It is the danger inherent in our [psychoanalytical] method of concluding from faint traces, exploiting trifling signs. The same as in criminal cases, where the murderer has forgotten to relinquish his carte de visite and full address on the “Tatort” [scene of the crime],
Letter to Ernst Jones on February 7,1921.
Freud, Sigmund. & Jones, Ernest., The Complete Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Ernest Jones, 1908-1939. (1995, pp. 508-409).

Suicide letter to Freud

Vienna, July 3, 1919 

Dear Professor,

Please render assistance to my beloved fiancée, Miss Hilde Loewi (11 Kornergasse 2), the dearest woman who ever entered into my life. She will not ask much of you, because she has a great capacity for happiness within herself, but she tends towards compulsive symptoms and identifications. She is noble, pure and kind, it is worth the trouble to give her good advice. 

I thank you for all the good which you have done me. It was much and has given meaning to the last ten years of my life. Your work is genuine and great, I shall take leave of this life knowing that I was one of those who witnessed the triumph of one of the greatest ideas of mankind. 

I have no melancholy, my suicide is the healthiest, most decent deed of my unsuccessful life. I have no accusations against anyone, my heart is without resentment, I am only dying somewhat earlier than I would have died naturally.

I greet the Psychoanalytic Association; I wish it well with all my heart. I thank all those who helped me when I was in need. Those who have claim to this gratitude will know it for themselves.

I hope you will have a long life, in health, strong and capable of working. I greet you warmly.

 Yours, Tausk

Please, also look after my sons from time to time. (1)

Remarkably, the suicide letter was still preserved a half-century after Tausk’s death by his son who sent Roazen, a copy of the suicide note his father had written to Freud the morning Tausk killed himself. (2)
Bizarrely, acting as a Freud apologist, Roazen claimed that, The [suicide] letter is a declaration of Tausk’s love for Freud, absurdly claiming that the letter's true message was: You think I want to kill you, when in fact I love and admire you. (3)
This is yet another totally unsubstantiated claim on Roazen's part. It is pure nonsense to claim that Tausk would have known that Freud believed that Tausk wanted to kill him - how could Roazen know what Tausk meant?
And further, the claim that Tausk was "in love" with his enemy is no less absurd. Did Tausk really, uncritically, admire Freud or did rather tried to dethrone him? That is the question. Since, having no basis in reason or fact, Roazen was making all those claims, he appears to have been, not unlike Freud, and not much less, delusional.
In fact, the odd character of the suicide note to Freud makes one wonder whether it was written by Tausk himself, or rather by his murderer. Would a man contemplating his own suicide write a both self-deprecatory, and reverential letter like that to his deadly opponent? 

The letter consists of the following parts:

1. A plea to Freud to assist Tausk’s fiancé
2. A praise of Tausk’s fiancé
3. A denigration of Tausk’s fiancé
4. Tausk's “self”-denigration
5. A praise directed to Freud
6. A disavowal of anyone’s responsibility for his death
7. A praise of the Psychoanalytic Association
8. Thanks to those who helped him (Freud?)
9. Well-wishes for Freud
10. A plea for assistance for Tausk’s sons.

As it is apparent, a large part of the note consists of praise of Freud, and his psychoanalytical creation, as well as of absolving everyone, including Freud, of any responsibility for his death. Remarkably, in a typically Freudian way, just as in the case of Nathan Weiss’ suicide, when Freud was referring to the latter’s wife, when mentioning Tausk’s fiancé, the suicide note mixes praise with denigration. Oddly, in the note, Tausk severely denigrated himself, which is hardly believable.
Likewise, the plea for Freud’s assistance for Tausk’s fiancé is strange. Is it even likely that Tausk would ask his sworn enemy, Freud, to assist his fiancé and his sons in the aftermath of his death?
In fact, the bizarre praise of Freud and his “science” by Tausk makes it more than likely that Tausk's final letter was penned by Freud himself. Would Tausk, while intending to kill himself, having been rejected by Freud, even consider writing a letter exalting Freud and his “science”? Again, the suicidal letter to Freud, once again wasn't signed with Tausk’s first name Victor only with his surname, and possibly for a reason, because, once again, it was Freud who was victorious.

