An Among Us Christmas

Chapter 1: In The Home Of My Parents

 IT HAS turned out fortunate for me to-day that destiny appointed Braunau-on-the-Innto be my birthplace. For that little town is situated just on the frontier between thosetwo States the reunion of which seems, at least to us of the younger generation, a task towhich we should devote our lives and in the pursuit of which every possible meansshould be employed.German-Austria must be restored to the great German Motherland. And not indeed onany grounds of economic calculation whatsoever. No, no. Even if the union were amatter of economic indifference, and even if it were to be disadvantageous from theeconomic standpoint, still it ought to take place. People of the same blood should be inthe same REICH. The German people will have no right to engage in a colonial policyuntil they shall have brought all their children together in the one State. When theterritory of the REICH embraces all the Germans and finds itself unable to assure thema livelihood, only then can the moral right arise, from the need of the people to acquireforeign territory. The plough is then the sword; and the tears of war will produce thedaily bread for the generations to come.And so this little frontier town appeared to me as the symbol of a great task. But inanother regard also it points to a lesson that is applicable to our day. Over a hundredyears ago this sequestered spot was the scene of a tragic calamity which affected thewhole German nation and will be remembered for ever, at least in the annals of Germanhistory. At the time of our Fatherland's deepest humiliation a bookseller, JohannesPalm, uncompromising nationalist and enemy of the French, was put to death herebecause he had the misfortune to have loved Germany well. He obstinately refused todisclose the names of his associates, or rather the principals who were chieflyresponsible for the affair. Just as it happened with Leo Schlageter. The former, like thelatter, was denounced to the French by a Government agent. It was a director of policefrom Augsburg who won an ignoble renown on that occasion and set the examplewhich was to be copied at a later date by the neo-German officials of the REICH underHerr Severing's regime (Note 1).In this little town on the Inn, haloed by the memory of a German martyr, a town thatwas Bavarian by blood but under the rule of the Austrian State, my parents were domiciled towards the end of the last century. My father was a civil servant whofulfilled his duties very conscientiously. My mother looked after the household andlovingly devoted herself to the care of her children. From that period I have not retainedvery much in my memory; because after a few years my father had to leave that frontiertown which I had come to love so much and take up a new post farther down the Innvalley, at Passau, therefore actually in Germany itself.In those days it was the usual lot of an Austrian civil servant to be transferredperiodically from one post to another. Not long after coming to Passau my father wastransferred to Linz, and while there he retired finally to live on his pension. But this didnot mean that the old gentleman would now rest from his labours.He was the son of a poor cottager, and while still a boy he grew restless and left home.When he was barely thirteen years old he buckled on his satchel and set forth from hisnative woodland parish. Despite the dissuasion of villagers who could speak from'experience,' he went to Vienna to learn a trade there. This was in the fiftieth year of thelast century. It was a sore trial, that of deciding to leave home and face the unknown,with three gulden in his pocket. By when the boy of thirteen was a lad of seventeen andhad passed his apprenticeship examination as a craftsman he was not content. Quite thecontrary. The persistent economic depression of that period and the constant want andmisery strengthened his resolution to give up working at a trade and strive for'something higher.' As a boy it had seemed to him that the position of the parish priestin his native village was the highest in the scale of human attainment; but now that thebig city had enlarged his outlook the young man looked up to the dignity of a Stateofficial as the highest of all. With the tenacity of one whom misery and trouble hadalready made old when only half-way through his youth the young man of seventeenobstinately set out on his new project and stuck to it until he won through. He became acivil servant. He was about twenty-three years old, I think, when he succeeded inmaking himself what he had resolved to become. Thus he was able to fulfil the promisehe had made as a poor boy not to return to his native village until he was 'somebody.'He had gained his end. But in the village there was nobody who had remembered himas a little boy, and the village itself had become strange to him.Now at last, when he was fifty-six years old, he gave up his active career; but he couldnot bear to be idle for a single day. On the outskirts of the small market town ofLambach in Upper Austria he bought a farm and tilled it himself. Thus, at the end of along and hard-working career, he came back to the life which his father had led.It was at this period that I first began to have ideals of my own. I spent a good deal oftime scampering about in the open, on the long road from school, and mixing up withsome of the roughest of the boys, which