Vaadimme Riikka Purran pysymistä tehtävissään ja työrauhan antamista hänelle.
Allekirjoitukset, joissa on kommentti mukana
#7003
Katuparlamentti on ennenkin yrittänyt vaikuttaa politiikkaan,vain vaalit ratkaiseePertti Pajari (Espoo , 21.07.2023)
#7009
Miten voitte loukata ihmisiä toisen ihmisen nimissä tuomalla loukkaavia asioita uudelleen julkisuuteen.Ilkka Kari (Espoo, 21.07.2023)
#7020
CHAPTER IIN THE HOME OF MY PARENTS
It has turned out fortunate for me to-day that destiny appointed
Braunau-on-the-Inn to be my birthplace. For that little town is situated
just on the frontier between those two States the reunion of which
seems, at least to us of the younger generation, a task to which we
should devote our lives and in the pursuit of which every possible means
should be employed.
German-Austria must be restored to the great German Motherland. And not
indeed on any grounds of economic calculation whatsoever. No, no. Even
if the union were a matter of economic indifference, and even if it were
to be disadvantageous from the economic standpoint, still it ought to
take place. People of the same blood should be in the same REICH. The
German people will have no right to engage in a colonial policy until
they shall have brought all their children together in the one State.
When the territory of the REICH embraces all the Germans and finds
itself unable to assure them a livelihood, only then can the moral right
arise, from the need of the people to acquire foreign territory. The
plough is then the sword; and the tears of war will produce the daily
bread for the generations to come.
And so this little frontier town appeared to me as the symbol of a great
task. But in another regard also it points to a lesson that is
applicable to our day. Over a hundred years ago this sequestered spot
was the scene of a tragic calamity which affected the whole German
nation and will be remembered for ever, at least in the annals of German
history. At the time of our Fatherland's deepest humiliation a
bookseller, Johannes Palm, uncompromising nationalist and enemy of the
French, was put to death here because he had the misfortune to have
loved Germany well. He obstinately refused to disclose the names of his
associates, or rather the principals who were chiefly responsible for
the affair. Just as it happened with Leo Schlageter. The former, like
the latter, was denounced to the French by a Government agent. It was a
director of police from Augsburg who won an ignoble renown on that
occasion and set the example which was to be copied at a later date by
the neo-German officials of the REICH under Herr Severing's
regime (Note 1).
[Note 1. In order to understand the reference here, and similar
references in later portions of MEIN KAMPF, the following must be borne
in mind:
From 1792 to 1814 the French Revolutionary Armies overran Germany. In
1800 Bavaria shared in the Austrian defeat at Hohenlinden and the French
occupied Munich. In 1805 the Bavarian Elector was made King of Bavaria by
Napoleon and stipulated to back up Napoleon in all his wars with a force
of 30,000 men. Thus Bavaria became the absolute vassal of the French.
This was 'TheTime of Germany's Deepest Humiliation', Which is referred
to again and again by Hitler.
In 1806 a pamphlet entitled 'Germany's Deepest Humiliation' was
published in South Germany. Amnng those who helped to circulate the
pamphlet was the Nürnberg bookseller, Johannes Philipp Palm. He was
denounced to the French by a Bavarian police agent. At his trial he
refused to disclose thename of the author. By Napoleon's orders, he was
shot at Braunau-on-the-Innon August 26th, 1806. A monument erected to
him on the site of the executionwas one of the first public objects that
made an impression on Hitler asa little boy.
Leo Schlageter's case was in many respects parallel to that of Johannes
Palm. Schlageter was a German theological student who volunteered for
service in 1914. He became an artillery officer and won the Iron Cross of
both classes. When the French occupied the Ruhr in 1923 Schlageter helped
to organize the passive resistance on the German side. He and his
companions blew up a railway bridge for the purpose of making the
transport of coal to France more difficult.
Those who took part in the affair were denounced to the French by a
German informer. Schlageter took the whole responsibility on his own
shoulders and was condemned to death, his companions being sentenced to
various terms of imprisonment and penal servitude by the French Court.
Schlageter refused to disclose the identity of those who issued the order
to blow up the railway bridge and he would not plead for mercy before a
French Court. He was shot by a French firing-squad on May 26th, 1923.
Severing was at that time German Minister of the Interior. It is said
that representations were made, to himon Schlageter's behalf and that he
refused to interfere.
