the German nationalists, the right-wing conservatives, who venerated ‘honour’ and ‘heroism’ as the central characteristics of their programme. Oh God, what an infinitely dishonourable and cowardly spectacle their leaders made in 1933 and continued to make afterwards! One might at least have expected that, once their claim in January proved illusory – that they had ‘tamed’ the Nazis and ‘rendered them harmless’ – they would act as a ‘brake’ and ‘prevent the worst’. Not a bit of it. They went along with everything: the terror, the persecution of the Jews, the persecution of Christians. They were
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