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
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
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