caused my mother many anxious moments. Allthis tended to make me something quite the reverse of a stay-at-home. I gave scarcely any serious thought to the question of choosing a vocation in life; but I was certainlyquite out of sympathy with the kind of career which my father had followed. I thinkthat an inborn talent for speaking now began to develop and take shape during themore or less strenuous arguments which I used to have with my comrades. I hadbecome a juvenile ringleader who learned well and easily at school but was ratherdifficult to manage. In my freetime I practised singing in the choir of the monasterychurch at Lambach, and thus it happened that I was placed in a very favourableposition to be emotionally impressed again and again by the magnificent splendour ofecclesiastical ceremonial. What could be more natural for me than to look upon theAbbot as representing the highest human ideal worth striving for, just as the position ofthe humble village priest had appeared to my father in his own boyhood days? At least,that was my idea for a while. But the juvenile disputes I had with my father did not leadhim to appreciate his son's oratorical gifts in such a way as to see in them a favourablepromise for such a career, and so he naturally could not understand the boyish ideas Ihad in my head at that time. This contradiction in my character made him feelsomewhat anxious.As a matter of fact, that transitory yearning after such a vocation soon gave way tohopes that were better suited to my temperament. Browsing through my father's books,I chanced to come across some publications that dealt with military subjects. One ofthese publications was a popular history of the Franco-German War of 1870-71. Itconsisted of two volumes of an illustrated periodical dating from those years. Thesebecame my favourite reading. In a little while that great and heroic conflict began totake first place in my mind. And from that time onwards I became more and moreenthusiastic about everything that was in any way connected with war or militaryaffairs.But this story of the Franco-German War had a special significance for me on othergrounds also. For the first time, and as yet only in quite a vague way, the questionbegan to present itself: Is there a difference--and if there be, what is it--between theGermans who fought that war and the other Germans? Why did not Austria also takepart in it? Why did not my father and all the others fight in that struggle? Are we notthe same as the other Germans? Do we not all belong together?That was the first time that this problem began to agitate my small brain. And from thereplies that were given to the questions which I asked very tentatively, I was forced toaccept the fact, though with a secret envy, that not all Germans had the good luck tobelong to Bismarck's Empire. This was something that I could not understand.It was decided that I should study. Considering my character as a whole, and especiallymy temperament, my father decided that the classical subjects studied at the Lyceumwere not suited to my natural talents. He thought that the REALSCHULE (Note 2)would suit me better. My obvious talent for drawing confirmed him in that view; for in his opinion drawing was a subject too much neglected in the Austrian GYMNASIUM.Probably also the memory of the hard road which he himself had travelled contributedto make him look upon classical studies as unpractical and accordingly to set little valueon them. At the back of his mind he had the idea that his son also should become anofficial of the Government. Indeed he had decided on that career for me. The difficultiesthrough which he had to struggle in making his own career led him to overestimatewhat he had achieved, because this was exclusively the result of his own indefatigableindustry and energy. The characteristic pride of the self-made man urged him towardsthe idea that his son should follow the same calling and if possible rise to a higherposition in it. Moreover, this idea was strengthened by the consideration that the resultsof his own life's industry had placed him in a position to facilitate his son'sadvancement in the same career.He was simply incapable of imagining that I might reject what had meant everything inlife to him. My father's decision was simple, definite, clear and, in his eyes, it wassomething to be taken for granted. A man of such a nature who had become an autocratby reason of his own hard struggle for existence, could not think of allowing'inexperienced' and irresponsible young fellows to choose their own careers. To act insuch a way, where the future of his own son was concerned, would have been a graveand reprehensible weakness in the exercise of parental authority and responsibility,something utterly incompatible with his characteristic sense of duty.And yet it had to be otherwise.For the first time in my life--I was then eleven years old--I felt myself forced into openopposition. No matter how hard and determined my father might be about putting hisown plans and opinions into action, his son was no less obstinate in refusing to acceptideas on which he set little or no value.I would not become a civil servant.No amount of persuasion and no amount of 'grave' warnings could break down thatopposition. I would not become a State official, not on any account. All the attemptswhich my father made to arouse in me a love or liking for that profession, by