Geschichte eines Deutschen

The author (1907-1999), a non-Jew from Berlin, began after his immigration to England to write his memories of the First World War, the struggle between good sense and fanatic nationalism in the Weimar Republic, and the hyper-inflation - and the psychological influence these had on his generation; along with certain peculiarly German character traits, they prepared young Germans to become convinced Nazis. Pp. 137-177 describe the blithe antisemitic slogans of the Hitler Youth; the brutal ousting by the SA of Jewish judges and lawyers from the court building where the author was a law intern, and his shame at having answered "yes" when asked whether he was an Aryan; the fear among his Jewish friends (and his own fear for them) on the eve of the boycott of 1 April 1933, and the hasty departure abroad, that same day, of his best friend, a Jew.