Suicide of Dr. Max Kahane (1866-1923)

As Freud rightly pointed out, in his last book about Moses, published in the last year of his life, in 1939,  allegedly talking about text forgeries that a murder is easy to commit but hard to hide. Thus, Freud - an accomplished murderer -  after all he was never caught - explained that, the difficulty lies not in the execution of the deed but in the doing away with the traces. (1) Once can only agree. So, how do you do away with the traces? How about hiding the murder in plain sight? You don't remove the traces, rather you make the murder look like a suicide. Staged suicide is nothing new. And, if there are no apparent motives, and suspects, the police with write off a staged murder as a suicide. This is what was Freud's ingenious method. Staged suicides, and it worked like a charm. As is often the case with psychopaths, Freud was a very cunning individual.

Detrimental sexuality

In 1912, in his book, On the Therapy of Nervous Diseases) (1912), Kahane warned against - like Freud - overemphasising sexuality under the guise of a scientific presentation. According to him, this kind of attitude was detrimental to culture, and against marriage and procreation. As he pointed out, the emphasis on sexuality both in literature and art was a clear symptom of decline. Without realising it, Kahane was playing with fire. No wonder, the day came when he was badly burned. Contradicting Freud and his doctrines was a recipe for a disaster

Rejections

In his book, Sadger was no less ironic than Kahane, when talking about Freud. As he explained:
This genius had … the invaluable capacity of being able to completely forget entirely unpleasant matters. These include the fact that he started from such small beginnings, that the three who first attended his lectures had to be drummed up with great difficulty … by one of them [Kahane] with whom he would later have a falling out. (9).
As Stekel recounted, Until 1907 Max Kahane took part in the Wednesday evenings. But then there was a break with Freud and Kahane stayed away from the evenings.  This is how Stekel explained why the estrangement happened: the break between friends Freud and Kahane had come about because Kahane could not cope with the often indignant way in which Freud dealt with his friends. (10)
Sadger claims that, in 1908, Freud temporarily dissolved the Wednesday society, to get rid of Dr. Kahane, even though it was Kahane who helped Freud to find followers at the beginning of his psychoanalytic career. But gratitude was never Freud’s strength. In this way, Sadger believed, Freud was trying to cover up his less-than-remarkable past. Thus, Kahane’s crime was just that he had known the great man while he was still a little secondary school student, that is to say, while still in his tattered boots. (11)
Kahane wasn't the only one Freud got rid of in one way or another. As Sadger writes, It is really amazing how many teachers and former students Freud broke off relations with over the years after they had been so close to him for a short or long period of time.
Some of them left, some of them - mainly, the ones that didn't want to leave - died, allegedly by suicide. 

Freud, a severely ill mental patient

This is how Sadger explained Freud’s bizarre behaviour towards other people:
As is the case with severely ill mental patients, he did not allow his ego to establish any permanent or long-lasting relationships, unless such a relationship was with people who lived far away and who willingly acquiesced to everything. (12)
Thus, unlike the rest of the world, already early on, Sadger realised that Freud was insane, On the other hand, it appears that Sadger never realised the full extent of Freud’s murderous insanity.
(8) Falzeder, Ernest, Psychoanalytic filiations: Mapping the Psychoanalytic Movement, (2015, p. 114).
(9) Sadger, Isidor, Recollecting Freud, (2005, p. 9).
(10) Wilhelm Stekel, On the history of the analytical movement, in: Wilhelm Stekel (Ed.), Advances in Sexual Science and Psychoanalysis. Vol. II, Vienna and Leipzig, (1926): 539-575, p. 570.
(11) Sadger, (2005, pp. 43-44).
(12) Sadger, (2005, p. 34).

Alleged suicide

Unexpectedly, in 1923, for unknown reasons, on the same day as yet another of Freud's former followers, Silberer, Kahane allegedly committed suicide. As Freud's Italian follower, Weiss recounted, Max Kahane also came to a bad end, although by then he no longer was coming to the Society; he committed suicide in 1923. (13) This is what everyone believed.
He wasn't the only one who, once they stopped coming to Freud's meetings, Freud's former disciples died under suspicious circumstances. It was a common occurrence. 
Notably, an uncanny coincidence - If one believes in coincidences - there were two, consecutive suicides, Silberer on the 12th and Max Kahane on the 11th. According to Felix Deutsch, ... Kahane had slit his … wrist. (14)
One odd thing is the order in which the alleged suicides are presented. As a matter of course, the tragic events should have been presented in chronological order. Why they weren't is an unanswered question.
There’s yet another, more detailed, version of Felix’s statement in the letter to his wife, Helena, in which he informed her that, among the doctors there has been yet another suicide. Dr. Kahane, the electrotherapist, who once also belonged to the society, slit his Radialis - supposedly because of neediness. I knew him well - an elderly rather eccentric gentleman. Curiously, Felix added an odd remark: I’m curious as to how Prof [Freud], takes these things. (15)
Knowing Freud's reaction to other suicides, as reported by Kardiner, Freud would have taken the death of his former disciples and opponents with glee; even more so, if he was their murderer.
 