picturinghis own career for me, had only the opposite effect. It nauseated me to think that oneday I might be fettered to an office stool, that I could not dispose of my own time butwould be forced to spend the whole of my life filling out forms.One can imagine what kind of thoughts such a prospect awakened in the mind of ayoung fellow who was by no means what is called a 'good boy' in the current sense ofthat term. The ridiculously easy school tasks which we were given made it possible forme to spend far more time in the open air than at home. To-day, when my politicalopponents pry into my life with diligent scrutiny, as far back as the days of my boyhood, so as finally to be able to prove what disreputable tricks this Hitler wasaccustomed to in his young days, I thank heaven that I can look back to those happydays and find the memory of them helpful. The fields and the woods were then theterrain on which all disputes were fought out.Even attendance at the REALSCHULE could not alter my way of spending my time. ButI had now another battle to fight.So long as the paternal plan to make a State functionary contradicted my owninclinations only in the abstract, the conflict was easy to bear. I could be discreet aboutexpressing my personal views and thus avoid constantly recurrent disputes. My ownresolution not to become a Government official was sufficient for the time being to putmy mind completely at rest. I held on to that resolution inexorably. But the situationbecame more difficult once I had a positive plan of my own which I might present tomy father as a counter-suggestion. This happened when I was twelve years old. How itcame about I cannot exactly say now; but one day it became clear to me that I would bea painter--I mean an artist. That I had an aptitude for drawing was an admitted fact. Itwas even one of the reasons why my father had sent me to the REALSCHULE; but hehad never thought of having that talent developed in such a way that I could take uppainting as a professional career. Quite the contrary. When, as a result of my renewedrefusal to adopt his favourite plan, my father asked me for the first time what I myselfreally wished to be, the resolution that I had already formed expressed itself almostautomatically. For a while my father was speechless. "A painter? An artist-painter?" heexclaimed.He wondered whether I was in a sound state of mind. He thought that he might nothave caught my words rightly, or that he had misunderstood what I meant. But when Ihad explained my ideas to him and he saw how seriously I took them, he opposed themwith that full determination which was characteristic of him. His decision wasexceedingly simple and could not be deflected from its course by any consideration ofwhat my own natural qualifications really were."Artist! Not as long as I live, never." As the son had inherited some of the father'sobstinacy, besides having other qualities of his own, my reply was equally energetic.But it stated something quite the contrary.At that our struggle became stalemate. The father would not abandon his 'Never', and Ibecame all the more consolidated in my 'Nevertheless'.Naturally the resulting situation was not pleasant. The old gentleman was bitterlyannoyed; and indeed so was I, although I really loved him. My father forbade me toentertain any hopes of taking up the art of painting as a profession. I went a step furtherand declared that I would not study anything else. With such declarations the situation became still more strained, so that the old gentleman irrevocably decided to assert hisparental authority at all costs. That led me to adopt an attitude of circumspect silence,but I put my threat into execution. I thought that, once it became clear to my father thatI was making no progress at the REALSCHULE, for weal or for woe, he would beforced to allow me to follow the happy career I had dreamed of.I do not know whether I calculated rightly or not. Certainly my failure to make progressbecame quite visible in the school. I studied just the subjects that appealed to me,especially those which I thought might be of advantage to me later on as a painter.What did not appear to have any importance from this point of view, or what did nototherwise appeal to me favourably, I completely sabotaged. My school reports of thattime were always in the extremes of good or bad, according to the subject and theinterest it had for me. In one column my qualification read 'very good' or 'excellent'. Inanother it read 'average' or even 'below average'. By far my best subjects weregeography and, even more so, general history. These were my two favourite subjects,and I led the class in them.When I look back over so many years and try to judge the results of that experience Ifind two very significant facts standing out clearly before my mind.First, I became a nationalist.Second, I learned to understand and grasp the true meaning of history.The old Austria was a multi-national State. In those days at least the citizens of theGerman Empire, taken through and through, could not understand what that factmeant in the everyday life of the individuals within such a State. After the magnificenttriumphant march of the victorious armies in the Franco-German War the Germans inthe REICH became steadily more and more estranged from the Germans beyond theirfrontiers, partly because they did not deign to appreciate those other Germans at theirtrue value