At the beginning, as a youth of nineteen in hospital in Ingolstadt, he was not a fanatic. He was a devout Catholic, a believer and regular churchgoer, a nationalist patriot with an admiration for the soldierly virtues and a disappointed longing to be an officer. He was völkisch in that he believed in the Germanic race, but he was no more anti-semitic than was normal for his class and time;
