Margaret Thatcher, growing up in a bombed and battered Britain, derived a distrust which has grown with the years not just of Germany but of all continental Europe.

There is no consensus even today on the merits of Napoleon - and certainly no agreement on the rights and wrongs of the origins of the First World War.

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

People know they are lacking something, they are constantly wanting some kind of spiritual guidance.

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

Margaret Thatcher was fearful of German unification because she believed that this would bring an immediate and formidable increase of economic strength to a Germany which was already the strongest economic partner in Europe.

Diplomacy is unfashionable in the world of knee-jerk reaction and the dogmatic sound bite on television.