Maurice Gran, left, and Laurence Marks

IT could have changed the world. An imagined meeting between the father of psychotherapy Sigmund Freud and a young Adolf Hitler is the subject of a play at Highgate Gatehouse Theatre next month. Dr Freud Will See You Now, Mrs Hitler, by former Finsbury Park and multiple Bafta award-winning writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran premieres in London.

The drama imagines Adolf Hitler as a child being taken by his mother to Sigmund Freud for psychiatric treatment. The play will run at the Gatehouse from September 4-28.

It begins in late 19th century Vienna and the production takes inspiration from a referral given by the Hitler family doctor to visit a children’s psychiatric clinic opened by the world-renowned psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.

In reality, Adolf’s father, who beat his son, refused to let his wife take the child for treatment. This poignant new work explores whether the 20th century’s greatest psychoanalyst could have saved humanity from the era’s greatest psychopath.

The Gatehouse’s artistic director Isaac Bernie Doyle directs the play.

Adolf Hitler

Co-writer Laurence Marks said: “Freud would have hated war and would have tried to get into the psyche of people who started it. He would have investigated what it was that made people support war, their childhood and what made them the autocrats that they became.

“Few academics were able to help explain Hitler’s background.”

Laurence added that the play was a result of many years of studious reading about the issue.

“Then it suddenly occurred to us that it was possible that two of the most prominent German-speaking figures of the 20th century could have met one another on four occasions, when they were in the same place at the same time. Our curiosity was such as to imagine what might have happened had they done so… and when we came to that conclusion, we thought a stage play was brewing.”

This is a work of the imagination, Laurence said, but the line in the play, said by Freud – “It’s fascinating how, as modern life becomes more complex, the masses look to their leaders for ever more simple solutions” – really resonates with what is happening today with war in many parts of the world.

“We must never forget at this very moment in history the impact Freud and Hitler had on our lives, even if they are on the horizon of our memories. Would today’s world have been a vastly different place had the two men really met?”

Maurice Gran said that like all Jewish kids growing up in the 1950s, he was very conscious of the Holocaust. “Of course, we may not have come into the world if Hitler had invaded Britain.”

Sigmund Freud

He added: “Most Jewish families either lost or knew people who lost loved ones in the death camps of Germany. One of the reasons for writing the Hitler play was to try and understand the mind of the man.

“Even today, with all the terrible things being perpetrated in the world, few atrocities come close to the systematic murder of six million Jews.

“What was particularly extraordinary was that Hitler’s racial ideas could be embraced by a supposedly civilised country.”

Laurence suggests that the play was ideal for Highgate. “Not only did Freud live nearby in Hampstead but the area is now full of psychoanalysts and therapists. There’s also the popular Freud Museum in Maresfield Gardens.”

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, and Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, were contemporaries who lived in Vienna. While they never officially met, their lives intersected in the city and their fates became intertwined as the Nazi regime rose to power.

Freud, a Jewish intellectual, reluctantly fled Vienna to Britain to escape Nazi persecution, while Hitler’s regime targeted and persecuted Jews, including Freud.

Freud lived in Hampstead during the last year of his life. Specifically, he resided at 20 Maresfield Gardens from 1938 until his death in 1939. This house is now the Freud Museum.

• Dr Freud Will See You Now, Mrs Hitler, by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, runs from September 4-28 at Upstairs at the Gatehouse. www.upstairsatthegatehouse.com/