Clara Schumann at the age of nine, Clara Wieck performed at the Leipzig home of Dr. Ernst Carus, director of the mental hospital at Colditz Castle. There, she met another gifted young pianist who had been invited to the musical evening, Robert Schumann, who was nine years older. Schumann admired Clara's playing so much that he asked permission from his mother to stop studying law, which had never interested him much, and take music lessons with Clara's father. While taking lessons, he rented a room in the Wieck household, staying about a year. He would sometimes dress up as a ghost and
Michael Wieck by others, and life became more and more difficult for them as the war dragged on. In late August 1944, Königsberg was repeatedly fire-bombed by the British Royal Air Force, and much of the city's center, including the medieval castle and the 14th century Königsberg Cathedral, was destroyed, gutted or heavily damaged. "The people of Königsberg shall never expunge these nights of terror from their memory," Wieck wrote. When the Red Army, after a bitterly fought siege lasting nearly three months, conquered Königsberg on April 9, 1945 – one month before the end of World War II – the city