Early Life
Mende was born in Gross-Strehlitz, Upper Silesia, (today Poland). His father, Maximilian Mende, was the director of a secondary school and, as was usual among Catholics, a supporter of the Centre Party.
On graduating from grammar school in 1936 he decided to become a professional soldier and enlisted in the Wehrmacht's 84th Infantry Regiment at Gleiwitz, on the German-Polish frontier.
Read more about this topic: Erich Mende
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“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
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