Schlageter has become the chief martyr of the German resistancc to the
French occupation of the Ruhr and also one of the great heroes of the
National Socialist Movement. He had joined the Movement at a very early
stage, his card of membership bearing the number 61.]
In this little town on the Inn, haloed by the memory of a German martyr,
a town that was 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 who fulfilled his duties very
conscientiously. My mother looked after the household and lovingly
devoted herself to the care of her children. From that period I have not
retained very much in my memory; because after a few years my father had
to leave that frontier town which I had come to love so much and take up
a new post farther down the Inn valley, at Passau, therefore actually in
Germany itself.
In those days it was the usual lot of an Austrian civil servant to be
transferred periodically from one post to another. Not long after coming
to Passau my father was transferred to Linz, and while there he retired
finally to live on his pension. But this did not 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 his native 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 the
last 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 and had passed his apprenticeship
examination as a craftsman he was not content. Quite the contrary. The
persistent economic depression of that period and the constant want and
misery 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 priest in his native village was the highest in
the scale of human attainment; but now that the big city had enlarged
his outlook the young man looked up to the dignity of a State official
as the highest of all. With the tenacity of one whom misery and trouble
had already made old when only half-way through his youth the young man
of seventeen obstinately set out on his new project and stuck to it
until he won through. He became a civil servant. He was about
twenty-three years old, I think, when he succeeded in making himself
what he had resolved to become. Thus he was able to fulfil the promise
he 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 him as 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 could not bear to be idle for a single day. On the
outskirts of the small market town of Lambach in Upper Austria he bought
a farm and tilled it himself. Thus, at the end of a long 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 of time scampering about in the open, on the long road
from school, and mixing up with some of the roughest of the boys, which
caused my mother many anxious moments. All this 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 certainly quite out of sympathy with the kind of career which my
father had followed. I think that an inborn talent for speaking now
began to develop and take shape during the more or less strenuous
arguments which I used to have with my comrades. I had become a juvenile
ringleader who learned well and easily at school but was rather
difficult to manage. In my freetime I practised singing in the choir of
the monastery church at Lambach, and thus it happened that I was placed
in a very favourable position to be emotionally impressed again and
again by the magnificent splendour of ecclesiastical ceremonial. What
could be more natural for me than to look upon the Abbot as representing
the highest human ideal worth striving for, just as the position of the
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 lead him to appreciate his son's oratorical gifts
in such a way as to see in them a favourable promise for such a career,
and so he naturally could not understand the boyish ideas I had in my
head at that time. This contradiction in my character made him feel
somewhat anxious.
As a matter of fact, that transitory yearning after such a vocation soon
gave way to hopes 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 of these publications was a
popular history of the Franco-German War of 1870-71. It consisted of two
volumes of an illustrated periodical dating from those years. These
became my favourite reading. In a little while that great and heroic
conflict began to take first place in my mind. And from that time
onwards I became more and more enthusiastic about everything that was in
any way connected with war or military affairs.
But this story of the Franco-German War had a special significance for
me on other grounds also. For the first time, and as yet only in quite a
vague way, the question began to present itself: Is there a
difference--and if there be, what is it--between the Germans who fought
that war and the other Germans? Why did not Austria also take part in
it? Why did not my father and all the others fight in that struggle? Are
we not the 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 the replies that were given to the questions which I
asked very tentatively, I was forced to accept the fact, though with a
secret envy, that not all Germans had the good luck to belong 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 especially my temperament, my father decided that the classical
subjects studied at the Lyceum were 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 contributed to
make him look upon classical studies as unpractical and accordingly to
set little value on them. At the back of his mind he had the idea that
his son also should become an official of the Government. Indeed he had
decided on that career for me. The difficulties through which he had to
struggle in making his own career led him to overestimate what he had
achieved, because this was exclusively the result of his own
indefatigable industry and energy. The characteristic pride of the
self-made man urged him towards the idea that his son should follow the
same calling and if possible rise to a higher position in it. Moreover,
this idea was strengthened by the consideration that the results of his
own life's industry had placed him in a position to facilitate his son's
advancement in the same career.
[Note 2. Non-classical secondary school. The Lyceum and GYMNASIUM were
classical or semi-classical secondary schools.]