or simply because they were incapable of doing so.The Germans of the REICH did not realize that if the Germans in Austria had not beenof the best racial stock they could never have given the stamp of their own character toan Empire of 52 millions, so definitely that in Germany itself the idea arose--thoughquite an erroneous one--that Austria was a German State. That was an error which ledto dire consequences; but all the same it was a magnificent testimony to the character ofthe ten million Germans in that East Mark. (Note 3) Only very few of the Germans inthe REICH itself had an idea of the bitter struggle which those Eastern Germans had tocarry on daily for the preservation of their German language, their German schools andtheir German character. Only to-day, when a tragic fate has torn several millions of ourkinsfolk away from the REICH and has forced them to live under the rule of thestranger, dreaming of that common fatherland towards which all their yearnings are directed and struggling to uphold at least the sacred right of using their mother tongue--only now have the wider circles of the German population come to realize what itmeans to have to fight for the traditions of one's race. And so at last perhaps there arepeople here and there who can assess the greatness of that German spirit whichanimated the old East Mark and enabled those people, left entirely dependent on theirown resources, to defend the Empire against the Orient for several centuries andsubsequently to hold fast the frontiers of the German language through a guerillawarfare of attrition, at a time when the German Empire was sedulously cultivating aninterest for colonies but not for its own flesh and blood before the threshold of its owndoor.What has happened always and everywhere, in every kind of struggle, happened alsoin the language fight which was carried on in the old Austria. There were three groups--the fighters, the hedgers and the traitors. Even in the schools this sifting already beganto take place. And it is worth noting that the struggle for the language was wagedperhaps in its bitterest form around the school; because this was the nursery where theseeds had to be watered which were to spring up and form the future generation. Thetactical objective of the fight was the winning over of the child, and it was to the childthat the first rallying cry was addressed:"German youth, do not forget that you are a German," and "Remember, little girl, thatone day you must be a German mother."Those who know something of the juvenile spirit can understand how youth willalways lend a glad ear to such a rallying cry. Under many forms the young people ledthe struggle, fighting in their own way and with their own weapons. They refused tosing non-German songs. The greater the efforts made to win them away from theirGerman allegiance, the more they exalted the glory of their German heroes. Theystinted themselves in buying things to eat, so that they might spare their pennies to helpthe war chest of their elders. They were incredibly alert in the significance of what thenon-German teachers said and they contradicted in unison. They wore the forbiddenemblems of their own kinsfolk and were happy when penalised for doing so, or evenphysically punished. In miniature they were mirrors of loyalty from which the olderpeople might learn a lesson.And thus it was that at a comparatively early age I took part in the struggle which thenationalities were waging against one another in the old Austria. When meetings wereheld for the South Mark German League and the School League we wore cornflowersand black-red-gold colours to express our loyalty. We greeted one another with HEIL!and instead of the Austrian anthem we sang our own DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES,despite warnings and penalties. Thus the youth were educated politically at a timewhen the citizens of a so-called national State for the most part knew little of their ownnationality except the language. Of course, I did not belong to the hedgers. Within a little while I had become an ardent 'German National', which has a different meaningfrom the party significance attached to that phrase to-day.I developed very rapidly in the nationalist direction, and by the time I was 15 years oldI had come to understand the distinction between dynastic patriotism and nationalismbased on the concept of folk, or people, my inclination being entirely in favour of thelatter.Such a preference may not perhaps be clearly intelligible to those who have never takenthe trouble to study the internal conditions that prevailed under the HabsburgMonarchy.Among historical studies universal history was the subject almost exclusively taught inthe Austrian schools, for of specific Austrian history there was only very little. The fateof this State was closely bound up with the existence and development of Germany as awhole; so a division of history into German history and Austrian history would bepractically inconceivable. And indeed it was only when the German people came to bedivided between two States that this division of German history began to take place.The insignia (Note 4) of a former imperial sovereignty which were still preserved inVienna appeared to act as magical relics rather than as the visible guarantee of aneverlasting bond of union.When the Habsburg State crumbled to pieces in 1918 the Austrian Germansinstinctively raised