The cover-up

Tampering with the truth

In his review of The Letters of Sigmund Freud to Eduard Silberstein, 1871-188, aptly titled Tampering with the Mail, the inquisitive Freud researcher, Paul Roazen, revealed that, it was Freud's daughter, Anna, who, personally transcribed these letters to Silberstein, (1) which guarantees that their content had been severely bowdlerised. Notably, the fact, that Anna was the transcriber, wasn't revealed in the published edition of the letters.

Restricted letters

That there's lots of dirt in Freud's correspondence is apparent from the fact that some, material [in possession of the Freud Archives] has been restricted until the twenty-second century! (2)

Vanished letters

Naively (?) Roazen stated that, One does not know what to make of it, but a number of letters to Silberstein appear to have vanished.
If he didn't know what to make of the disappearing letters, Roazen had no business researching psychoanalysis, whose - as other researchers pointed out - Freudian closet is filled with innumerable skeletons. But, of course, the reason for the vanishing act is obvious.
Any letters that vanished would have shown Freud as he was; as an incestuous pervert, a psychopath, a criminal, a murderer even. But, afraid of a backlash from the Freudian mafia, not for the first time, Roazen would rather avoid stating the obvious. By the way, lying by omission is also lying.

A suicide or a murder?

As Roazen recounted, There are no letters here more directly connected with the death of that [Silberstein's] wife, who, allegedly, committed suicide by throwing herself from the fourth floor of Freud's apartment house, where Freud had his office.
Roazen didn't speculate why the letters were missing. And why, rather than after being treated by Freud, safely leaving his couch, Pauline Silberstein, ended up dead on the ground right below Freud's office.
For some reason, and without proof, Roazen claimed, that Silberstein himself must have done away with such letters for the sake of his own privacy and that of his wife; [and] there is no sign of any later reproach in him against Freud. (3)
Most certainly, and without doubt, intentionally, Roazen is being deceitful, here. If letters about Silberstein's wife's death have been excised, how can he know whether there was any reproach in them?
And what about Anna's censorship now forgotten? As a matter of course, she would have gotten rid of any offending letters pointing to Freud as the culprit responsible for Pauline's death.

Freud's "sergeants"

In her review of  Recollecting Freud by Isidor Sadger, edited by Alan Dundes, the reviewer is highly critical of what had been done to the book by the editor. As she pointed out,
The fact that such a book should have been pilloried and apparently even censored by Freud's "sergeants" is an important clue to the paranoiac mechanism that seized the Freudian movement and Freud himself. *
She is both right and wrong,
Most, if not all the literature about Freud, as well as his letters, had been in one way or another subjected to strict censorship, as in the case of Sadger's book. This is the right part.
The wrong part is the statement that the sergeants are paranoiac bowdlerising Freud sources for no reason. Wrong! The truth is much more sinister.
This is not a question of being paranoiac but of a century-long cover-up. It is about ensuring the survival of Freud's perverted ideas, of psychoanalysis, of the continuation of Freudian scholarship, of not revealing the true Freud, Freud the pervert, Freud the criminal, Freud the murderer.
Follow the money! Lots of people still have lots to lose should the truth about Freud be known.
* Cotti, Patricia, Reviewed Work: Recollecting Freud by Isidor Sadger, Alan Dundes, Johanna Micaela Jacobsen, American Imago, Vol. 62, No. 4, Scars of History (Winter 2005, p. 498). Jstor, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26305487, 5.11.2024.

Why the cover-up?

For over a century, the truth about Freud’s murderous nature had been the subject of a relentless cover-up; his letters - in the first place - thanks to his daughter Anna’s censorship, severely bowdlerised.
The truth about Freud couldn’t have been told, lest the psychoanalytic house of cards would have fallen apart. The cover-up of Freud’s sexual exploitation of his patients is bad enough, covering up his criminal deeds is much worse.
An interesting question. If Freud is now in hell with his daughter, and collaborators - where they deserve to be - did their co-conspirators, guilty of covering Freud's and his daughter's criminal acts, already join them? This is a short list of those (there were many more):

* Ernest Jones (1879-1958), “the Welsh liar”, who wrote a hagiography of Freud mixing freely truth with lies,
* Marie Bonaparte (1882-1962), the insane Freud follower, who believed her head was a penis, and who had acquired Freud-Fliess letter but kept quiet about their content.
* Schur, Max (1897-1969),  Freud's doctor, privy to Freud's secrets.
* Ernst Kris (1900-1957), who with Anna Freud (1895-1982), bowdlerised the first edition of Freud-Fliess letters.
* James trachey, (1887-1967) the translator of the special edition of Freud's works; he knew the true Freud but kept silent.
* Muriel Gardiner (1901-1985), a wealthy American who participated in the cover-up paying for silence.
* Kurt Eissler (1908-1999), the holy defender-in-chief of psychoanalytical faith, and many others.
* Peter Gay (1923-2015) who wrote a heavily bowdlerised Freud biography.
* Gerhard Fichtner (1932-2012), an expert on Freud’s handwriting, transcribed Freud–Fliess letters but kept quiet about their content.
* Elizabeth Young-Bruehl (1946-2011), the author of the Anna Freud’s "nice" biography.
* Lottie Newman (? -?), the translator of Freud-Fliess letters and a confidante of Anna Freud.

They all knew who Freud really was, but they weren’t telling.