that, Lottie, whose native language was German, and I were working on the Freud/Fliess letters together, and enjoying ourselves immensely. (4)
The allusion to the two's enjoyment is tantalisingly Freudian but where's Freud when you need him?

Masson claimed that the letters were, translated by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, thus himself, although at the same admitting that it was, Lottie Newman [who] was responsible for the first draft of the translation of the Freud/Fliess letters and gave me excellent advice on further drafts. (5)

Patchwork

Sander Gilman, a distinguished professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences, in his review of the published complete letters. explained that, The original edition of the letters ... in 1954 ... edited by Anna Freud ... was heavily censored ... the present edition has added 133 new letters and printed the complete texts of those which appeared only in part in the earlier edition. (6)

N.B. In the first edition of Freud’s correspondence of 1954, most of the offending letters and passages had been removed without any warning about the censorship. But, even so, there was so much dirt in Freud's correspondence, that lots of compromising information remained. After all, the editors couldn't remove all the content.
Gilman was highly critical of the editing process,pointing out that Masson, had no German, knew nothing about the complexities of 19th-century German orthography, had little knowledge of Viennese dialect and only a tenuous grasp on the social history of medicine. He learned German quickly... The volume we have here is a patchwork. And he pointed out that, the draft translation was prepared by Lottie Newman, a confidant of Anna Freud. (6)
Patchwork? This didn't sound good.

Daniel Goleman, in his article New Insights into Freud, of March 17, 1985, explained that,
the latest edition of the letters represents a completely new translation.  It was hard work.
Lottie Newman …who grew up in Vienna, worked three years on the first draft.
Unfortunately, the translation, she produced, wasn’t good enough, since Masson then edited it to render the English more readable and made further revisions. Without a doubt, the revisions must have been too drastic for the translator since, by the end of that process, Mrs. Newman requested she not be listed as the translator. (2)
This was a serious rebuke, but, unless we will ever be able to get access to Lottie’s translation – what’s the chance of that? – we will never know what upset Lottie to this extreme extent.

Lottie's exit

What was Masson’s explanation for Lottie’s unexpected (?) exit from the editorial process? 
Masson claimed this was because the language of the final version was so changed from that of the first draft. (2)
The changes must have been significant if they were unacceptable to Lottie, who in other contexts had no problems having her name added to the title page of the works she translated. 

Having been interviewed by Janet Malcolm for her book, In the Freud Archives (1984). Masson told her that, Lottie had been working with me on the translation of the Freud-Fliess letters. And he made it clear that, She no longer speaks to me. (7)
Thus, the rift was a serious one. This begs an obvious question about the extent of Masson’s revisions. And Mrs. Newman refuses to comment on the matter. That was the end of their mutual enjoyment.
The right happened in the 1980s. And now, almost half a century later, it is too late to ask.

Independent translators

Notably, two independent translators verified the final version of the translation. (2) Wow! No less than two, that is impressive. Why would they need to do that?

As one would expect, the independent translators were both native English speakers. One of them, selected for this crucial task by the now defunct, Sigmund Freud Copyrights Ltd. was a Scotsman, Albert Dickson, an editor of other books of Freud's writings.
The other "expert", chosen by the publisher, Allan Keiler, a translator of other scholarly books from German and an associate professor of music at Brandeis, (2) unlike Freud, highly musical.

Was the choice of those translators (this includes Masson but excludes Lottie Newman) a good idea? Maybe not since, as Schur explained, It has been a taxing experience for any translator of Freud's works … to find that the difficulty of this task [translating Freud’s letters] was comparable to that of translating poetry. (8)
And he made it clear that the translation of letters presents a particularly difficult problem because Freud used many uncommon phrases, unusual metaphors, sometimes slang. In addition, his particular attitude may have been known to the person to whom he wrote, but is no longer available. Yet, this attitude often defines the choice of word. (9)

             Thus, since neither of the three translators was a native Austrian German speaker, they couldn’t assess the correctness of the translation. For this kind of task, besides German language skills, one needs to be an expert, not only in Austrian Viennese translations but also in psychoanalysis.

