The Son of a Non-Commissioned Prussian Officer Reflects on His Childhood and Youth in the Late 18th Century (Retrospective Account)

page 5 of 6    print version    return to list

previous document      next document

I had turned 14 years of age, and the difficult question arose as to which occupation I wished to choose. My inclination was firmly oriented to studying, and theology would have been my favorite choice [ . . . ], otherwise I would definitely have opted for mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, geography, and for the sciences in general. [ . . . ] However, I realized quite readily that university studies were out of the question for me. My father did not have the means to finance my upkeep at a grammar school and subsequently at university. [ . . . ]

Since I was entirely unfamiliar with nearly all living conditions, cut off from any opportunity to get to know other types of occupations, and excluded from most careers due to my poverty, after much reflection it seemed that the best thing and the thing most easily realized would be to go to Berlin to stay with my mother’s brother, the goldsmith Willmanns, to learn the trade. Whether I would like the business was something I could not determine beforehand. I did not feel any inclination toward it; for I considered this work of little use and uninteresting; but I also was not able to propose something better. [ . . . ] After all, every year recruits were conscripted [ . . . ] I had grown quickly and I was already tall enough to be enlisted. [ . . . ] If I was called up, I had to take up my position. Being deferred as unfit was out of the question. In that case, however, all of my plans would be in vain and my fate a different one, in the view of my mother, a horrible one [ . . . ] To my mother and me, this prospect hanging over us like the sword of Damocles was very oppressive and frightful [ . . . ].

[ . . . ] Things were settled with my uncle, and he agreed to take me on. [ . . . ]

The farewell from everything I knew and held dear was rather difficult for me. I entered an unfamiliar, alien world that had as little heart for me as I had for it. I did not know what to expect of it, looking ahead as if toward a chaos, as if into a vague haze, uncertain whether a friendly figure would come toward me [ . . . ]

It was July 13, 1801, when I arrived in Berlin. [ . . . ] I would have expected my reception to be warmer; but it was no different from a stranger coming. [ . . . ]