The Life of Viktor Frankl

---

 Victor Frankl is born to Elsa and Gabriel Frankl in Vienna, Austria. Siblings Walter and Josefine.  

World War I brought financial hardship upon the family. Frankl shows an early interest in medicine and later in psychology and philosophy. He corresponds with Sigmund Freud during his youth. A manuscript that he sends to Freud is published in the International Journal for Psychoanalysis.  

At age 15 he gives his first public lecture “On the meaning of life.” He is part of the Young Socialist Workers. In 1924 he begins studying at the University of Vienna Medical School and is spokesperson for the Austrian Socialists High School Association - working to address social inequality.  

 Viktor introduces the idea of logotherapy - a meaning centred approach to mental healing. He specializes in the treatment of depression and suicide. 

At the University of Vienna, he gives lectures about mental hygiene and psychology. He organizes counseling programs and volunteering initiatives for students, working to reduce student suicide.

Frankl begins his medical career with a focus on neurology and psychiatry, particularly with suicidal women, attending to about 3000 patients per year. In 1937 he opens a private practice.  

Nazi occuption of Austria. Frankl is not permitted to work as a Dr seeing non Jewish patients. He is forced to move into his parents’ home and adopt the name Israel.  The Nazi’s appoint him the head of the Jewish Rothschild Hospital. He begins work on a manuscript called The Doctor and the Soul.  Frankl is offered a visa to the USA but decides not to take it as he does not want to leave his parents.  

Viktor meets and falls in love with Tilly Grosser, who he marries. They are forced to abort their first pregnancy by the Nazis.  Viktor and Tilly are later arrested and sent to Theresienstadt Ghetto in 1942, with Frankl's parents. Frankl organizes a first response team for the shocked new arrivals to the Ghetto, working to fight the danger of suicide. His father dies of starvation and pneumonia in 1943. 

Viktor and Tilly are sent to Auchwitz in 1944.  Tilly is moved to Bergen-Belsen where she dies aged 24. Viktor encounters Eichmann, Mengele and has his Dr and the Soul manuscript taken from him. He is moved between various concentration and labor camps, and almost dies from typhoid fever in 1945 in Türkheim camp. To avoid fatal vascular collapse during the nights he keeps himself awake by reconstructing the manuscript of his book on stolen slips of paper. Frankl is liberated on 25 April 1945 from Türkheim  camp, following which he learns of the tragic death of his wife and family members. 

11 months after being liberated, Victor Frankl delivers a lecture series which begins with the words “In the Psychology of the Concetration Camp...” The lectures were edited into a book, first published in German: Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything including:  "Whatever our future may hold: We still want to say “yes” to life, because one day the time will come - Then we will be free!" and “Do not forget this: the human psyche seems to behave in some ways like a vaulted arch - an arch that has become dilapidated can be supported by placing an extra load on it. The human soul also appears to be strengthened by experiencing a burden (at least to a particular degree and within certain limits). This is how, many a weakling was able to leave the concentration camp in a better, stronger state of mind, as it were, than when he had entered it.”

In 1947 he marries Eleonore Schwindt and soon after their daughter Gabriele is born. 

Frankl obtains his Ph.D. in philosophy with a dissertation on The Unconscious God. He is promoted to Associate Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Vienna Medical School. 

On the basis of a lecture series he writes the book Homo Patiens with its central theme of how to give support and comfort to suffering human beings. He is invited to give lectures and guest professorships abroad and is promoted to Professor at the University of Vienna.   In 1959 Man´s Search for Meaning is published in the U.S. under its first title From Death Camp to Existentialism. 

In the 1960's Frankl becomes guest professor at Harvard University. Addressing the topic of personal freedom, he makes the often quoted remark that "the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast should be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast." He continues to lecture and publish internationally, including to prisoners in the USA on death row.  

In the 1970's, The United States International University in San Diego, California, installs a Chair for Logotherapy.  Frankl learns to fly and acquires a Solo Flight Certificate in 1973.  

Centres for Logotherapy open in various global locations and Logotherapy conferences are held.  

At the Memorial Day commemorating the 50th year after the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany, Frankl speaks out against the concept of "collective guilt."

Frankl celebrates his Second Bar Mitzvah in Jerusalem in 1988.

Frankl continues to receive honorary doctorates and accolades for his work durin the 1990's. He publishes his autobiography Recollections and Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning.

He dies of heart failure in September 1997.