He served with the Austrian army during World War I as a civilian surgeon and was captured by the Russian Army. When his Nobel Prize was awarded in 1914, Bárány was in a Russian prisoner of war camp. In response to his receiving the prize, Sigmund Freud wrote in 1915: "The granting of the Nobel Prize to Bárány, whom I refused to take as a pupil some years ago because he seemed to be too abnormal, has aroused sad thoughts about how helpless an individual is about gaining the respect of the crowd." Bárány was released from the prisoner of war camp in 1916 following diplomatic negotiations with Russia conducted by Prince Carl of Sweden and the Red Cross. He was then able to attend the Nobel Prize awards ceremony in 1916, where he was awarded his prize. Virtually as soon as he was awarded the Nobel Prize, in January 1917, he, with the automatic qualification for making such proposals that comes with being a Prize Winner, proposed to the Nobel Committee in Physiology or Medicine that Sigmund Freud should be awarded the Prize. From 1917 until his death he was professor at Uppsala University Faculty of Medicine.