I never loved my father, [he used to say,] but feared him. He was prone to rages and would resort to violence. My poor mother would then always be afraid for me. When I read Karl May once that it was a sign of bravery to hide one's pain, I decided that when he beat me the next time I would make no sound. When it happened – I knew my mother was standing anxiously at the door – I counted every stroke out loud. Mother thought I had gone mad when I reported to her with a beaming smile, 'Thirty-two strokes father gave me!' From that day I never needed to repeat the experiment, for my father never beat me again.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I never loved my father, [he used to say,] but feared him. He was prone to rages and would resort to violence. My poor mother would then always be afraid for me. When I read Karl May once that it was a sign of bravery to hide one's pain, I decided that when he beat me the next time I would make no sound. When it happened – I knew my mother was standing anxiously at the door – I counted every stroke out loud. Mother thought I had gone mad when I reported to her with a beaming smile, 'Thirty-two strokes father gave me!' From that day I never needed to repeat the experiment, for my father never beat me again." in the context of "Statement about his parents Alois and Klara Hitler, quoted in Christa Schroeder, He Was My Chief: The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler's Secretary (Frontline Books, 2009), translated by Geoffrey Brooks, p. 40–41" to mean that wisdom is timeless.