Even Hitler’s overt threat was couched in what had become the accustomed, defensive, retaliatory terms with which each step of the war had been justified. A few days earlier, Shirer had recorded a conversation with his cleaner, a woman from a working-class family, married, he surmised, to an ex-communist or socialist. ‘Why do they do it?’ she asked. ‘Because you bomb London,’ Shirer replied. ‘Yes, but we hit military objectives, while the British they bomb our homes.’ ‘Maybe,’ Shirer interjected, ‘you bomb their homes too.’ ‘Our papers say not,’ she argued. ‘Why didn’t the British accept the
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