 When Hitler annexed Austria in March 1938 , Reich 's ex @-@ wife and daughters had already left for the United States . Later that year , Theodore P. Wolfe , a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University , traveled to Norway to study under Reich . Wolfe offered to help Reich settle in the States , and managed to arrange an invitation from The New School in New York for Reich to teach a course on " Biological Aspects of Character Formation . " Wolfe and Walter Briehl , a former student of Reich 's , put up $ 5 @,@ 000 to guarantee his visa . Wolfe also pulled strings with Adolph Berle , an official in the State Department . Reich wrote in his diary in May 1939 : 
