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

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.

Men like Hitler and Stalin and their immediate lieutenants cannot plead in defence of their actions that these were justified by the accepted values of that time.

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.

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.

A genuinely democratic Iraq might well act as a fresh spur.

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.