Young Hesse shared a love of music with his mother. His family background became, he noted, 'the basis of an isolation and a resistance to any sort of nationalism that so defined my life'. All this instilled a sense in Hermann Hesse that he was a citizen of the world. Hermann Hesse's grandfather Hermann Gundert, a doctor of philosophy and fluent in multiple languages, encouraged the boy to read widely, giving him access to his library, which was filled with the works of world literature. Nicholas Bridge ( Nikolausbrücke), which is why a Hesse monument was built there in 2002. Hesse's favourite place in Calw was the St. Calw had a centuries-old leather-working industry, and during Hesse's childhood the tanneries' influence on the town was still very much in evidence. It is derived from the German words gerber, meaning 'tanner', and aue, meaning 'meadow'. The fictional town of Gerbersau is pseudonymous for Calw, imitating the real name of the nearby town of Hirsau. In his juvenilia collection Gerbersau, Hesse vividly describes experiences and anecdotes from his childhood and youth in Calw: the atmosphere and adventures by the river, the bridge, the chapel, the houses leaning closely together, hidden nooks and crannies, as well as the inhabitants with their admirable qualities, their oddities, and their idiosyncrasies. Hesse showed signs of serious depression as early as his first year at school. Click to see an enlarged image, in which the statue of Hesse can be seen near the center. Nicholas-Bridge ( Nikolausbrücke), one of Hesse's favourite childhood places. How can he express all that? It truly gnaws at my life, this internal fighting against his tyrannical temperament, his passionate turbulence God must shape this proud spirit, then it will become something noble and magnificent – but I shudder to think what this young and passionate person might become should his upbringing be false or weak.' In a letter to her husband, Hermann's mother Marie wrote: 'The little fellow has a life in him, an unbelievable strength, a powerful will, and, for his four years of age, a truly astonishing mind. Childhood įrom childhood, Hesse was headstrong and hard for his family to handle. where life was so paradisiacal, so colourful and happy.' Hermann Hesse's sense of estrangement from the Swabian petite bourgeoisie grew further through his relationship with his maternal grandmother Julie Gundert, née Dubois, whose French-Swiss heritage kept her from ever quite fitting in among that milieu. We wished for nothing so longingly as to be allowed to see this Estonia. ' an exceedingly cheerful, and, for all its Christianity, a merry world. His father's tales from Estonia instilled a contrasting sense of religion in young Hermann. His father, Hesse stated, 'always seemed like a very polite, very foreign, lonely, little-understood guest'. Furthermore, Hesse described his father's Baltic German heritage as 'an important and potent fact' of his developing identity. Hesse grew up in a Swabian Pietist household, with the Pietist tendency to insulate believers into small, deeply thoughtful groups. Marie's father, Hermann Gundert (also the namesake of his grandson), managed the publishing house at the time, and Johannes Hesse succeeded him in 1893. In 1873, the Hesse family moved to Calw, where Johannes worked for the Calwer Verlagsverein, a publishing house specializing in theological texts and schoolbooks. Hermann had five siblings, but two of them died in infancy. Johannes Hesse belonged to the Baltic German minority in the Russian-ruled Baltic region: thus his son Hermann was at birth a citizen of both the German Empire and the Russian Empire. Hesse's father, Johannes Hesse, the son of a doctor, was born in 1847 in Weissenstein, Governorate of Estonia in the Russian Empire (now Paide, Järva County, Estonia). In describing her own childhood, she said, 'A happy child I was not.' As was usual among missionaries at the time, she was left behind in Europe at the age of four when her parents returned to India. Hesse's mother, Marie Gundert, was born at such a mission in South India in 1842. His grandfather Hermann Gundert compiled a Malayalam grammar and a Malayalam-English dictionary, and also contributed to a translation of the Bible into Malayalam in South India. His grandparents served in India at a mission under the auspices of the Basel Mission, a Protestant Christian missionary society. Hermann Karl Hesse was born on 2 July 1877 in the Black Forest town of Calw in Württemberg, German Empire.

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