He was simply incapable of imagining that I might reject what had meant
everything in life to him. My father's decision was simple, definite,
clear and, in his eyes, it was something to be taken for granted. A man
of such a nature who had become an autocrat by 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 in such
a way, where the future of his own son was concerned, would have been a
grave and 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 open opposition. No matter how hard and determined my
father might be about putting his own plans and opinions into action,
his son was no less obstinate in refusing to accept ideas 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 that opposition. I would not become a State official, not on any
account. All the attempts which my father made to arouse in me a love or
liking for that profession, by picturing his own career for me, had only
the opposite effect. It nauseated me to think that one day I might be
fettered to an office stool, that I could not dispose of my own time but
would 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 a young fellow who was by no means what is called a 'good boy'
in the current sense of that term. The ridiculously easy school tasks
which we were given made it possible for me to spend far more time in
the open air than at home. To-day, when my political opponents 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
was accustomed to in his young days, I thank heaven that I can look back
to those happy days and find the memory of them helpful. The fields and
the woods were then the terrain on which all disputes were fought out.
Even attendance at the REALSCHULE could not alter my way of spending my
time. But I had now another battle to fight.
So long as the paternal plan to make a State functionary contradicted my
own inclinations only in the abstract, the conflict was easy to bear. I
could be discreet about expressing my personal views and thus avoid
constantly recurrent disputes. My own resolution not to become a
Government official was sufficient for the time being to put my mind
completely at rest. I held on to that resolution inexorably. But the
situation became more difficult once I had a positive plan of my own
which I might present to my father as a counter-suggestion. This
happened when I was twelve years old. How it came about I cannot exactly
say now; but one day it became clear to me that I would be a painter--I
mean an artist. That I had an aptitude for drawing was an admitted fact.
It was even one of the reasons why my father had sent me to the
REALSCHULE; but he had never thought of having that talent developed in
such a way that I could take up painting as a professional career. Quite
the contrary. When, as a result of my renewed refusal to adopt his
favourite plan, my father asked me for the first time what I myself
really wished to be, the resolution that I had already formed expressed
itself almost automatically. For a while my father was speechless. "A
painter? An artist-painter?" he exclaimed.
He wondered whether I was in a sound state of mind. He thought that he
might not have caught my words rightly, or that he had misunderstood
what I meant. But when I had explained my ideas to him and he saw how
seriously I took them, he opposed them with that full determination
which was characteristic of him. His decision was exceedingly simple and
could not be deflected from its course by any consideration of what my
own natural qualifications really were.
"Artist! Not as long as I live, never." As the son had inherited some of
the father's obstinacy, 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 I became all the more consolidated in my 'Nevertheless'.
Naturally the resulting situation was not pleasant. The old gentleman
was bitterly annoyed; and indeed so was I, although I really loved him.
My father forbade me to entertain any hopes of taking up the art of
painting as a profession. I went a step further and 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 his parental 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 that I was
making no progress at the REALSCHULE, for weal or for woe, he would be
forced 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 progress became 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 not otherwise appeal
to me favourably, I completely sabotaged. My school reports of that time
were always in the extremes of good or bad, according to the subject and
the interest it had for me. In one column my qualification read 'very
good' or 'excellent'. In another it read 'average' or even 'below
average'. By far my best subjects were geography 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 I find 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 the German Empire, taken through and through, could not
understand what that fact meant in the everyday life of the individuals
within such a State. After the magnificent triumphant march of the
victorious armies in the Franco-German War the Germans in the REICH
became steadily more and more estranged from the Germans beyond their
frontiers, partly because they did not deign to appreciate those other
Germans at their true 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 been of the best racial stock they could never have given the
stamp of their own character to an Empire of 52 millions, so definitely
that in Germany itself the idea arose--though quite an erroneous
one--that Austria was a German State. That was an error which led to
dire consequences; but all the same it was a magnificent testimony to
the character of the ten million Germans in that East Mark. (Note 3)
Only very few of the Germans in the REICH itself had an idea of the bitter
struggle which those Eastern Germans had to carry on daily for the
preservation of their German language, their German schools and their
German character. Only to-day, when a tragic fate has torn several
millions of our kinsfolk away from the REICH and has forced them to live
under the rule of the stranger, 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 it means
to have to fight for the traditions of one's race. And so at last
perhaps there are people here and there who can assess the greatness of
that German spirit which animated the old East Mark and enabled those
people, left entirely dependent on their own resources, to defend the
Empire against the Orient for several centuries and subsequently to hold
fast the frontiers of the German language through a guerilla warfare of
attrition, at a time when the German Empire was sedulously cultivating
an interest for colonies but not for its own flesh and blood before the
threshold of its own door.
