examination of my life, following it back to those childhood days
and discover at last to their relief what intolerable pranks this
"Hitler" played even in his youth, I thank Heaven that a portion
of the memories of those happy days still remains with me.
Woods and meadows were then the battlefields on which the
'conflicts' which exist everywhere in life were decided.
In this respect my attendance at the Realschule, which now
commenced, made little difference.
But now, to be sure, there was a new conflict to be fought out.
As long as my fathers intention of making me a civil servant
encountered only my theoretical distaste for the profession, the
conflict was bearable. Thus far, I had to some extent been able to
keep my private opinions to myself; I did not always have to
contradict him immediately. My own firm determination never to
become a civil servant sufficed to give me complete inner peace.
And this decision in me was immutable. The problem became
more difficult when I developed a plan of my own in opposition
to my father's. And this occurred at the early age of twelve. How
it happened, I myself do not know, but one day it became clear to
me that I would become a painter, an artist. There was no doubt
as to my talent for drawing; it had been one of my father's
reasons for sending me to the Realschule, but never in all the
world would it have occurred to him to give me professional
training in this direction. On the contrary. When for the first
time, after once again rejecting my father's favorite notion, I was
asked what I myself wanted to be, and I rather abruptly blurted
out the decision I had meanwhile made, my father for the
moment was struck speechless.
' Painter? Artist? '
He doubted my sanity, or perhaps he thought he had heard wrong
or misunderstood me. But when he was clear on the subject, and
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