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by the French!”
    â€œBut we do have it back now,” Herr Best rejoined mildly. He had a more cosmopolitan outlook, having traveled far more widely and been exposed to many foreign viewpoints. Ernst, remembering the differences in attitudes about the Jews, could understand. What made sense in France or America did not necessarily make sense in Germany—and vice versa.
    â€œAnd the occupation of the Ruhr,” Uncle Karl continued, warming up to a favorite subject. “All because they claim we defaulted on reparations payments. How could Germany repay such huge amounts when she had six million workers out of work, with their families hungry—and that meant twenty-five million living
people
hungry—and no freedom, no equality, no territory because the French had annexed it all? The Versailles treaty was a monster; they promised us Wilson’s Fourteen Points, but they betrayed us— and then they violated even that poor document! They had no honor at all!”
    â€œTrue,” Herr Best agreed, remembering. “Victors need no honor.” He had not spoken openly of this at home, but Ernst had picked it up. Germany had been foully treated and could no longer trust the promises of enemies. Especially those who were not Aryans. What was honor to lesser races? Better to fight to the last man! Better still to make sure that Germany never lost another war.
    â€œThose cursed payments had already destroyed the Reichsmark,” Kurt continued. “The damned bloodsuckers destroyed our currency, then invaded our territory because our currency was no good!”
    â€œPlease,” Ernst’s mother murmured, reminding Ernst uncomfortably of the way the Quaker girl cautioned his friend Lane. Indeed, Uncle Karl’s neck had grown red and his voice tight, as it did when he suffered an overload of emotion. Yet this was a righteous ire shared by many, perhaps the majority of Germans. In America, Ernst knew, people were hardly conscious of the ravages that depression and the Reparations brought to Germany. Like a starving, whipped cur, his country would have turned against its tormentors at last—but there had been no way, for Germany had also been disarmed. The Americans had never experienced this degree of humiliation, so regarded it lightly. They had suffered only a gentle backwash of the world Depression, rather than its frontal savagery. But at least America had not been closely involved in this, so the anger of the Fatherland was not directed there. France was the major culprit, and to a lesser extent England.
    Uncle Karl calmed himself, turning to a more positive subject. “But Adolf Hitler changed all that. He stabilized the currency, reduced unemployment, brought law and order and restored pride to us. He made the
Volk
respectable again. He made the French return the Saarland. He rearmed us, and there was nothing the French or the British could do. He made Austria part of Germany, as it should have been long ago. Austria wanted to unite with us, but the Allies prevented it from pure spite. They wanted us to suffer! And now, soon, Czechoslovakia—”
    â€œCzechoslovakia?” Herr Best inquired, as if he didn’t catch the drift. Ernst smiled privately; his father kept a low profile, politically, but he knew precisely what was going on. He had probably known about the Czech situation long before it had come to Uncle Karl’s attention.
    â€œThere are millions of good Germans settled in the Czech Sudeten,” Karl assured him. “They are mistreated there, under foreign rule. There have been riots. They must be permitted to rejoin the Fatherland, and Germany itself must have Lebensraum, room to live. It is only right.”
    And there was a potent term, Ernst thought.
Lebensraum
was part of Hitler’s
Blut und Boden
vocabulary: blood and soil. It suggested that the members of fittest races had to establish a link of blood to the soil they worked, and