Six weeks later, as German tanks rolled into Prague, Ji Xianlin was awoken in Göttingen by the national anthem blaring out of the radio. ‘Germany has invaded Czechoslovakia,’ his landlady announced. She then kept repeating, ‘Hitler only wants peace, the Czechs were tyrannising the Germans – it’s all the Jews’ fault, just like the papers say.’ ‘I was so angry,’ wrote Ji Xianlin, ‘I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry … the ordinary German bastards believe all this. I’ll die unhappy if I don’t see this whole German edifice collapse and them all reduced to slavery.’
