Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

Chapter IV: Munich
IN THE SPRING of 1912 I came at last to Munich.
The city itself was as familiar to me as if I had lived for years within its walls. This is
accounted for by my study which at every step had led me to this metropolis of German art.
Not only has one not seen Germany if one does not know Munich-no, above all, one does not
know German art if one has not seen Munich.
In any case, this period before the War was the happiest and by far the most contented of my
life. Even if my earnings were still extremely meager, I did not live to be able to paint, but
painted only to be able to secure my livelihood or rather to enable myself to go on studying. I
possessed the conviction that I should some day, in spite of all obstacles, achieve the goal I
had set myself. And this alone enabled me to bear all other petty cares of daily existence
lightly and without anxiety.
In addition to this, there was the heartfelt love which seized me for this city more than for
any other place that I knew, almost from the first hour of my sojourn there. A German city!
What a difference from Vienna! I grew sick to my stomach when I even thought back on this
Babylon of races. In addition, the dialect, much closer to me, which particularly in my
contacts with Lower Bavarians, reminded me of my former childhood. There were a thousand
and more things which were or became inwardly dear and precious to me. But most of all I
was attracted by this wonderful marriage of primordial power and fine artistic mood, this
single line from the Hofbrauhaus to the Odeon, from the October Festival to the Pinakothek,
etc. If today I am more attached to this city than to any other spot of earth in this world, it is
partly due to the fact that it is and remains inseparably bound up with the development of
my own life; if even then I achieved the happiness of a truly inward contentment, it can be
attributed only to the magic which the miraculous residence of the Wittelsbachs exerts on
every man who is blessed, not only with a calculating mind but with a feeling soul.
What attracted me most aside from my professional work was, here again, the study of the
political events of the day, among them particularly the occurrences in the field of foreign
affairs. I came to these latter indirectly through the German alliance policy which from my
Austrian days I considered absolutely mistaken. However, the full extent of this selfdeception
on the part of the Reich had not been clear to me in Vienna. In those days I was
inclined to assume-or perhaps I merely talked myself into it as an excuse-that Berlin perhaps
knew how weak and unreliable the ally would be in reality, yet, for more or less mysterious
reasons, held back this knowledge in order to bolster up an alliance policy which after all
Bismarck himself had founded and the sudden cessation of which could not be desirable, if
for no other reason lest the lurking foreigner be alarmed in any way, or the shopkeeper at
home be worried.
To be sure, my associations, particularly among the people itself, soon made me see to my
horror that this belief was false. To my amazement I could not help seeing everywhere that
even in otherwise well-informed circles there was not the slightest glimmer of knowledge
concerning the nature of the Habsburg monarchy. Particularly the common people were
caught in the mad idea that the ally could be regarded as a serious power which in the hour
of need would surely rise to the situation. Among the masses the monarchy was still
regarded as a ' German' state on which we could count. They were of the opinion that there,
too, the power could be measured by the millions as in Germany itself, and completely forgot
that, in the first place: Austria had long ceased to be a German state; and in the second
place: the internal conditions of this Empire were from hour to hour moving closer to
disintegration.