Freudulent explanation

Notably, the explanations of the motives for Kahane’s suicide differ. Thus, a more recent Freud biographer, Roudinesco, without specifying the source of this information, bizarrely claimed that, ruined by the defeat of the Central powers, Kahane committed suicide by slashing his wrists. (16)
Why this a bizarre claim? WWI ended in 1928, thus five years earlier. So, it took Kahane that long to realise that the war was lost? As always, when a Freud "apologist" provides an absurd explanation, one can be assured that "da ist der hund begraben", or that something is amiss.
A case in point:  Roudinesco is both a historian and psychoanalyst. Like Freud, she is Jewish, a daughter of a renowned psychoanalyst. Thus, she's having skin in the game.
Neither explanation sounds true. Just like Tausk, both Silberer and Kahane were critical of Freud, and, thus, perceived by him, as his adversaries. Freud didn’t tolerate dissent, taking any steps necessary to protect his prestige and his "science", if need be by murder.

Consecutive deaths

The two alleged suicides of Freud’s estranged disciples, within two days, or rather on the same day – the news of Silberer’s suicide was published already on the 12th, thus he must have died the day earlier (see the page about killing Silberer) - are suspicious. Unfortunately, unlike in Tausk’s and Silberer’s case, there are no extant details of Kahane’s death.
Was Kahane, like Silberer, murdered by Freud?  Considering Freud’s murderous nature, it is only natural to question the incidence of two consecutive suicides of Freud's opponents. What is the chance of this kind of rare event happening in tandem to two people that close to Freud?
On the other hand, if Freud was on a killing spree, from the point of view of a murderous maniac, as it were, killing two birds with one stone, makes lots of sense.

The eleventh, a propitious day for murder?

Was the choice of the eleventh day of the month for the murders accidental? It is hardly a coincidence that both Kahane and Silberer died on the same day, the eleventh. It is not a secret that Freud was a numerologist, living his life by numbers, as recounted in his letters to Fliess.
So, what is the numerological significance of the number eleven, in Hebrew ? Eleven relates to the distinction between, the spirit of anti-messiah and the Messiah, thus between remaining in rebellion or submitting to the King of kings. (17)
If we translate this into the Freudian situation, we have two former disciples rebelling against their Messiah, Freud. According to the Torah, Joseph was the eleventh son born to Jacob, and is a type of the Messiah, and Joseph was called the “master of dreams". (17)
Now, we see here a clear parallel to Freud; also he was born to Jacob - although as the first son rather than the eleventh. Did Freud also believe that he was Joseph? Absolutely. As he explained in the dream book, the name Josef plays a great part in my dreams ...  My own ego finds it very easy to hide itself behind people of that name, sińce Joseph was the name of a man famous in the Bibie as an interpreter of dreams. (18)
And if Freud aka Joseph was the Messiah and the rebelling disciples were anti-messiahs, in his madness, wouldn't Freud feel justified in killing the rebelling followers?

An elephant never forgets, and never forgives

Thus, the picture is complete, Freud was a severely ill mental (12) case, an extreme hater (19), with a strong sadistic disposition. (19)
Would that kind of person hesitate to get rid of his “enemies” in any way possible?
It was eleven years since Freud and Kahane parted their ways. Could Freud have harboured grudges for that long?
If he could, as he claimed, recall events from his earliest childhood, he would certainly not have forgotten Kahane’s continuous barbs directed at his person. Most certainly, Freud wouldn’t have forgiven the past slights. No doubt, Freud wasn't a forgiving type.
N.B. Freud was a cocaine addict and cocaine is an addictive drug that produces numerous psychiatric symptoms, syndromes, and disorders. The symptoms include agitation, paranoia, hallucinations, delusions, and violence, as well as suicidal and homicidal thinking.  Freud suffered from all of those symptoms.
Did Freud kill Kahane? Considering their animosity, as well as Freud's murderous nature  - a deadly combination - and the odd timing of both deaths - it is not improbable that both Kahane, and Silberer, died by Freud's hand, on the same day; both deaths staged as suicides.
(13) Roazen, Paul, Edoardo Weiss: the house that Freud built. (2005, p. 125).
(14) Dufresne, Todd, The Late Sigmund Freud: Or, The Last Word on Psychoanalysis, (2017, p. 219).
(15) Roazen, Paul, Helene Deutsch, a psychoanalyst's life, (1985, p. 209).
(16) Roudinesco, Elizabeth, Freud: In His Time and Ours, 2016, p. 449).
(17) Gallagher, K. Grace in Torah: Hebrew Numbers 11-30., https://graceintorah.net/2015/09/27/hebrew-numbers-11-30/, 12.11.2024.
(18) SE 4, p. 484.
(19) Sadger, Isidor, Recollecting Freud, (2005, p. 105).