Visit to Freud

Looking for answers, Tausk’s son, Marius, on the 5th, thus two days after his father’s death, went to see Freud. As Roazen recounted, Freud did explain [to Marius] that he had received a suicide letter from Marius's father (4) and told Marius that the letter would be given to him. Obviously, Marius didn't know about the existence of Tausk's suicide note to Freud, or the explanation wouldn’t be necessary.
This fact by itself contradicts Roazen’s earlier claim that Tausk left a letter to Freud on his desk. If that was the case, Marius would have known about the letter's existence, and since he didn't, there's the obvious question: was there a letter to Freud on Tausk's desk at all? And if not, how did it come to be in Freud’s possession, considering it was dated on the day of Tausk’s suicide. As a matter of course, Tausk couldn't have delivered the letter to Freud before killing himself.
Would the letter have been posted once Tausk’s body was found? And if so, by whom? Or was it Freud it himself that wrote the suicide letter and that is why it was in his possession?
Notably, Freud was very formal talking to Marius. What does one say to the son of the man whom one killed only a few days ago?
Remarkably, till the end of his days, Marius believed that the note was written by his father.
Marius believed that it was Freud's daughter, Anna, who gave him the suicide letter, as well as Tausk’s other correspondence with Freud, which, as Roazen pointed out, was Freud's way of getting rid of every trace of Tausk's existence from his life. As Roazen explained, Paradoxically, he [Marius] treasured the suicide note for almost fifty years as a sign of his father's good relations with Freud. (5)
Roazen should have been astonished at Marius’ naivety. Till the end of his days, Marius had no idea that Freud was his father's lethal enemy - rather than a friend - and presumably his murderer.
(1) Roazen, Paul, Brother Animal: The Story of Freud and Tausk, (1969, pp. 127-128).
(2) Roazen, (1969, p. xix).
(3) Roazen, (1969, p. 129).
(4) Roazen, (1969, p. 126).
(5) Roazen, (1969, p. 127).

Victor Tausk's suicide has been the subject of envenomed controversy. First canvassed in Paul Roazen's tendentious study ... which makes Freud the villain of the piece, it was re-canvassed by K. R. Eissler in a characteristic reply (very indignant and very circumstantial).
Gay, Peter, Freud: A Life for Our Time, (1988, p. 769).

Who wrote the suicide letter?

The letter is contradictory, both denigratory, and complimentary, just like the letter to Freud’s fiancé, Martha of September 16, 1883, recounting the alleged suicide of Nathan Weiss, yet another of Freud’s victims. A similar contradictory statement appears in Freud's obituary of Tausk. Freud always denigrated those who, no longer alive, like his “friend”, Paneth, couldn’t defend themselves. Moreover, the letter also defamed his Tausk's fiancé.
Thus, on the one hand the letter stated that Tausk's fiancé was, the dearest woman who ever entered into my life, who, has a great capacity for happiness within herself and who, is noble, pure and kind, on the other hand, the letter claimed that, she tends toward compulsive symptoms and identifications, thus that she is mentally ill. This is not what a man in love would write about the woman he was about to marry, rather, undoubtedly, it sounds like something written by Freud’s own hand.
Remarkably, in the note, Tausk praised Freud for his kindness towards him, writing, I thank you for all the good which you have done me. It was much and has given meaning to the last ten years of my life. Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, Freud was on a constant collision course with his brilliant follower.
In fact, Freud refused to take Tausk into analysis, and, if this wasn't enough, ordered Tausk's analyst to stop his treatment. Most certainly, Freud didn’t do Tausk any favours, rather was trying to belittle him on every occasion, and Tausk was aware of that. There’s no way a man, going to take his own life, would be lying in this way. On the other hand, this is exactly what Freud would have written about himself, in order to deflect any suspicion about his involvement in Tausk’s death.
What confirms that idea is the praise of Freud that followed. In the passage, Tausk allegedly wrote: Your work is genuine and great, I shall take leave of this life knowing that I was one of those who witnessed the triumph of one of the greatest ideas of mankind. This again sounds like something the megalomaniac Freud would have written, rather than his adversary. Would Tausk, Freud’s main competitor, accusing Freud of plagiarising his ideas, write something so adulatory?
This is Freud was talking about himself. Thus, a similar, typically Freudian megalomaniac statement can be found in Freud’s letter of March 25, 1917 to another of his disciples, Karl Abraham - only two years before Tausk's death - in which Freud stated, I claim my place alongside Copernicus and Darwin.* In fact, Freud's claim of his greatness in the suicidal note is in character.
Tausk further denigrated himself, confessing that he was unworthy of remaining alive. I have no melancholy, my suicide is the healthiest, most decent deed of my unsuccessful life, the letter stated. Would anyone in a suicide note write lines like that about oneself? This is not only denigration, this is a blatant lie. Tausk may not have been happy with his life but he was successful in his new profession as a doctor, and he found a woman he wanted to marry. Life was looking good, until it was cut short, and a good question is why and by whom.
Oddly, allegedly Tausk wrote, I have no accusations against anyone, my heart is without resentment. Would he, really say that even though, since he resented lots about Freud's mistreatment of him? Or was this statement Freud’s way of insuring that no one would suspect that he was responsible for Tausk’s death?
The next part, sounding as a murderer’s justification, states, I am only dying somewhat earlier than I would have died naturally. With this kind of Freudian logic, we can murder one another without any pangs of conscience. Would Tausk have written words like that in his farewell note? This is a logic of a murderous psychopath, and Tausk, unlike Freud, wasn't one.
The note with a bizarre greeting that only Freud could have penned. I greet the Psychoanalytic Association; I wish it well with all my heart, the passage stated. So these were Tausk's last thoughts and wish? That the wonderful creation of Freud's would flourish after Tausk’s death?
* Abraham, K. & Freud, S., The Complete Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Karl Abraham 1907-1925, (1965, p. 249),

