in 1997; their divorce was finalized in 2021. Early life Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger was born in Thal on July 30, 1947, the second son of Gustav Schwarzenegger and his wife, Aurelia (née Jadrny). Schwarzenegger's father was the local chief of police. After the Anschluss in 1938, he joined the Nazi Party and, in 1939 the Sturmabteilung (SA). In World War II, he served as a military policeman in the invasions of Poland, France and the Soviet Union, including the siege of Leningrad, rising to the rank of Hauptfeldwebel. He was wounded in the Battle of Stalingrad, and was discharged in 1943 following a bout of malaria. According to Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum, Gustav Schwarzenegger served "in theaters of the war where atrocities were committed. But there is no way to know from the documents whether he played a role." Gustav's background received wide press attention during the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election in which Schwarzenegger was elected governor. Gustav Schwarzenegger married Aurelia on October 20, 1945; he was 38 and she was 23. According to Schwarzenegger, his parents were very strict: "Back then in Austria it was a very different world [...] if we did something bad or we disobeyed our parents, the rod was not spared." He grew up in a Catholic family. Gustav preferred his elder son, Meinhard, over Arnold. His favoritism was "strong and blatant", which stemmed from unfounded suspicion that Arnold was not his biological child. Schwarzenegger has said that his father had "no patience for listening or understanding your problems". He had a good relationship with his mother, with whom he kept in touch until her death. Early education and bodybuilding beginnings At school, Schwarzenegger was reportedly academically average but stood out for his "cheerful, good-humored, and exuberant" character. Money was a problem in their household; Schwarzenegger recalled that one of the highlights of his youth was when the family bought a refrigerator. Schwarzenegger's father Gustav was an athlete, and wished for his sons to become a champion in Bavarian curling. Influenced by his father, Schwarzenegger played several sports as a boy. Schwarzenegger began weight training in 1960 when his football coach took his team to a local gym. At the age of 14, he chose bodybuilding over football as a career. He later said, "I actually started weight training when I was 15, but I'd been participating in sports, like soccer, for years, so