““There was a fetid atmosphere throughout the cities of Germany during the postwar years that laid its breath on all of the generation who grew up under the Republic. It was as if the stresses of recurrent catastrophe, the defeat, the shame of the peace, the inflation, the grinding poverty had crushed the steadfast and simple qualities of the people, so that they moved in an amazed and hectic round above the rotting body of their old, sure beliefs. There were social degeneracy and political unease; there were mental skepticism and moral profligacy.””
