The Early Life of Gerhard Richter Dresden, Germany, 1932. The setting is the Hospital Dresden-Neustadt. Gerhard Richter enters a world defined by the tightening grip of National Socialism. His father, Horst Richter, navigates the academic rigor of the Technische Hochschule in Dresden as a student of mathematics and physics. His mother, Hildegard Schönfelder, works as a bookseller. The household is shaped by these disparate intellectua…