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According to all the sources, Herbert Silberer, committed suicide and died on January 12, 1923. However, the dating of Silberer's suicide is inconsistent with the facts.
On the morning of January 12, 1923, thus, on the day when, allegedly, Silberer died, two of the Vienna newspapers, the Neue Freie Presse, and Neues Wiener Tagblatt, published notices about Silberer's death.
Without doubt, since several passages of both articles are the same, word for word, both articles were written by the same author.
Now, the obvious question to ask is when the articles were delivered to the newspapers in time to be included in the morning editions. (The deadline for the submission of articles for the next day is usually 10 pm). Thus, in order to be printed in the morning edition of the papers on the 12th, the articles had to be submitted for publication the previous day before the deadline.
And the most interesting question: who the author of the article was, and how he learned about Silberer's death in time to write the article and deliver it to the papers for publication? Also, the amount of details in the article is astonishing. In fact, the article reads more like a story - and Freud was a story teller - rather than as a newspaper report.
The article in the Neue Freie Presse contains more details about the course of events leading to Silberer’s death, which is why it is being presented below.
Vienna Newspapers about Silberer's suicide, January 12, 1923.
Neue Freie Presse
Neue Freie Presse
Suicide of the writer Herbert Silberer
The writer, Herbert Silberer, died tragically last night [heute nacht] [11th/12th]. He hanged himself in his apartment, 1st district, Annagasse 3, in a state of mental over-excitement, and was found dead.
Mr. Silberer, who was 42 years old, had recently shown signs of a nervous illness. His wife had noticed her husband's behaviour; she was worried about him, and, repeatedly, unfortunately unsuccessfully, urged him to take it easy.
Yesterday, in particular, Mr. Silberer was restless, and extremely nervous.
His wife was not feeling well in the evening, and went early to bed.
Mr. Silberer was out in the evening, and didn't come home until after curfew. *
He went into his wife's bedroom, which adjoins his. He said goodnight to her and went to his room.
But she noticed that he was pacing back and forth again.
Then everything became quiet in the husband's bedroom. Mrs Silberer got up and went into the [husband's bed]room. It was empty, the bed untouched. She wanted to open the door that led from the [husband's] bedroom to the anteroom. It was locked. Now she woke her maid and shared her concerns with her.
The two women took a pickaxe. Before that, Mrs. Silberer looked through the keyhole into the anteroom and saw her husband hanging on the cross window.**
With a few blows with a pickaxe against the door, it was blown open, and the unfortunate woman found the man hanged. Medical help was quickly at hand; but death had already occurred.
Not a line from the dead man's hand said a word about the reason for the deed; but it is also certain that Herbert Silberer took his own life due to a nervous illness. Great interest turns to his old father and his widow. Silberer was a well-known writer.
He served as an editor of the newspaper of the Austrian Aero Club and also dealt a lot with problems of metaphysics and telepathy, which he treated scientifically.
Neues Wiener Tagblatt
Neues Wiener Tagblatt
Suicide of Herbert Silberer's
The well-known writer Herbert Silberer met a tragic end last night. He hanged himself in his apartment, Annagasse No. 3, 1st district, in a state of mental over-excitement, and was found dead.
Mr. Silberer, who was 42 years old, had recently shown signs of nervous illness.
His wife was annoyed by her husband's behavior and was worried about him, repeatedly urging him to take it easy.
Always active and preoccupied with literary problems, he did not allow himself the rest he needed.
Yesterday in particular, Mr. Silberer was restless and extremely nervous.
Mr. Silberer was out in the evening and did not return home until after curfew. *
He went into his wife's bedroom, which adjoins his, and spoke lovingly to her, but even then she noticed a restlessness, then he went into his room, where he paced back and forth for a while.
When it became quiet, Mrs. Silberer looked for her husband again, but found the room empty.
The door to the anteroom, as well as a second door, could not be opened.
With the help of her housekeeper, Mrs. Silberer forced the door open and found her husband hanging from the cross window frame. **
Medical help was quickly at hand, but death had already occurred.
Not a line from the dead man's hand revealed the reason for the crime.
All sympathy goes to his aged father and his widow. Silberer had been a companion of his father, the world-famous sportsman Viktor Silberer, from a young age. He was highly educated and carried out valuable scientific research during his numerous flights. He was widely known as a writer.
He served as editor of the newspaper of the "Austrian Aero Club" and also dealt a lot with problems of metaphysics and telepathy, etc., which he treated scientifically. His feature articles, which were fresh and captivating, were as popular as his lectures.
* At the time, there was a curfew in Vienna, between 10 pm and 6 am. In general, tenants didn’t have the key to the entrance door. Once the curfew started, one had to ask the concierge to open the door and pay a fee.
[Haller, Günther, Das Wirtshaus und die ungeliebte Sperrstunde (The pub and the unpopular curfew), Die Presse, 14.10.2020. 12.09.2024. https://www.diepresse.com/5882344/das-wirtshaus-und-die-ungeliebte-sperrstunde]].
** Cross-window, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-window, 13.09.2023.
The Neue Freie Presse was a newspaper paper, having two editions (morning and evening). Also, the Neues Wiener Tagblatt was a daily newspaper, featuring only morning edition. As it is apparent from the above comparison both articles contain identical passages which can only be explained by the fact that it was written by the same author. Furthermore, since they were published in two different papers, the author was a free-lancer.
Remarkably, the article about Silberer's death appeared already in the morning edition of the Neue Freie Presse (the Morgenblatt) on January 12. This is remarkable since the deadline for submitting an article for the morning edition is, in general,10 pm the evening before it goes to print.
If we accept, as a fact, that Silberer died on the night of the 12th, after the curfew that started at 10 pm, he must have died after midnight. So, how was it possible for the article about Silberer's suicide to be printed in the morning edition on the 12th, even though Silberer had died past the publishing deadline?
There are three possibilities:
1. The article was written while Silberer was still alive, and submitted before the deadline,
2. Silberer died, sometime during the day, allowing the author of the article to submit the article before the deadline.
3. The article was delivered past the deadline but still was printed.
Remarkably, neither of the articles mention Silberer's long-standing involvement with Freud, and his psychoanalytical movement, which is understandable only if it was Freud, who was the author of the article, in this way, seeking to avoid being connected to Silberer’s death.
Moreover, unless the author was involved in Silberer's death, how else could he have known all the details of the events leading to Silberer’s death?
There's another possibility: assuming that the author was Silberer's killer, to cover a murder he just had committed, he may have written a fictitious account of Silberer's death and submitted it in time for the publication.
Continued on #3
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