One thing thoughtful members of my generation were, I think, unquestioning about was this: democratic West Germany had thoroughly repudiated Nazism. The great writer Bernard Levin said how much reason the Germans had to be proud that their democracy was so young and so strong.

Of course, as elsewhere, there is a handful of right extremists – forlorn and pathetic, pimply losers, misfits and probable virgins who like dressing up, but who, frankly, as a rule seldom did real harm.