Biography

Fromm came from a strictly religious Jewish family that had already produced numerous rabbis. He, too, originally wanted to pursue this career. Erich Fromm was already studying the Talmud at the age of 13. His reading also included the works of Ernst Bloch. He attended high school in Frankfurt and graduated with a high school diploma. From 1918 he studied law at the University of Frankfurt am Main. After two semesters he left Frankfurt and moved to Heidelberg. There he continued his studies in psychology, philosophy and sociology. The Free Jewish Teaching House was founded in 1920. Fromm was also among the founders. During this time a collaboration with Walter Benjamin emerged. In 1922 he completed his studies with a doctorate. He wrote his dissertation on the topic "Jewish Law. A Contribution to the Sociology of Diaspora Jewry". In 1926 he married the psychoanalyst Frieda Reichmann. During this time he also turned away from Orthodox Judaism. He began studying psychology and psychiatry in Munich. Among other things, he was a student of Karl Landauer.

In 1929 he completed his studies at the Psychoanalytic Institute in Berlin. With others he founded the South German Institute for Psychoanalysis based in Frankfurt am Main. He followed Max Horkheimer's call to the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research. There he worked with Theodor W. Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. He separated from his wife in 1941 and they divorced in 1942. Fromm fell ill with tuberculosis and went to Davos, Switzerland, in 1932 for almost a year. A year after the National Socialists came to power, he moved to New York, where the Institute for Social Research also emigrated. Fromm ran a psychoanalysis practice in New York. From 1934 to 1939 he taught at Columbia University in New York. When Adorno wanted to join the Institute for Social Research as a full member in 1939, Fromm declared his resignation. The following year he became a US citizen.

His work entitled "The Fear of Freedom" was published in 1941. It distinguishes him as the most established representative of neo-psychoanalysis. It differs from Siegmund Freud's psychoanalysis and focuses on social aspects as well as other drives. From 1941, Fromm held a professorship in psychology in Vermont. After his divorce, Fromm married Henny Gurland in 1944. Three years later, in 1947, his treatise "Psychoanalysis and Ethics" was published. In 1949 he left the USA and moved to Mexico. There he founded a practice in Mexico City. Two years later he was an associate professor of psychoanalysis at the university there. In 1952 his wife died. The following year he married Annis Freemann. His work "The Art of Loving" was published in 1956. The work not only received positive reviews from experts, but was also well received by the general public. Erich Fromm joined the American peace movement in 1957 and spoke out against the USA's political commitment to nuclear weapons.

In 1963 he founded the Mexican Psychoanalytic Institute. Two years later he retired. In the same year, the joint work "Humanist Socialism" was created, in which Herbert Marcuse and Ernst Bloch, among others, appear as authors. In 1974 he left Mexico and moved back to Europe. There he settled in Muralto in Ticino, Switzerland. In 1976 his work "Having and Being" was edited. The following year he suffered his second heart attack. In 1979 Fromm was awarded the Nelly Sachs Prize.

Erich Fromm died on March 18, 1980 in Muralto.

Shortly after his death, the complete edition of his works was published. In 1981 he was posthumously awarded the Goethe plaque from the city of Frankfurt.
- IMDb mini biography by: Christian_Wolfgang_Barth