The questions that orient in this chapter are: What does Améry find in Sartre in the immediate aftermath of war? Why does Améry so greatly revere Sartre, even in the ensuing decades of Améry’s life when he has clearly broken with him? The chapter charts the influence of Sartre on Améry from the post-war years when Améry enthusiastically embraces Sartre’s philosophy, to the final decade of his life when he declares a split with his master. I begin with an account of Améry’s early, pre-war intellectual development in Austria and his subsequent disillusionment which occurs “at the mind’s limits” in Auschwitz. I argue that Sartre provides Améry with an alternative model of the intellectual in the aftermath of this disillusionment and his philosophy of radical freedom provides a lifeline for Améry who has been stripped of his identity, exiled, and dehumanised. However, the adaptive survival strategy that Améry develops in response to his Sartrean encounter is severely tested in the ensuing decades. By the mid-1960s Sartre’s influence is waning in Améry’s thought. This interpretation is evidenced by two contrasting accounts of Améry’s experience of torture, one written in 1945 and the other in 1965. By the time Améry writes the latter he no longer uncritically accepts Sartre’s notion of freedom and by 1974 Améry announces a break with Sartre.