There were hundreds of thousands of men like my father's fellow patient. To this very day I don't know whether my father's question was a deliberate provocation (which he was quite capable of), or genuine naiveté. In any case I can hardly imagine that he didn't know who this Adolf Hitler was. Because he and his notorious brownshirts, the SA, were a real presence in Berlin in 1932. As far as I could tell from my child's perspective, public opinion was divided about Hitler. Some, Communists and Social Democrats, rejected him out of hand. Others wanted to give him a chance, but weren't sure what he wanted. To restore the monarchy, to revise the Versailles Treaty? To return Germany to its former greatness, geographically as well as politically? Everyone, even his opponents, sensed that he was the coming man at the turn of the year 1932–33. Among other things because he was promising to end unemployment.

Our daily lives as children were not immediately influenced at first by this tense political atmosphere, even though we were fully aware of the street fights, political marches, propaganda posters and torchlight parades. Then one day word went out: hang out the flags! And “Germany, awake!” The streets were full of flags, most of them the black-white-red tricolor, then the swastika flags, which were also blackwhite- red, and the black and white Prussian flag. Occasionally you could also see the black-red-gold of the Weimar Republic, red hardly at all now. It was a cold day in February when the cry “The Reichstag is burning!” went down Saarbrücker Strasse. Any adult who could spare the time hurried to the scene, but couldn't get close because the police had cordoned off a large area all around it. We children saw the bright red of the burning Reichstag building from the window, but didn't understand why the adults were so excited; after all, there were always fires in Berlin and we were very familiar with the tatootata of the fire brigade. Afterwards Mother and Uncle Hermann talked over with friends and neighbors who might be to blame and what might come of it. They were all convinced that the Nazis had set the Reichstag alight, since they particularly detested it. The “yacking shop” as it was called, and not just by the Nazis.