1. A Short Biography of Helmut Schmidt by Hartmut Soell

Helmut Schmidt was born in Hamburg on 23 December 1918. He thus belonged to the age-group of whom it was said in the heated chauvinistic atmosphere of the Weimar Republic: “Born in the war, for the (next) war.” His parents’ roots were half working-class, half lower-middle-class, typical of rapidly growing Hamburg in the late nineteenth century. Through intelligence and immense diligence his father had progressed from elementary school to become a teacher and then the head of a trade school. Discipline and achievement were the standards by which the young Helmut Schmidt was brought up. In 1933, he learned from his mother that his grandfather on his father’s side was Jewish—something that changed his psychological make-up profoundly. Youth’s penchant for rebellion was subdued and prudence and caution were often the rule even where temperament and intelligence called for open criticism of the dictatorship and the war. Where this did not entirely succeed, as in autumn 1944, considerate military superiors transferred him to the Western Front where the military arm of Nazi blood justice could not reach him.