The fixation on purity had put everyone on high alert, and, in the north of the country, in a village near Hanover, someone made a passing remark to a young German girl, raising suspicions about her appearance and, by extension, her lineage, and thus her worth. The air was dense with nervous surveillance, a hunting hyperawareness of the least sign of difference. People had noticed that the girl’s hair was darker than most, closer to that of Iberians to the south of them than to many Germans. Of course, the Führer himself had pitch-dark hair, and, for this, dark-haired Germans could console
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