History provides no precise guidelines.

Wisely used history can give pleasure and provide us with a useful tool; but we should not become its slaves.

We must admit that history is enjoyable to a large extent because it enables us to pass judgement on the past.

It is normal for politicians in all countries to profess themselves the pupils of history, anxious to draw the right lessons from her teaching.

We should be wary of politicians who profess to follow history while only noticing those signposts of history that point in the direction which they themselves already favour.

But Germany will always suffer, I fear, from the intensely dramatic character of the crimes of the Third Reich.