'The intelligentsia ignored the irruption of religious fanaticism into domestic British politics. In the face of these foes of civilisation, silence is the worst form of cowardice'

'I was fond of my father's old friend Günter Grass. I'd like to think he knew better'

In 1953 Thomas Mann called “not for a German Europe, but a European Germany”. Now we have both—and neither is happy

‘Their grandparents fled the Nazis, their parents boycotted all things German, but their children are flocking to Berlin’