I never asked him, but I think it was Germany’s atonement for its past sins that spoke most forcefully to his secularized Methodist soul: the thought that a great nation that had run amok should repent its crimes to the world. What other country had ever done such a thing? he demanded to know. Had Turkey apologized for slaughtering the Armenians and Kurds? Had America apologized to the Vietnamese people? Had the Brits atoned for colonizing three-quarters of the globe and enslaving numberless of its citizens?