The will

Below follows the partial will:

I am taking leave of my life, which I have systematically disintegrated ever since my childhood and which has now completely lost its sense since I can no longer enjoy it. My talent is too little to support me. The recognition that I cannot gladly enter into a new marriage, that I can only keep myself and my beloved fiancée in conflicts and torments, is the true conscious motive of my suicide.

Good bye, mother, brothers, sisters and friends. Live better than I did, dear sons. Forget me all soon. I have deceived you all by living a role to which I was not equal. 

Oddly, also in his alleged will, Tausk, once again, humiliated himself stating: I am taking leave of my life, which I have systematically disintegrated ever since my childhood, and which has now completely lost its sense since I can no longer enjoy it. (1)
This is definitely not the way a will should be written. A will is a legal document stating who will inherit your estate, take care of your family, and be the executor of your estate. Rather, this is a further continuation of Tausk's self-effacing statements in the suicide note. And yet again, the denigratory claims in this passage are blatantly false.
And the claim: My talent is too little to support me is plainly  false. Would Tausk “the most prominently outstanding" among Freud's students (2) according to his lover, Lou Andreas--Salomé, in the last moments of his life, deprecate  himself to this degree? As Roazen pointed out, those who knew Tausk gave repeated testimonies of Tausk’s importance. (3)
Tausk was a talented individual, who could change his profession at will, who, in turn, was a successful lawyer and judge, a journalist and writer, a newly graduated medicine doctor, and an outstanding psychoanalyst.
In fact, this is exactly the kind of language Freud used when describing a brilliant doctor, Nathan Weiss, who died poisoned by the former. In his letter about the Nathan's funeral, Freud likewise denigrated  the dead claiming that, his gifts were not remarkable, he knew little. (4)
Now comes yet another bizarre statement, again mirroring Freud's claim that Nathan committed himself because he couldn't tolerate the marriage! (This is what Freud - falsely - wrote about Nathan’s death, the details that drove him to his death are unknown to us, but that they are linked up with his marriage is beyond doubt.) (5)
And this is how Tausk allegedly explained his motivation for his suicide: The recognition that I cannot gladly enter into a new marriage, that I can only keep myself and my beloved fiancée in conflicts and torments, is the true conscious motive of my suicide. (6) Apparently, if also the passage about Tausk was written by Freud, Freud was repeating himself.
As a matter of fact, the claim is absurd. Tausk already had decided to marry his fiancé, and in the morning of the day before his death, he obtained a marriage license. In the evening before his death, he was on his way to see his fiancé perform. Hardly, the behaviour of a man that feels that strongly that he shouldn't marry. Notably, the letter states that this is the conscious motive of the suicide, again sounding like Freud. So, there were also subconscious motives, too, and Freud speculated about them in the Tausk obituary and in his letter to Lou.
In fact, the explanation of Tausk’s conscious motive only makes sense, if it was not written by Tausk. but by his murderer, seeking to both denigrate the dead man and provide a fake explanation for his death. As also Lou indicated, Freud was jealous of Tausk, of his good looks, intelligence, education and success with women. Was the fact that Tausk going to marry, and live happily thereafter, the last straw for Freud that may have triggered his murderous deed.
And again, comes a self-deprecatory confession, I have deceived you all by living a role to which I was not equal. (6) This is pure Freud, disparaging his competitor and enemy, just in the case of Nathan Weiss’, not only in life but also in death. The role to which Tausk was not equal was that of Freud’s competitor in the psychoanalytic field. And this is what, similarly, Freud wrote about Nathan: his gifts were not remarkable, he knew little, never delved very deep and he lacked completely the basic conditions for scientific work, (4) adding that, his achievements are of moderate value, and lack any original content. (6)
Roazen claimed that, Tausk, was bent on obliterating himself leaving instructions in the will, for all his papers to be burned unread. (6) But, since Tausk, wrote a will with a lengthy a lengthy itemization of all his possessions, noting down even the smallest details, (7) this wish makes no sense at all.
In fact, there's an apparent contradiction in those statements and actions. Why would Tausk make this kind of list, if he wanted all of his papers burned? It was enough to state, burn all my papers. Apparently, no one reading Tausk's will realised that burning all of Tausk's papers, since he made a list of his belongings, couldn't have been Tausk's wish. But it could have been Freud's, in order to extinguish any and all of Tausk's contributions to the psychoanalytical "science".
Subsequently, the young, and naive, Tausk's son spent a whole day fulfilling this request. (6)This begs another question. If Tausk really wanted the papers destroyed, why hadn’t he destroyed them himself? Actually, on a number of occassions Freud destroyed his own papers, for the first time in 1885 (8), without committing suicide.
Who would have been more interested in obliterating every trace of his existence, Tausk or Freud? Notably, Roazen doesn’t mention Tausk leaving a will on his desk, only a letter to his fiancé and Freud. So, where was the will?
In the farewell greeting ending the will (!) Tausk said: Good bye, mother, brothers, sisters and friends. Live better than I did, dear sons, remarkably forgetting to say goodbye to Freud, and his fiancé. Could Tausk have been that forgetful? Or, if it was Freud that wrote the will himself, could this be some kind of insane Freudian hint ?
Notably, Tausk also asked whoever was going to read his will to tell everyone to, "Forget me all soon."
In fact, there’s an uncanny similarity between the Tausk’s instructions for destruction of his papers, and the will of Hermine Hug-Hellmuth, the first child psychoanalyst who, A few days before her death … wrote a will expressing a wish that no account of her life or her work should appear. (9)
(1) Roazen, (1969, pp. 129-130).
(2) Roazen, (1969, p. 44).
(3) Roazen, (1969, p. 207).
(4) Freud, The Letters of Sigmund Freud, (1960, p. 61).
(5) Freud, (1960, p. 59).
(6) Roazen, (1969, p. 130).
(7) Roazen, (1969, p. 125).
(8) Freud, (1960, pp. 140-142).
(9) Plastow, Michael, Hermine Hug-Hellmuth, the First Child Psychoanalyst: Legacy and Dilemmas, Australasian Psychiatry, Vol. 19, No. 3, June 2011).

