Mein Kampf
lustrated magazine from those years now became my favorite reading. It was not long before the great heroic battle had become my greatest spiritual experience. From then on I was more and more enthusiastic over anything at all connected with war or at least with soldierhood.
In another way, too, this was to be important to me. For the first time, vaguely though it was, the question forced itself upon me whether there was a difference between the Germans who fought these battles and other Germans, and if so, what? Why did not Austria fight in the war, why not my father and all the others?
Were we not the same as all the other Germans?
Did we not all belong together? This problem began to stir my young brain for the first time. With hidden envy I learned, in answer to cautious questions, that not every German was so fortunate as to belong to the Empire of Bismarck.
I could not understand it.
I was to begin my studies.
Judging by my whole character, and even more by my temperament, my father concluded that the humanistic Gymnasium would run counter to my natural bent. He thought a realschule, a non-classical school, would be more suitable. His opinion was confirmed by my noticeable ability in drawing—a subject which he believed was neglected in the Austrian humanistic schools. And perhaps his own hard working life made him think less of classical studies, which he considered impractical. But on principle he intended that, like him, his son of course should, nay must, become a state employee. His hard youth quite naturally made his later attainments seem the greater, since after all they were the product solely of his own iron energy and industry. The pride of the self-made man led him to wish the same, or if possible a higher situation in life for his son—the more so since his own hard work could make the progress of his child so much easier.
The idea of my refusing what had been his whole life was to him quite inconceivable. So my father’s decision was simple, def-
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