On my last trip to Germany, just before the pandemic, I took in an interesting sight. Visiting the headquarters of the German military in Berlin to offer an informal lecture, I was escorted to the top floor of the building and offered a view of the foyer. Below, I saw a ghastly mélange of orange and yellow – the giant carpet had the effect of illustrating on a grand scale the gates of hell from this vantage point. “Never again,” my escort, a senior officer in the Germany Navy, told me. “It’s a reminder to us. That was Berlin in 1945.” This sort of thinking is incorporated in Germany’s policymaking.
