Ernestine Freud (geb. Drucker)

Born:	05-22-1896
Faculty:	Philosophical School
Category:	Expelled teacher

Ernestine FREUD (Esti) (nee DRUCKER), born on May 22nd, 1896 in Vienna, daughter of Dr. Leopold Drucker (lawyer), died in 1980, was unpaid lecturer for Sprechtechnik und Stimmbildung at the Philosophical School of the University of Vienna. She got her diploma from secondary school in 1912 at the Mädchen Lyzeum in Vienna 1st district, Kohlmarkt 6. She started her studies of elocution with her teachers Prof. Ferdinand Gregori and university lecturer Olga Lewinsky, both actors at the Burgtheater (the former imperial court theatre). She received singing lessons by her mother. For a scientific foundation she took lectures of Univ.-Prof. Dr. Emil Froeschels in his ambulatory of speech and voice disorders, where she became therapeutic assistant in September 1927. She taught as a speech therapist at the pedagogical department of the Vienna municipality, at the school for kindergarten workers, at the adult education center and gave evening classes at the Wiener Kaufmannschaft. She was married to the oldest son of Prof. Sigmund Freud, Dr. Martin Freud.

Since 1932 she was unpaid lecturer for Sprechtechnik und Stimmbildung at the Philosophical School of the University of Vienna. She was persecuted in times of Nazism because of her political orientation lost her position and was thrown out of the university on April 22nd, 1938.

Together with her daughter, Sophie Freud (born in 1924), she emigrated to France in 1938, broke up with her husband, who followed his father to London, and emigrated later on via Casablance to the USA, where she succeeded to graduate at the age of 59 years at the New School for Social Research.


Lit.: FREUD 2006; Katharina KNIEFACZ, Ernestine Drucker Freud, in: Ilse Korotin (Hg.), Wissenschafterinnen in und aus Österreich. Leben – Werk – Wirken, Band 2, Wien 2017; LICHTBLAU 1999.

Katharina Kniefacz