The first edition of the Freud-Fliess letters, 1954

In 1954, the first, severely mutilated (by Anna Freud but not only) edition of Freud’s letters to Fliess was published. As a matter, of course, Freud's own family - his youngest daughter, Anna, in the first place - knew their Papa inside out. After all, they also participated in Freud's debauchery, be it as victims or willing collaborators. The family also knew - that’s why they initially opposed the publication - that Freud's correspondence with Fliess contained an unimaginable amount of depraved, even criminal, materials that couldn't be allowed to see the light of day, if Freud's position as a respectable and respected psychoanalytic sage was to be preserved.
So why the letters were published at all? Always follow the money. The family wanted the money from the publications, and yet they realised they couldn't publish the letters in their original form. There was a simple solution to the problem, of course. Publish a selection of the heavily censored letters
Remarkably, a great majority of Freudian scholars viewed the bowdlerised versions of the letters as a gospel, continuing to spin the tale of Freud the saint for the rest of the last century and beyond. A few voices were crying out "foul" in the Freudian desert, but to no avail.

As David Remnick, in his article, The Assault on Freud, on February 19, 1984, pointed out, in the 1950s edition, many letters were left out because they revealed traits and hesitations unflattering to Freud. (4) (Actually, unflattering is a humungous understatement.)

Intimacy

Anna Freud was, more or less, forced to allow the publication of the letters, even though in bowdlerised form. If it were up to me, she wrote to Heinz Hartmann, in 1947, I would absolutely not publish the letters.  And the reason for her reluctance?
Neither before nor after Fliess did my father had a similar relationship with a friend. … The letters from a later time ... avoid any sort of intimacy. (10)
Freud was too intimate in his letters to his lover for Anna’s taste.
Notably, Anna explained that when it comes to the selection of the letters, We ... were in agreement not to include ... perverse fantasies. (11) Notably, and oddly, neither the 1954 mutilated edition nor the so-called complete edition of the letters of 1985, as far as I could see, contain any perverse fantasies. Where did they disappear? Even so, Freud's perverted character didn't change during those thirty years between the editions.
That the letters contained explosive material is apparent from the fact that the stingy Freud. offered to repay Marie [Bonaparte, who acquired the letters] half of the sum she had paid - half but not the whole sum - for the letters. Knowing their deleterious content, Freud wanted the damning letters destroyed, but Marie refused. (12) No wonder Anna, as long as she was alive, heavily censored the publication of her beloved Papa’s letters.

Reduced by half

it is obvious that the Complete edition, since half of the content is missing, is both incomplete and expurgated. Which letters were “reduced” by the major editor, Lottie Newman? Lottie who was Anna’s confidante, knew full well that all the dirt contained in the exchange couldn’t be allowed to see the light of day. Hence, the offending letters were removed from the publication. Without a doubt, being the expert translator, she could and would have also mistranslated and bowdlerised the offending passages.
In total 280 letters were published. Freud was a very prolific, compulsive correspondent, writing frequently to Fliess, within a short interval of a few days, some after ten or so days, very few with a longer break than that.
Of course, it is impossible to know exactly how many of the letters were removed from publishing, but if half of the published manuscript accounted for 280 letters, then a similar number had been reduced by Lottie. But which letters had been reduced?
I decided to look for gaps in the correspondence equal to or larger than 40 days. This should indicate which period the letters had been removed. As it is obvious from the attached table, there are some huge gaps in the exchange, ranging from 40 to 691 days! The largest gap, of almost two years, occurred between August 29, 1888 - July 21, 1890. And, since the gap occurred during Freud’s honeymooning with Fliess - while Freud busied himself writing romantic letters to his newfound lover - thus, a big chunk of correspondence has gone missing, and I cannot fathom why.
To allow the reader insight into possible explanations of the gaps, I specified the names and dates of the deaths of the known victims. As a look at the table reveals, several long gaps in the letter exchange correspond to the deaths of Freud’s acquaintances, and patients. Only in the case of Freud’s father, the gap is short. After all, before he decided to get rid of his father, Freud’s letters about his father's condition weren’t controversial, So, a break of 17 days sufficed to cover the euthanasia. Give or take, 280 letters are missing. Will we ever know what was in those letters?

