Thanatos Rising - The American Scholar

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Thanatos Rising

A 1930s correspondence between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud laid out each man’s views on war and peace

By George Makari<br>July 22, 2026

Illustration by Lincoln Agnew

In the 1980s, my college rock band closed each show with a furious rendition of “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?” Written in 1974 by Nick Lowe and performed by the jangly British country-rockers Brinsley Schwarz, the song originally included a bridge in which the vocalist pleaded: “We must have peace, more peace and love, if just for the children of the new generation.” Unfortunately, by the mid-’70s, the season of flower power had passed. The song bombed.

Then, around four years later, another rocker heard the song and thought: Peace? Love? Was this for real or a put-on? In 1978, he recorded a cover that cut the bridge and otherwise left little room for doubt about how he felt. Produced by Lowe himself and released on the Armed Forces album, Elvis Costello’s snarling tale of disillusionment became a New Wave anthem.

Lately, I’ve been playing those two versions of the song in my head, wondering how, during a period of only a few years, a sincere call for peace became ripe for rage and sarcasm. With jingoism and belligerence all around us today, Brinsley Schwarz’s entreaty seems even quainter. But why? What is so funny about peace?

In 1931, the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, a branch of the League of Nations, solicited exchanges on the world’s pressing problems from a variety of thinkers. Albert Einstein was enlisted, and in July 1932, he contacted Sigmund Freud and proposed that the two tackle the question, “Why War?”

The two men had met once before. During the winter of 1926, the Viennese psychoanalyst traveled to Berlin to visit his son, Ernst. Einstein and his wife, Elsa Löwenthal, paid them a visit. Freud later quipped that their two-hour discussion was excellent, since he knew no physics and Einstein knew no psychology.

Six years later, both faced a darkening horizon. As they contemplated the causes of war, they had to wonder whether they would become its prey. Despite his Swiss citizenship, Einstein possessed no illusions. With the Nazi takeover of Germany a year later, he sailed across the Atlantic. Meanwhile, an ill, 76-year-old Freud clung to what he admitted might be “rationalizations.” He assured one ally that despite the rise of Hitler, Vienna’s Jews were safe, thanks to a negotiated treaty on minority rights that, if breached, required the League of Nations to intervene. As for Austria’s being swallowed whole by the Nazis, the French would “never allow” it. Such were the illusions that sustained the psychoanalyst when he received Einstein’s request to take up the riddle, “Why War?”

Einstein’s question was a bit ridiculous. Explain “war” in a short letter? Did the physicist expect the psychoanalyst to have a rule, an equation, some one-stop answer on the subject? Freud was not thrilled by the request. The often-marginalized founder of psychoanalysis enjoyed his association with the wild-haired theorizer of special and general relativity, but the vastness of the question and the epistolary format seemed like a recipe for disaster. Still, he didn’t want to turn Einstein down. A year later, their letters appeared in German, French, and English (translated by Stuart Gilbert), though tellingly, the pamphlet was barred from distribution in Germany.

In many ways, the dialogue between the two men highlighted their differences. Not particularly interested in depth psychology, Einstein was a moralist, a democratic socialist, and a dedicated pacifist. He had come to this last position after being disgusted by the whipped-up martial fervor in Germany prior to World War I. At that time, the 35-year-old physicist tried to rally opposition to the Kriegmenschen, who confidently touted the use of brute power as necessary and virtuous. In the 1930s, as the trumpets of war blared again, Einstein took up his pen for the cause of disarmament and building an antiwar coalition.

In his letter to Freud, Einstein focused on the troubles of nationalism. During the 19th century, modern, secular European states—shorn of the bonds once solidified by Crown or Church—struggled to maintain social cohesion. Universal ethical principles did not help to create national bonds. Instead, nations were inclined to define themselves by the shared heritage of their residents and the historical grievances they held toward their neighbors. Highlighting the irrationality of this attitude, the 19th-century press dubbed such bigotry Anglophobia, Francophobia, Germanophobia, or worst of all, xenophobia. The problem got bad enough for fin-de-siècle thinkers such as the Nobel Peace Prize winner Bertha von Suttner, Bertrand Russell, and H. G. Wells to suggest that the sole remedy was some form of supranational...