[Note 3. See Translator's Introduction.]
What has happened always and everywhere, in every kind of struggle,
happened also in 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 began to take place.
And it is worth noting that the struggle for the language was waged
perhaps in its bitterest form around the school; because this was the
nursery where the seeds had to be watered which were to spring up and
form the future generation. The tactical objective of the fight was the
winning over of the child, and it was to the child that the first
rallying cry was addressed:
"German youth, do not forget that you are a German," and "Remember,
little girl, that one day you must be a German mother."
Those who know something of the juvenile spirit can understand how youth
will always lend a glad ear to such a rallying cry. Under many forms the
young people led the struggle, fighting in their own way and with their
own weapons. They refused to sing non-German songs. The greater the
efforts made to win them away from their German allegiance, the more
they exalted the glory of their German heroes. They stinted themselves
in buying things to eat, so that they might spare their pennies to help
the war chest of their elders. They were incredibly alert in the
significance of what the non-German teachers said and they contradicted
in unison. They wore the forbidden emblems of their own kinsfolk and
were happy when penalised for doing so, or even physically punished. In
miniature they were mirrors of loyalty from which the older people might
learn a lesson.
And thus it was that at a comparatively early age I took part in the
struggle which the nationalities were waging against one another in the
old Austria. When meetings were held for the South Mark German League
and the School League we wore cornflowers and 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
time when the citizens of a so-called national State for the most part
knew little of their own nationality 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 meaning from 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 old I had come to understand the distinction between
dynastic patriotism and nationalism based on the concept of folk, or
people, my inclination being entirely in favour of the latter.
Such a preference may not perhaps be clearly intelligible to those who
have never taken the trouble to study the internal conditions that
prevailed under the Habsburg Monarchy.
Among historical studies universal history was the subject almost
exclusively taught in the Austrian schools, for of specific Austrian
history there was only very little. The fate of this State was closely
bound up with the existence and development of Germany as a whole; so a
division of history into German history and Austrian history would be
practically inconceivable. And indeed it was only when the German people
came to be divided 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 in Vienna appeared to act as magical relics rather than as the
visible guarantee of an everlasting bond of union.
[Note 4. When Francis II had laid down his title as Emperor of the Holy
Roman Empireof the German Nation, which he did at the command of Napoleon,
the Crownand Mace, as the Imperial Insignia, were kept in Vienna. After
the German Empire was refounded, in 1871, under William I, there were many
demands tohave the Insignia transferred to Berlin. But these went
unheeded. Hitler had them brought to Germany after the Austrian Anschluss
and displayed at Nuremberg during the Party Congress in September 1938.]
When the Habsburg State crumbled to pieces in 1918 the Austrian Germans
instinctively raised an outcry for union with their German fatherland.
That was the voice of a unanimous yearning in the hearts of the whole
people for a return to the unforgotten home of their fathers. But such a
general yearning could not be explained except by attributing the cause
of it to the historical training through which the individual 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 the past, bidding the people to look out beyond the mere welfare of
the moment to a new future.
The teaching of universal history in what are called the middle schools
is still very unsatisfactory. Few teachers realize that the purpose of
teaching history is not the memorizing of some dates and facts, that the
student is not interested in knowing the exact date of a battle or the
birthday of some marshal or other, and not at all--or at least only very
insignificantly--interested in knowing when the crown of his fathers was
placed on the brow of some monarch. These are certainly not looked upon
as important matters.
To study history means to search for and discover the forces that are
the causes of those results which appear before our eyes as historical
events. The art of reading and studying 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 of history who understood, as few others understand, how to
make this viewpoint prevail in teaching and in examining. This teacher
was Dr. Leopold Poetsch, of the REALSCHULE at Linz. He was the ideal
personification of the qualities necessary to a teacher of history in
the sense I have mentioned above. An elderly gentleman with a decisive
manner but a kindly heart, he was a very attractive speaker and was able
to inspire us with his own enthusiasm. Even to-day I cannot recall
without emotion that venerable personality whose enthusiastic exposition
of history so often made us entirely forget the present and allow
ourselves to be transported as if by magic into the past. He penetrated
through the dim mist of thousands of years and transformed the
historical memory of the dead past into a living reality. When we
listened to him we became afire with 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 by examples from the present but from the past he
was also able to draw a lesson for the present. He understood better
than any other the everyday problems that were then agitating our minds.