an outcry for union with their German fatherland. That was thevoice of a unanimous yearning in the hearts of the whole people for a return to theunforgotten home of their fathers. But such a general yearning could not be explainedexcept by attributing the cause of it to the historical training through which theindividual Austrian Germans had passed. Therein lay a spring that never dried up.Especially in times of distraction and forgetfulness its quiet voice was a reminder of thepast, bidding the people to look out beyond the mere welfare of the moment to a newfuture.The teaching of universal history in what are called the middle schools is still veryunsatisfactory. Few teachers realize that the purpose of teaching history is not thememorizing of some dates and facts, that the student is not interested in knowing theexact date of a battle or the birthday of some marshal or other, and not at all--or at leastonly very insignificantly--interested in knowing when the crown of his fathers wasplaced on the brow of some monarch. These are certainly not looked upon as importantmatters. To study history means to search for and discover the forces that are the causes of thoseresults which appear before our eyes as historical events. The art of reading andstudying consists in remembering the essentials and forgetting what is not essential.Probably my whole future life was determined by the fact that I had a professor ofhistory who understood, as few others understand, how to make this viewpoint prevailin teaching and in examining. This teacher was Dr. Leopold Poetsch, of theREALSCHULE at Linz. He was the ideal personification of the qualities necessary to ateacher of history in the sense I have mentioned above. An elderly gentleman with adecisive manner but a kindly heart, he was a very attractive speaker and was able toinspire us with his own enthusiasm. Even to-day I cannot recall without emotion thatvenerable personality whose enthusiastic exposition of history so often made us entirelyforget the present and allow ourselves to be transported as if by magic into the past. Hepenetrated through the dim mist of thousands of years and transformed the historicalmemory of the dead past into a living reality. When we listened to him we became afirewith enthusiasm and we were sometimes moved even to tears.It was still more fortunate that this professor was able not only to illustrate the past byexamples from the present but from the past he was also able to draw a lesson for thepresent. He understood better than any other the everyday problems that were thenagitating our minds. The national fervour which we felt in our own small way wasutilized by him as an instrument of our education, inasmuch as he often appealed to ournational sense of honour; for in that way he maintained order and held our attentionmuch more easily than he could have done by any other means. It was because I hadsuch a professor that history became my favourite subject. As a natural consequence,but without the conscious connivance of my professor, I then and there became a youngrebel. But who could have studied German history under such a teacher and notbecome an enemy of that State whose rulers exercised such a disastrous influence on thedestinies of the German nation? Finally, how could one remain the faithful subject ofthe House of Habsburg, whose past history and present conduct proved it to be readyever and always to betray the interests of the German people for the sake of paltrypersonal interests? Did not we as youngsters fully realize that the House of Habsburgdid not, and could not, have any love for us Germans?What history taught us about the policy followed by the House of Habsburg wascorroborated by our own everyday experiences. In the north and in the south the poisonof foreign races was eating into the body of our people, and even Vienna was steadilybecoming more and more a non-German city. The 'Imperial House' favoured the Czechson every possible occasion. Indeed it was the hand of the goddess of eternal justice andinexorable retribution that caused the most deadly enemy of Germanism in Austria, theArchduke Franz Ferdinand, to fall by the very bullets which he himself had helped tocast. Working from above downwards, he was the chief patron of the movement tomake Austria a Slav State. The burdens laid on the shoulders of the German people were enormous and thesacrifices of money and blood which they had to make were incredibly heavy.Yet anybody who was not quite blind must have seen that it was all in vain. Whataffected us most bitterly was the consciousness of the fact that this whole system wasmorally shielded by the alliance with Germany, whereby the slow extirpation ofGermanism in the old Austrian Monarchy seemed in some way to be more or lesssanctioned by Germany herself. Habsburg hypocrisy, which endeavoured outwardly tomake the people believe that Austria still remained a German State, increased thefeeling of hatred against the Imperial House and at the same time aroused a spirit ofrebellion and contempt.But in the German Empire itself those who were then its rulers saw nothing of what allthis meant. As if struck blind, they stood beside a corpse and in the very symptoms ofdecomposition they believed that they recognized the signs of a renewed vitality. Inthat unhappy alliance between the young German Empire and the illusory AustrianState lay the germ of the World War