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they really held that code of cruelty, of bravery, then they might be, well, of course, lunatics, but there was something epic about them, no? Now, I said, I’ll try and imagine a Nazi, not Nazis as they actually are, but I’ll try and imagine a man who really thinks that violence and fighting are better than making up things, and peacefulness. I’ll do that. And then, I’ll make him feel like a Nazi, or the platonic idea of a Nazi. I wrote that after the Second World War because I thought that, after all, nobody had a word to say for the tragedy of Germany. I mean such an important nation. A nation that had produced Schopenhauer and Brahms and so many poets and so many philosophers, and yet it fell victim to a very clumsy idea. I thought, well, I will try and imagine a real Nazi, not a Nazi who is fond of self-pity, as they are, but a Nazi who feels that a violent world is a better world than a peaceful world, and who doesn’t care for victory, who is mainly concerned for the
fact
of fighting. Then that Nazi wouldn’t mind Germany’s being defeated because, after all, if they were defeated, then the others were better fighters. The important thing is that violence should
be
. And then I imagined that Nazi, and I wrote the story. Because there were so many people in Buenos Aires who were on the side of Hitler.
    BURGIN: How horrible.
    BORGES: It’s awful. They were very mean people. But after all, Germany fought splendidly at the beginning of the war. I mean, if you admire Napoleon or if you admire Cromwell, or if you admire any violent manifestation, why not admire Hitler, who did what the others did?
    BURGIN: On a much larger scale.
    BORGES: On a much larger scale and in a much shorter time. Because he achieved in a few years what Napoleon failed to do in a longer period. And then I realized that those people who were on the side of Germany, that they never thought of the German victories or the German glory. What they really liked was the idea of the blitzkrieg, of London being on fire, of the country being destroyed. As to the German fighters, they took no stock in them. Then I thought, well, now Germany has lost, now America has saved us from this nightmare, but since nobody can doubt on which side I stood, I’ll see what can be done from a literary point of view in favour of the Nazis. And then I created that ideal Nazi. Of course, no Nazi was ever like that, because they were full of self-pity; when they were on trial no one thought of saying, “Yes, I’m guilty, I ought to be shot; why not, this is as it should be and I would shoot you if I could.” Nobody said that. They were all apologizing and crying because there is something very weak and sentimental about the Germans, something I thoroughly disliked about them. I felt it before, but when I went to Germany I was feeling it all the time. I suppose I told you a conversation I had with a German professor, no?
    BURGIN: No, you didn’t.
    BORGES: Well, I was being shown all over Berlin, one of the ugliest cities in the world, no? Very showy.
    BURGIN: I’ve never been to Germany.
    BORGES: Well, you shouldn’t, especially if you love Germany, because once you get there you’ll begin to hate it. Then I was being shown around Berlin. Of course, there were any number of vacant lots, large patches of empty ground where houses had stood and they had been bombed very thoroughly by the American airmen, and then, you have some German, no?
    BURGIN: No, I’m sorry.
    BORGES: Well, I’ll translate. He said to me, “What have you to say about these ruins?” Then I thought, Germany has started this kind of warfare; the Allies did it because they had to, because the Germans began it. So why should I be pitying this country because of what had happened to it, because
they
started the bombing, and in a very cowardly way. I think Göring told his people that they would be destroying England and that they had nothing whatever to fear from the English airmen. That wasn’t