The national fervour which we felt in our own small way was utilized by
him as an instrument of our education, inasmuch as he often appealed to
our national sense of honour; for in that way he maintained order and
held our attention much more easily than he could have done by any other
means. It was because I had such 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 young rebel. But
who could have studied German history under such a teacher and not
become an enemy of that State whose rulers exercised such a disastrous
influence on the destinies of the German nation? Finally, how could one
remain the faithful subject of the House of Habsburg, whose past history
and present conduct proved it to be ready ever and always to betray the
interests of the German people for the sake of paltry personal
interests? Did not we as youngsters fully realize that the House of
Habsburg did not, and could not, have any love for us Germans?
What history taught us about the policy followed by the House of
Habsburg was corroborated by our own everyday experiences. In the north
and in the south the poison of foreign races was eating into the body of
our people, and even Vienna was steadily becoming more and more a
non-German city. The 'Imperial House' favoured the Czechs on every
possible occasion. Indeed it was the hand of the goddess of eternal
justice and inexorable retribution that caused the most deadly enemy of
Germanism in Austria, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to fall by the very
bullets which he himself had helped to cast. Working from above
downwards, he was the chief patron of the movement to make Austria a
Slav State.
The burdens laid on the shoulders of the German people were enormous and
the sacrifices 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. What affected us most bitterly was the consciousness of the fact
that this whole system was morally shielded by the alliance with
Germany, whereby the slow extirpation of Germanism in the old Austrian
Monarchy seemed in some way to be more or less sanctioned by Germany
herself. Habsburg hypocrisy, which endeavoured outwardly to make the
people believe that Austria still remained a German State, increased the
feeling of hatred against the Imperial House and at the same time
aroused a spirit of rebellion and contempt.
But in the German Empire itself those who were then its rulers saw
nothing of what all this meant. As if struck blind, they stood beside a
corpse and in the very symptoms of decomposition they believed that they
recognized the signs of a renewed vitality. In that unhappy alliance
between the young German Empire and the illusory Austrian State 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 to say here that in the very early years of my youth
I came to certain conclusions which I have never abandoned. Indeed I
became more profoundly convinced of them as the years passed. They were:
That the dissolution of the Austrian Empire is a preliminary condition
for the defence of Germany; further, that national feeling is by no
means identical with dynastic patriotism; finally, and above all, that
the House of Habsburg was destined to bring misfortune to the German
nation.
As a logical consequence of these convictions, there arose in me a
feeling of intense love for 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 of history at school never left me afterwards. World history
became more and more an inexhaustible source for the understanding of
contemporary historical events, which means 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. At that time the provincial capital of Upper
Austria had a theatre which, relatively speaking, was not bad. Almost
everything was played there. When I was twelve years old I saw William
Tell performed. That was my first experience of the theatre. Some months
later I attended a performance of LOHENGRIN, the first opera I had ever
heard. I was fascinated at once. My youthful enthusiasm for the Bayreuth
Master knew no 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 prepared the 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 had chosen for me; and this dislike became especially
strong as the rough corners of youthful boorishness became worn off, a
process which in my case caused a good deal of pain. I became more and
more convinced that I should never be happy as a State official. And now
that the REALSCHULE had recognized and acknowledged my aptitude for
drawing, my own resolution became all the stronger. Imprecations and
threats had no longer any chance of changing it. I wanted to become a
painter and no power in the world could force me to become a civil
servant. The only peculiar feature of the situation now was that as I
grew bigger I became more and more interested in architecture. I
considered this fact as a natural development of my flair for painting
and I rejoiced inwardly that the sphere of my artistic interests was
thus enlarged. I had no notion 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 still in robust health when a stroke of apoplexy painlessly ended
his earthly wanderings and left us all deeply bereaved. His most ardent
longing was to be able to help his son to advance in a career and thus
save me from the harsh ordeal that he himself had to go through. But it
appeared to him then as if that longing were all in vain. And yet,
though he himself was not conscious of it, he had sown the seeds of a
future which neither of us foresaw at that time.
At first nothing changed outwardly.