The obituary

Even though written by Freud, Tausk’s obituary was signed 'Die Redaction' [The Editorial Committee]. (1) Apparently, and, no doubt, for a reason, having authored the obituary, Freud wanted to remain anonymous, just as when he published, the Screen Memories, in which he revealed that, together with his nephew, John, he had raped his niece, and John's sister, Pauline. As a matter of course, had Freud had nothing to do with Tausk's death, he wouldn't hesitate to put his name to, penned by him, Tausk's obituary.
In the obituary, Freud explained that, Among the sacrifices ... from the ranks of psychoanalysis claimed by the war was, Dr. Tausk who took his own life. (2)
So, what was Freud hinting at? If we remove the part about the war, the statement becomes more obvious, Freud stating that, Among the sacrifices ...  from the ranks of psychoanalysis, we must count Dr. Victor Tausk. Was Freud, by using the term sacrifices, hinting at Tausk being a “sacrificial lamb”, his death a sacrifice intended to promote, sacred for him, the cause of psychoanalysis?
According to Freud, The stresses of many years’ service in the field could not fail to exercise a severely damaging psychological effect on so intensely conscientious a man. (2) And he clarified that, according to him, as a result, Tausk suffered from mental exhaustion, (2) which also contributed to his death.
This yet another, and different, but also fake, Freudian explanation of Tausk's alleged motive for committing suicide. Unlike many others, Tausk was not a victim of the war. On the contrary, having worked as a doctor during the war, he had returned home unharmed, and was starting a new life with a new partner. It wasn't to be, though.
Oddly, even though Tausk had been a part of the Freud’s psychoanalytical circle, at his funeral on the Sunday, of July 6th, There was no one to say a word about Tausk, neither priest nor rabbi. And, Freud didn't bother himself to take farewell of the deceased enemy. Of course, the members of the family were present.
(1) SE 17, p. 273.
(2) Roazen, (1969, p.136).
(3) Roazen, (1969, p. 126) .