Masson's or Lottie's mistranslations?

As it has been pointed out, Masson’s translations of some passages of the letters differ from the German edition. (14) Who the perpetrator of mistranslations was is not known.
Writing about. Freud's mid-life crisis, (1992), Peter Newton, recounted that, At 40, [in the letters to Fliess] the imagery of vaginal reception appeared. He [Freud, on June 30, 1896] wrote of approaching a congress [aka date] with Fliess with "a temporal lobe lubricated for reception" (15) and [on July is,1896] of needing "the introduction of a fertilizing stream from elsewhere" (16). (17).
            This is quite funny. According to Newton, although missing a vagina, Freud referred to imagery of vaginal reception, while, all that Freud could offer to Fliess was “anal" reception. This is understandable, if we realise that Freud liked to play bottom in his sexual relationships with men. And his interest in anal sex didn’t start at 40, but much earlier, already in his teenage years.
            As Newton pointed out:The German is "Sonst nichts Neues und dringendes Bedürfnis nach Einleitung eines befruchtenden Stromes von andersher (16). Masson mistranslated "befruchenden Stromes" as "stimulating current" (19).
Newton,  p. (17)
Why would the translator mistranslate these highly sexually explicit expressions?  Could it be that it showed Freud as a homosexual? Funnily, Newton explained that, There is no empirical evidence that Freud had homosexual fantasies about Fliess. (19) What kind of empirical evidence was he asking for? A sample of a fertilizing stream, in a frozen vial, or an explicit video of the copulating couple?

Jones' mistranslations

Another example of how Freud’s letters to Fliess were bowdlerised was provided by Roazen, who In his article The Legend Of Freud (1971). As he pointed out only, the authorised Freud's biographer, Ernest Jones, saw parts of Freud's correspondence that will not be released (because of tact as well as censorship) for decades to come. (20) This made it easy for him to falsify the content of Freud's letters.
Loathe to state openly why the censorship of Freud's writings was necessary, Roazen himself was no less tactful than Jones. But it's not about tact, rather it's about hiding Freud's perversions, criminality, and murder. Considering that half a century ago, the Freudian mafia, with Anna Freud at the helm, ruled the psychological world, Roazen's reluctance to discuss the reasons for the censorship, is understandable, even though not commendable, but not everyone has the moral courage to play an intellectual hero.

Falsifying Freud

Jones shamelessly falsified the content of Freud’s letters, One example is Jones' forgery of Freud's letter to Fliess on February 11, 1897.
Let's compare Masson's and Jones versions of the same letter. This is the version appearing in the so-called Complete Letters to Fliess, edited by Masson:

Unfortunately, my own father was one of these perverts and is responsible for the hysteria of my brother (all of whose symptoms are identifications) and those of several younger sisters. (21)

And this is the Jones’ version in Jones' Freud biography:

Freud, inferred, from the existence of some hysterical symptoms in his brother and several sisters (not himself: nota bene), that even his own father had to be thus incriminated.  (22) Quite a difference!

Writing with Anna in mind

As long as she lived, Anna, the successor of her "great" father, ruled the psychoanalytical world with an iron fist, checking out every publication by Freud’s researchers.  As Roazen pointed out, if you wanted to retain your position in the psychoanalytical society, you just had to write with ... Anna in mind - which, at least for some time, he did - and having, to submit to her copies of ... own manuscripts before publication, if not approved, withdrawn in conformity with her wishes. (23)
Roazen wasn't much better than Jones when it came to revealing the truth about Freud. This is what, with Anna in mind, he had to say about her father, To the extent that Freud deserves to be a hero of our time, we have been deprived of his full possibilities as a model.  (24) It doesn't appear that he was joking.  And, if not, Roazen's statement is an obvious surrender of his scholarly integrity, if he had any left.
Making Freud a hero of our time, is like having the devil celebrate mass in the Catholic Church. Considering his debauched and murderous nature, the prospect of having Freud as a model (!), is beyond the pale.