My mother felt it her duty to continue my education in accordance with
my father's wishes, which meant that she would have me study for the
civil service. For my own part I was even more firmly determined than
ever before that under no circumstances would I become an official of
the State. The curriculum and teaching methods followed in the middle
school were so far removed from my ideals that I became profoundly
indifferent. Illness suddenly came to my assistance. Within a few weeks
it decided my future and put an end to the long-standing family
conflict. My lungs became so seriously affected that the doctor advised
my mother very strongly not under any circumstances to allow me to take
up a career which would necessitate working in an office. He ordered
that I should give up attendance at the REALSCHULE for a year at least.
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 and attend the Academy.
Those were happy days, which appeared to me almost as a dream; but they
were bound to remain only a dream. Two years later my mother's death put
a brutal end to all my fine projects. She succumbed to a long and
painful illness which from the very beginning permitted little hope of
recovery. Though expected, her death came as a terrible 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 my mother's severe illness. The allowance which came to me as an
orphan was not enough for 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 my heart, 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.
Testaan vaan kommentin (pituutta, 21.07.2023)
#7026
Kunnioittakaa äänestäjien tahtoa!Janette Tröm (Jyväskylä, 21.07.2023)
#7032
Hallitus uusiksiEija Saren (Espoo, 21.07.2023)
#7038
Nyt pitää alkaa töihin SuomiTarvitsee Tämän Hallituksen
Timo Loponen (Ulvila, 21.07.2023)
#7039
Jos oikein kaivetaan on jokainen ihminen ollut rasisti tai tehnyt jotain mitä katuu jossain kohtaa elämää , eikä sillä saisi olla mitään merkitystä. Harva vaan on kirjoittanut ajatuksiaan julkisesti tai kertonut tekemisiään. On harmi, ettei ihmiset osaa ajatella omilla aivoillaan ja tehdä omia johtopäätöksiä vaan lähtee mukaan ajassa olevaan hypetykseen ottamatta asioista selvää tai ymmärtämättä mihin asiat voivat johtaa pidemmällä aikajaksolla, vaikka näkevät esimerkkejä muualta miten siellä epäonnistutaan. Siitä huolimatta lyödään päätä seinään ja syytetään ja nimitellään kuin pikkulapset. Mä haluuun...Ari Piispane (Vihti, 21.07.2023)
#7043
Katsokaa vähä peiliinTauno Aalto (Salo, 21.07.2023)
#7057
Riitely ja toistensa mustamaalaminen pitää lopettaa.Pauli Korhonen (Vaasa, 21.07.2023)
#7061
Vaalit on pidetty. Työrauhaa hallitukselle. Media: HS,,Yle,IL ja IS: älkää alisrvioiko tavallisten kansalaisten älyä.Ritta Hämäläinen (Vantaa, 21.07.2023)
#7114
Purra ulosKimmo Frestadius (Vantaa, 21.07.2023)
#7140
AllekirjoitanJere Takarautio (Pudasjärvi, 21.07.2023)
#7141
Purralle työrauha!Pekka Peksu Piippo (OULU, 21.07.2023)
#7147
Sitä vois tuo maksettu media lopettaa tälläset ajojahdit ja vasemmisto hyväksyä vaalituloksen.Petri Pajunen (Tampere, 21.07.2023)
#7149
Purran on oltava sitkeä ja pysyttävä ansaitussa virassaan. Hallituksen on tuettava häntä ja pysyttävä yhtenäisinä!Joona Välkepinta (Kangasala, 21.07.2023)
#7157
Kyllä hyvä puolue ja annetaan Riikan jatkaa rauhassa. Menneet on menneitä.Antti Vallineva (Jokipii, 22.07.2023)
#7163
Jättäkää laillisesti valittu ministeri rauhaan!Toivo Tommila (Kotka , 22.07.2023)
#7164
On tärkeää toimia kansan vaaleissa antaman luottamuksen mukaan. Median ja opposition käynnistämä mölykampanja ei saa pilata kansanvaltaa ja demokratiaa Suomessa.Jaakko Tuononen (Helsinki, 22.07.2023)
#7175
Adressitcom suljettavaJuh Mmm (Mmk, 22.07.2023)
#7189
Hallitus edustaa sitä mitä kansa on äänestänyt, tällä kertaa vasemmisto jäi taakse, mutta ei näköjään pysty hyväksymään todellisuutta.Sami Kautiainen (Helsinki , 22.07.2023)