In the obituary, Freud also mentioned Tausk’s alleged illness, the year earlier, during the Psychoanalytical Congress in Budapest in September 1918. As he explained during the congress, Dr. Tausk, who had long been suffering from physical ill-heath, was already showing signs of unusual nervous irritability. Actually, there was more to Tausk's illness than Freud wanted to reveal, since Tausk, fell ill during the proceedings of the Congress, however, and vomited; his sickness created quite a stir at the time. But no one now knows what might have ailed him then. (1) No one, except, maybe, for Freud.
Most certainly, Tausk's wasn't a normal illness. Actually, vomiting, indicating some kind of poisoning, hardly classify as physical ill-heath and nervous irritability, which apparently was Freud's diagnosis. Was Tausk poisoned by the “father” Freud? If so, Tausk didn’t understand that his poisoning was a harbinger of his upcoming death.
Obviously, Freud was creating a narrative that Tausk both a physical and mental wreck, which would constitute a motive for the latter’s suicide. As Freud explained, Dr. Tausk ... was on the brink of contracting a new marriage, which contradicts the idea that Tausk was suicidal. Notably, Freud again had another explanation of Tausk’s suicide claiming that, He was no longer able to cope with the many demands imposed on him in his ailing state by harsh reality. (2) What other demands, besides his upcoming marriage, were imposed on Tausk, Freud didn’t care to reveal.
Freud also, yet again, provided another contradictory assessment of Tausk’s character stating: His passionate temperament found expression in sharp, and sometimes too sharp, criticisms, which however were combined with a brilliant gift for exposition. These personal qualities exercised a great attraction on many people, and some, too, may have been repelled by them. (3) Without doubt, Freud was one of those some people, who were repelled by Tausk’s brilliant qualities.
As was Freud’s wont, also the obituary, just like Tausk’s alleged suicide note, and will, was yet another occasion for Freud’s promotion of his “science”. How much psycho-analysis meant for him, Freud wrote, even up to his last moments, is shown by letters which he left behind, in which he expressed his unreserved belief in it and his hope that it will find recognition at a not too distant date. (4)
As Roazen pointed out, the three-page obituary was, the lengthiest Freud ever penned. (5) Notably, Freud’s effusive number of words in his death notice, is reminiscent of the longest letter he ever wrote to his fiancé, also a kind of obituary, on the occasion of his "friend", Nathan Weiss' funeral, in which he described how he viewed Nathan, and Nathan's motives, for the latter's alleged suicide.
Apparently, the celebration of those two deaths had a special significance for him.
In the obituary, Freud revealed the timing of Tausk's suicide stating callously that, On the morning of July 3rd [1919] he put an end to his life. (6)
As Roazen pointed out, One of the most intriguing aspects of Tausk’s suicide note to Freud is that he did not tell him why he was killing himself. (7) But, since not all suicide notes explain why the person committed suicide, what is intriguing is not the fact that the note didn’t say why, but the fact that Roazen found it intriguing.
Notably, once again, Roazen hints that Tausk didn't die by his own hand, but rather was murdered. As he recounted, Tausk wrote a tale, the protagonist of which, is slain by his own father.
And, he adds that, The tale ... foreshadows Tausk’s fate with Freud as well. (8) The hint is obvious. Without doubt, in this surreptitious manner, Roazen intimated that Tausk was slain by the vengeful father, Freud.

 As Roazen explained that, Freud found it easier simply to get rid of Tausk than to risk being - as Freud saw it - swallowed by him. (9) In fact, as the Polish psychoanalyst, Jekels, (10) recalled, the paranoid Freud was afraid, not of being swallowed by Tausk but, of being killed by him. And if getting rid of Tausk meant killing him, so be it. (It's a simple logic, better him than me.)
(1) Roazen, (1969, p. 64).
(2) Roazen, (1969, p. 136).
(3) Roazen, (1969, p. 137).
(4) Freud, SE, (1981, pp. 275).
(5) Roazen, (1969, p. 6).
(6) Freud, SE, (1981, pp. 274).
(7) Roazen, (1969, p. xxi).
(8) Roazen, (1969, p. 14).
(9) Roazen, (1969, p. 105).
(10) Roazen, (1985, p. 173). 

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth".
Doyle, Conan A.,The Sign Of Four, (1890, p. 93).

Continues with Part 5