Editing Michael Ende (section)

==Second World War==
[[World War II]] heavily influenced Ende's childhood. He was twelve years old when he witnessed the first Allied bombing raid on Munich:
<blockquote>Our street was consumed by flames. The fire didn't crackle; it roared. The flames were roaring. I remember singing and careering through the blaze like a drunkard. I was in the grip of a kind of euphoria. I still don't truly understand it, but I was almost tempted to cast myself into the fire like a moth into the light. </blockquote>

He was horrified, however, by the [[Bombing of Hamburg in World War II|1943 Hamburg bombing]], which he experienced while visiting his paternal uncle. At the first available opportunity his uncle put him on a train back to Munich. There, Ende attended the Maximillians Gymnasium until schools were closed as the air raids intensified and pupils were evacuated. Ende returned to [[Garmisch-Partenkirchen]], where he was billeted in a boarding-house, Haus Kramerhof and later in Haus Roseneck. It was there that his interest in [[German poetry]] was awakened. As well as writing his own poetry, he began to study various [[literary movement]]s and styles. As most recent German poetry was banned as part of [[censorship in Nazi Germany]], he instead studied the [[German Romanticism|German Romantic]] poet [[Novalis]], whose ''[[Hymns to the Night]]'' made a great impression on him.

In 1944, Edgar Ende's studio at no. 90 Kaulbachstraße, Munich went up in flames and over two hundred and fifty paintings and sketches were destroyed, as well as all his prints and etchings. {{Interlanguage link multi|Ernst Buchner (historian)|de|3=Ernst Buchner (Kunsthistoriker)|lt=Ernst Buchner}}, Director of Public Art for Bavaria, was still in possession of a number of Ende's paintings, which survived the raids. After the bombing, Luise Ende was relocated to the Munich district of Solln. In 1945, Edgar Ende was taken as a [[prisoner of war]] by American [[GIs]], but was released soon after the end of the war.

In 1945, German youths as young as fourteen were drafted into the ''[[Volkssturm]]'' and sent to war against the advancing Allied armies. Three of Michael Ende's classmates were killed on their first day of combat. Ende was also drafted, but tore up his call-up papers and joined a secret [[German resistance to Nazism|German resistance group]] founded to sabotage the [[SS]]'s declared intention to defend Munich until the "bitter end". Ende served the group as a courier for the remainder of the war.

In 1946, Michael Ende's grammar school re-opened, and he attended classes for a year, following which the financial support of family friends allowed him to complete his high-school education at a [[Waldorf education|Waldorf School]] in [[Stuttgart]]. This seemingly charitable gesture was motivated by more self-interest: Ende had fallen in love with a girl three years his senior, and her parents funded his two-year stay in Stuttgart to keep the pair apart. It was at this time that he first began to write stories ("Michael," par. 3).{{huh|date=September 2016}} He aspired to be a "[[dramatist]]," but wrote mostly short stories and poetry (Haase).{{huh|date=September 2016}}