Viktor Frankl Biography PDF

# Frankl Biography ## Early Life - 1905-1937 ### Childhood * Viktor E. Frankl was born into a Jewish family on March 26, 1905, the second of three children in Vienna, Austria. * His father held a government job as the Director of the Ministry of Social Services. * During WWI Austria suffered a...

# Frankl Biography ## Early Life - 1905-1937 ### Childhood * Viktor E. Frankl was born into a Jewish family on March 26, 1905, the second of three children in Vienna, Austria. * His father held a government job as the Director of the Ministry of Social Services. * During WWI Austria suffered a bitter depression. Frankl and his siblings would go begging to neighboring farms for food. * At a very young age, Frankl developed socialistic sympathies and became involved in Socialist youth organizations. ### Teen Years * Victor Frankl was a Brilliant Student with an intense interest in social psychiatry. * Vienna was the base of both Alfred Adler and Sigmund Freud. * At the age of 16, Frankl wrote to Freud and began a long-running correspondence. * At 18 he sent the famous scientist a psychoanalytic essay titled "On the Mimic Movements of the Affirmation and Negation", who eventually submitted Frankl's work for publication in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. Three years later it was published. ### Young Adulthood - College * After graduating from High School Frankl studied at the University of Vienna Medical School. * The Adlerian psychology movement, developed by Alfred Adler, emphasized community and social reform. * During this time, he met Freud for the first time and published an article that had been edited by Adler. * Viktor Frankl introduced the term "logotherapy" during a public lecture. He was developing his individual school of psychological thought. A "Meaning-centered" approach to mental healing. * His passion to help young people overcome depression and achieve well-being by finding their unique meaning in life became foundational to his life work. * Alfred Alder disagreed with Frankl's approach and their relationship declined. * During his college years, Vicktor Frankl picked up mountain-climbing, which became his life-long passion. ### Frankl Organized Youth Counseling Centers: * Frankl Organized youth counseling centers in several cities free to adolescents. He organized school counseling at the end of the school term, recognizing an increase in suicides occurring during this time. The number of suicides dropped dramatically, getting international attention. ## Adulthood * After graduation, Frankl became the director of a Vienna hospital ward for the treatment of women who had suicidal tendencies. * As a Dr of Neurology and Psychology, Frankl soon opens his own private practice. ## Life during WWII and Holocaust - 1938-1945 ### Annexation by Nazis * The annexation of Austria occurred few years later, preceding WWII, by Nazi Germany. * They put restriction into place for Jewish Doctors. Viktor Frankl had to adopt the middle name "Israel" and was forced to call himself a "Fachbehandler" (Jewish specialist) instead of physician. * His office was aryanized (seizure of property from Jews and transferring to non-Jews) and he had to move his practice into his parent's home. * In the infamous "November Pogroms" hundreds of Jews die and many synagogues are destroyed - among them the magnificent "Leopoldstaedter Temple" near the Frankls' home. * Frankl was appointed to the Rothschild Hospital in Vienna, the only hospital that was available to Jews in Nazi-ruled Vienna. He headed the neurological department. * He begins to write the first version of his book The Doctor and the Soul. * Endangering his own life, Frankl sabotages Nazi procedures by assigning false diagnoses to prevent euthanasia of the mentally ill patients. * As head of neurology, he was under the so-called "protection against deportation to the concentration camps" and this extended to his family. * Victor Frankl applied for and was granted the necessary visa to leave for the United States. The visa would expire in three weeks. ## Concentration Camps * If he took the visa his parents, brother, and sister would lose the protection, however staying would curtail the progress of Frankl's own work in Logotherapy. * The profound decision Frankl made about remaining in Vienna was characteristic in many respects of his attitude toward life and his engagement with people. * Viktor met his first wife, Mathilde "Tilly" Grosser, a nurse at the Rothschild hospital. They conceived a child. Nazi rules forbid Jewish couples to have children and the young couple were forced to abort the pregnancy. * Nine months after his marriage, Viktor and Tilly were arrested and together with Frankl's parents were deported to Theresienstadt, the Terezin Ghetto. * His father died within a year of exhaustion. * His sister Stella shortly before escaped to Australia, his brother Walter and his wife were trying to escape via Italy. * Frankl attended to the psychological crises experienced by the inmates of the Terezin camp by organizing a first response team for the shocked new arrivals. In his efforts to fight the danger of suicide he is joined by fellow inmate Regina Jonas, the world's first female rabbi. * Viktor and Tilly, and shortly later his 65-year-old mother, were transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. * His mother is immediately murdered in the gas chamber, and Tilly is moved to the Bergen-Belsen camp. After a few days Frankl was selected for transfer to a labor camp. He is brought to Kaufering and later Tuerkheim, subsidiary camps in Bavaria. * In the Tuerkheim camp he comes down with typhoid fever. To avoid fatal vascular collapse during the nights he keeps himself awake by reconstructing the manuscript of his book on slips of paper stolen from the camp office. ## Post-War Life - 1945-1997 * On April 27 the camp was liberated by U.S. troops. Frankl was made chief doctor of a military hospital for displaced persons. * Anxious to find out about the fate of his wife he embarked on the arduous journey to Vienna. Within a span of a few days, he learns about the death of his wife, his mother and his brother who has been murdered in Auschwitz together with his wife. * Full of despair about the realization of his losses, Frankl finds support in his friends and in the determination to rewrite his book. His friend Bruno Pittermann, who has become a member of the new government, organized an apartment and a job for him - as well as a typewriter. * Frankl became director of the Vienna Neurological Policlinic, a position he will hold for 25 years. His reconstructed Arztliche Seelsorge, presenting his ideas on Logotherapy, with an added chapter on the "psychology of the concentration camp," is one of the very first books published in postwar Vienna. The first edition is sold out within a few days. It was translated to English in 1959. * Within nine days Frankl wrote Man's Search for Meaning, describing his experiences in the concentration camps. * In 1947 Frankl married Eleonore Schwindt. They had a daughter and named her Gabriele. * He expands and refines his theory of logotherapy, obtains his Ph.D., and eventually is promoted to Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Vienna Medical School. * Frankl began guest professorships at overseas universities including Harvard. * Lecture tours took him to the U.S., South America, and Asia. Frankl is invited to speak at San Quentin prison. His views on personal responsibility, guilt and redemption resonate strongly with the inmates, and he was asked to deliver a special message to a prisoner on death row. ## Conclusion * The United States International University in San Diego, California, installs a Chair for Logotherapy. Logotherapy is recognized in Vienna and the first professional training in Logotherapy and Existential Analysis was opened. * The Library of Congress lists Man's Search for Meaning as "One of the ten most influential books in America." * Frankl's last book is published: Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning in 1997. He dies of Heart failure on the 2nd of September that same year. * As a person, Frankl's character was quickly apparent. He demonstrated an astute and lively spirit and had a strong sense of humor, loving nothing more than a witty anecdote or joke. His lifestyle was humble and simple, his thinking clear-cut. He deplored and was annoyed by careless thinking. * There was something unapproachable about him. He tried to avoid personal meetings and was especially sensitive to criticism. Being somewhat of an isolated character provided him with the space and time to devote to his large program of work. His wish to be buried quietly and privately corresponded with his humble nature. * By the time of his death, Man's Search for Meaning had been translated into 24 languages and reprinted 73 times and had long been used as a standard text in high school and university courses in psychology, philosophy, and theology. * Viktor Frankl's life serves as a reminder to all, no matter how difficult the path may be, choosing to give up, before it has had the chance to fly, only holds the human spirit back. **This Biography was created using many materials collected from the Viktor Frankl Archives.**