AUTOBIOGRAPHY
In the following pages I want to try and tell the story of my innermost being. I shall attempt to reconstruct from memory a true account of all the important events and occurrences in my life and of the psychological heights and depths through which I have passed.
In order to give as complete a picture as possible, it is essential that I first return to the earliest experiences of my childhood.
Until I was six years old, we lived in the remoter outskirts of Baden, in a neighborhood consisting of scattered and isolated farmhouses. The children in the neighborhood were all much older than I and consequently I had no playmates, and was dependent for companionship on grown-up people. I derived little pleasure from this, and tried, whenever possible, to escape their supervision and go off on voyages of solitary exploration. I was fascinated by the immense woods with their tall, Black Forest pines that began near our house. I never ventured to go far into them, however, never beyond a point where I was able, from the mountain slopes, to keep our own valley in sight. Indeed, I was actually forbidden to go into the forest alone, since when I was younger some traveling gypsies had found me playing by myself and had taken me away with them. I was rescued by a neighboring peasant who happened by chance to meet us on the road and who brought me back home.
A spot that I found particularly attractive was the large reservoir that supplied the town. For hours on end I would listen to the mysterious whisper of the water behind its thick walls, and could never, despite the explanations of my elders, understand what this was. But most of my time I spent in the farmers’ barns and stables, and when people wished to find me it was always there that they looked for me first. The horses particularly delighted me, and I never tired of stroking them and talking to them and giving them tidbits. If I could lay my hands on a brush or a currycomb, I would at once begin grooming them. In spite of the farmers’ anxiety, I would creep between the horses’ legs while I brushed them, and never to this day has an animal kicked or bitten me. Even a bad-tempered bull that belonged to one of the farmers was always most friendly toward me. Nor was I ever afraid of dogs and none has ever attacked me. I would immediately forsake even my favorite toy, if I saw a chance to steal away to the stables. My mother did everything possible to wean me of this love of animals, which seemed to her so dangerous, but in vain. I developed into a solitary child, and was never happier than when playing or working alone and unobserved. I could not bear being watched by anybody.
Water, too, had an irresistible attraction for me, and I was perpetually washing and bathing. I used to wash all manner of things in the bath or in the stream that flowed through our garden, and many were the toys or clothes that I ruined in this way. This passion for water remains with me to this day.
When I was six years old we settled in the neighborhood of Mannheim. As before, we lived on the outskirts of the town. But to my great disappointment there were no stables and no cattle. My mother often told me how, for weeks on end, I was almost ill with homesickness for my animals and my hills and forest. My parents did everything in their power at that time to distract me from my exaggerated love of animals. They did not succeed: I found books containing pictures of animals and would hide myself away and dream of my cows and horses. On my seventh birthday I was given Hans, a coal-black pony with sparkling eyes and a long mane. I was almost beside myself with joy. I had a comrade at last. For Hans was the most confiding of creatures, and followed me wherever I went, like a dog. When my parents were away, I would even take him up to my bedroom. Since I was always on good terms with our servants, they accepted this weakness of mine and never gave me away. I had plenty of playmates of my own age where we now lived. We played the games that children play all over the world, and I took part in many a youthful prank. But my greatest joy was to take my Hans into the great Haardt Forest, where we could be entirely alone together, riding for hour after hour without meeting a soul.
School, and the more serious business of life, had now begun. Nothing happened during these first school years that is of importance to my story. I was a keen student, and used to finish my homework as quickly as possible, so that I might have plenty of free time to wander about with Hans.
My parents let me do more or less as I wished.
My father had taken a vow that I should be a priest, and my future profession was therefore already firmly laid down.
I was educated entirely with this end in view. My father brought me up on strict military principles. I was also influenced by the deeply religious atmosphere that pervaded our family life, for my father was a devout Catholic. While we lived at Baden I saw little of my father, since he spent much of his time traveling, and his business sometimes kept him away from home for months at a time.[11]
All this changed when we moved to Mannheim. My father now found time almost every day to take an interest in me, either checking my schoolwork or discussing my future profession with me. My greatest joy was to hear him talk of his experiences on active service in East Africa, and to listen to his descriptions of battles against rebellious natives, and his accounts of their lives and customs and sinister idolatries. I listened with passionate enthusiasm when he spoke of the blessed and civilizing activities of the missionaries, and I was determined that I myself should one day be a missionary in the gloomy jungles of darkest Africa. They were red-letter days indeed when we were visited by one of the elderly, bearded African Fathers whom my father had known in East Africa. I did not let one word of the conversation escape me, becoming so absorbed that I even forgot my Hans.
My family entertained a great deal, although they rarely visited other people’s houses. Our guests were mostly priests of every sort.
As the years passed, my father’s religious fervor increased. Whenever time permitted, he would take me on pilgrimages to all the holy places in our own country, as well as to Einsiedeln in Switzerland and to Lourdes in France. He prayed passionately that the grace of God might be bestowed on me, so that I might one day become a priest blessed by God. I, too, was as deeply religious as was possible for a boy of my age, and I took my religious duties very seriously. I prayed with true, childlike gravity and performed my duties as acolyte with great earnestness. I had been brought up by my parents to be respectful and obedient toward all grown-up people, and especially the elderly, regardless of their social status. I was taught that my highest duty was to help those in need. It was constantly impressed upon me in forceful terms that I must obey promptly the wishes and commands of my parents, teachers, and priests, and indeed of all grown-up people, including servants, and that nothing must distract me from this duty. Whatever they said was always right.
These basic principles on which I was brought up became part of my flesh and blood. I can still clearly remember how my father, who on account of his fervent Catholicism was a determined opponent of the Reich government and its policy, never ceased to remind his friends that, however strong one’s opposition might be, the laws and decrees of the state had to be obeyed unconditionally.
From my earliest youth I was brought up with a strong awareness of duty. In my parents’ house it was insisted that every task be exactly and conscientiously carried out. Each member of the family had his own special duties to perform. My father took particular care to see that I obeyed all his instructions and wishes with the greatest meticulousness. I remember to this day how he hauled me out of bed one night, because I had left the saddlecloth lying in the garden instead of hanging it up in the barn to dry, as he had told me to do. I had simply forgotten all about it. Again and again he impressed on me how great evils almost always spring from small, apparently insignificant misdeeds. At that time I did not fully understand the meaning of this dictum, but in later years I was to learn, through bitter experience, the truth of his words.