Bowdlerising Freud

In Encountering Freud: The Politics and Histories of Psychoanalysis (2017), with Anna long gone, Roazen dared to reveal the Freudian cover-up stating that, all published editions of Freud's letters ... with his family's approval, ... were bowdlerized save for those to Putnam. (25) And since Masson’s Complete Letters were published in 1995, 22 years earlier, as It appears, Roazen considered them bowdlerised, too.
Oddly, even though critical, Roazen seems unable to see, and point out, the absurdity of the situation, the fact that an innumerable number of Freudian scholars devoted likewise an innumerable number of hours to study bowdlerised accounts of Freud's past.
Also, Roazen, even though aware of bowdlerising of Freud's materials, still based his manuscripts about Freud on those falsified materials.
And, as anyone knows, if you start with falsified materials, you will end up with falsified conclusions.
The fact that Freud's letters have been severely bowdlerised is astonishing. But what is even more astonishing is that practically no one tried to find out the reason why. What was it that was so detrimental to Freud's image, what was so bad in the letters, that, unless heavily censored, they were either banned from publication or severely censored?
The answer is obvious, Freud had done things that weren't supposed to see the light of day, evil things, debauched things, forbidden things, and even murder. There's no smoke without a fire, and Freud was burning his papers from time to time.
(1) Letter from J. Masson. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, (1980, 61:433-433),
(2) Goleman, David, New Insights into Freud, New York Times, March 17, 1985., https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/17/magazine/new-insights-into-freud.html, 12.12. 2024.
(3) Boynton, Robert S., Till Press Do Us Part: The Trial of Janet Malcolm and Jeffrey Masson, The Village Voice, November 28, 1994. https://robertboynton.com/articles/till-press-do-us-part-the-trial-of-janet-malcolm-and-jeffrey-masson/, 20.12.2024.
(4) Remnick, David, The Assault on Freud: Jeffrey Masson & the Fight Over Whether The Father of Analysis Was a Coward. The Washington Post, February 19, 1984. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1984/02/19/the-assault-on-freud/0e3de1b5-56b7-48b7-9d2c-33d81b2c2a04/, 12.12. 2024.
(5) Masson, Jeffrey M., Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory, (2003, p. x).
(6) Gilman, Sander, Dubious Relations, London Review of Books, Vol. 7 No. 11 · 20 June 1985. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v07/n11/sander-gilman/dubious-relations, 12.12, 2024.
(7) Malcolm, Janet, In the Freud Archives, (1984, p. 54).
(8) Schur, Max, Freud: living and dying, (1972, p. 2).
(9) Schur, (1972, p. xi).
(10) Young-Bruehl, Elizabeth, Anna Freud, (1988, p. 295).
(10) Young-Bruehl, (1988, p. 297).
(11) Young-Bruehl, (1988, p. 297).
(12) The Jeffrey Masson 2010 Online Interview With DGB (David Gordon Bain), March 18, 2010. (Published online November 9, 2014). https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141108165321-124429713-essay-3-hegel-s-hotel-the-dgb-online-2010-jeffrey-masson-interview/,12.10. 2015.
(13) Young-Bruehl,(1988, p. 436).
(14) Freud, Sigmund, Sigmund Freud Briefe an Wilhelm FIiess (M. Schrater, Ed.). Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, (1988).
(15) Freud, Sigmund, The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess 1887–1904, (1985, p. 193).
(16), Freud, (1986, p. 205).
(17) Newton, Peter M., Freud's mid-life crisis, Psychoanalytic Psychology, 9(4), 447–475. (1992, p. 468).
(18) Freud, 1985, p. 195).
(19) Newton, (1992, 459).
(20) Roazen, Paul, The Legend of Freud, (1971, p. 39).
(21) Freud, (1985, pp. 230–231).
(22) Jones, Ernest, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 1: The Formative Years and the Great Discoveries, 1856-1900, (1953, p. 322).
(23) Roazen, (1971, p. 48),
(24) Roazen, (1971, p. 45),
(25) Roazen, Paul, Encountering Freud: The Politics and Histories of Psychoanalysis, (2017, p. 66)