and also of the final collapse.In the subsequent pages of this book I shall go to the root of the problem. Suffice it tosay here that in the very early years of my youth I came to certain conclusions which Ihave never abandoned. Indeed I became more profoundly convinced of them as theyears passed. They were: That the dissolution of the Austrian Empire is a preliminarycondition for the defence of Germany; further, that national feeling is by no meansidentical with dynastic patriotism; finally, and above all, that the House of Habsburgwas destined to bring misfortune to the German nation.As a logical consequence of these convictions, there arose in me a feeling of intense lovefor my German-Austrian home and a profound hatred for the Austrian State.That kind of historical thinking which was developed in me through my study ofhistory at school never left me afterwards. World history became more and more aninexhaustible source for the understanding of contemporary historical events, whichmeans politics. Therefore I will not "learn" politics but let politics teach me.A precocious revolutionary in politics I was no less a precocious revolutionary in art. Atthat time the provincial capital of Upper Austria had a theatre which, relativelyspeaking, was not bad. Almost everything was played there. When I was twelve yearsold I saw William Tell performed. That was my first experience of the theatre. Somemonths later I attended a performance of LOHENGRIN, the first opera I had everheard. I was fascinated at once. My youthful enthusiasm for the Bayreuth Master knewno limits. Again and again I was drawn to hear his operas; and to-day I consider it a great piece of luck that these modest productions in the little provincial city preparedthe way and made it possible for me to appreciate the better productions later on.But all this helped to intensify my profound aversion for the career that my father hadchosen for me; and this dislike became especially strong as the rough corners ofyouthful boorishness became worn off, a process which in my case caused a good dealof pain. I became more and more convinced that I should never be happy as a Stateofficial. And now that the REALSCHULE had recognized and acknowledged myaptitude for drawing, my own resolution became all the stronger. Imprecations andthreats had no longer any chance of changing it. I wanted to become a painter and nopower in the world could force me to become a civil servant. The only peculiar featureof the situation now was that as I grew bigger I became more and more interested inarchitecture. I considered this fact as a natural development of my flair for painting andI rejoiced inwardly that the sphere of my artistic interests was thus enlarged. I had nonotion that one day it would have to be otherwise.The question of my career was decided much sooner than I could have expected.When I was in my thirteenth year my father was suddenly taken from us. He was stillin robust health when a stroke of apoplexy painlessly ended his earthly wanderings andleft us all deeply bereaved. His most ardent longing was to be able to help his son toadvance in a career and thus save me from the harsh ordeal that he himself had to gothrough. But it appeared to him then as if that longing were all in vain. And yet, thoughhe himself was not conscious of it, he had sown the seeds of a future which neither of usforesaw at that time.At first nothing changed outwardly.My mother felt it her duty to continue my education in accordance with my father'swishes, which meant that she would have me study for the civil service. For my ownpart I was even more firmly determined than ever before that under no circumstanceswould I become an official of the State. The curriculum and teaching methods followedin the middle school were so far removed from my ideals that I became profoundlyindifferent. Illness suddenly came to my assistance. Within a few weeks it decided myfuture and put an end to the long-standing family conflict. My lungs became soseriously affected that the doctor advised my mother very strongly not under anycircumstances to allow me to take up a career which would necessitate working in anoffice. He ordered that I should give up attendance at the REALSCHULE for a year atleast. What I had secretly desired for such a long time, and had persistently fought for,now became a reality almost at one stroke.Influenced by my illness, my mother agreed that I should leave the REALSCHULE andattend the Academy. Those were happy days, which appeared to me almost as a dream; but they were boundto remain only a dream. Two years later my mother's death put a brutal end to all myfine projects. She succumbed to a long and painful illness which from the verybeginning permitted little hope of recovery. Though expected, her death came as aterrible blow to me. I respected my father, but I loved my mother.Poverty and stern reality forced me to decide promptly.The meagre resources of the family had been almost entirely used up through mymother's severe illness. The allowance which came to me as an orphan was not enoughfor the bare necessities of life. Somehow or other I would have to earn my own bread.With my clothes and linen packed in a valise and with an indomitable resolution in myheart, I left for Vienna. I hoped to forestall fate, as my father had done fifty years before.I was determined to become 'something'--but certainly not a civil servant.