His parents, Johann and Thekla (Magg) Deisenhofer, were farmers and they raised Johann with the expectation that, as the only son in their small family, he would take over the responsibility of running the family farm when his father retired. However, the young boy showed more aptitude for academics than he did for farming, and his parents reluctantly came to the conclusion that their son was an intellectual rather than a farmer. In 1956, 13-year-old Johann was sent away to a series of boarding schools, and he graduated from Augsburg's Holbein Gymnasium--a gymnasium is the German equivalent of a North American high school--seven years later in 1963. After passing Germany's mandatory qualifying exam, he earned a state scholarship that allowed him to attend the Technical University in Munich. Prior to enrolling at school, however, Deisenhofer was required to perform a year and a half of compulsory military service, after which he left with the rank of private.
In Munich at last, Deisenhofer decided to focus his studies on physics, the logical outgrowth of the fascination with astronomy he had developed while observing the night sky as a boy and reading popular books by such authors as Fred Hoyle during his years at the gymnasium.
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