In Europe

original plan had already been almost completely carried out: at that point, exactly 70,273 German handicapped persons had been ‘fumigated’. The T-4 civil servants calculated that the programme had saved the German people 885,439,800 marks in future medical care. The leaders of the German churches had watched it happen, with eyes wide open.
    It was from that same building at Tiergartenstrasse 4, the unassuming villa in the neat Berlin neighbourhood of Tiergarten, and with the same bureaucratic calm, that the
Endlösung
for the Jews and Gypsies of Europe began after summer 1941. Of the 400 members of the T-4 staff, just under 100 were selected to provide leadership for ‘Aktion Reinhardt’, the campaign to exterminate the Polish Jews. The gas chamber at Schloss Hartheim which had been developed for the handicapped ran almost constantly from November 1941, to accommodate political prisoners from Mauthausen. The technology used there was adopted by all the other concentration and death camps. The hardened workers from the crematoria, the
Brenner
, became much sought-after employees.
    The euthanasia project served as the experimental plot for the industrial extermination of millions that followed. It paved the way in psychological terms as well. The Nazis realised all too well that this was a sensitive issue. Their amazement was therefore all the greater when it turned out that only ten per cent of all patients’ families had registered a protest. The mass majority of the German population, they could correctly conclude, would look the other way when something like this happened, even when it involved members of their own family. The road was clear.

Chapter EIGHTEEN
Munich
    MEANWHILE, AS I TRAVEL NOW THROUGH MY OWN TIMES, THERE HAS been a war going on for weeks, a real war. Europe and the United States have joined forces to free Kosovo from the Serbs. Rumours abound concerning bloody acts of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and at least 750,000 refugees are wandering through the region, hundreds of thousands of Albanians are appearing at the borders of Western Europe. The rest of Europe looks on in alarm, but no one is feeling particularly combative, certainly not in Germany. Only in the field of foreign policy, it seems, do we Europeans still dare to think in terms of social change being susceptible to popular opinion. The Balkans, clearly, are not susceptible. What is more, no Western soldier these days is prepared to die for an ideal. That, too, severely limits the possibilities.
    In 1933, the situation was the exact opposite. The real fighting had yet to begin, but in manners and language the war had been raging for a long time. Today, in 1999, half of Europe has joined the fray, but there are no slogans, uniforms or behaviour to show that you are driving through countries at war. There are no military convoys on the autobahn, only cars pulling pleasure boats. In the air one sees only the white vapour trails leading to and from holiday destinations. No, here the war is being fought in newspaper headlines, on TV, in late-night musings, and around the tables of roadside restaurants.
    Significant too is the lack of European unity, even though the war is being carried out on behalf of a united Europe. There is not an atom of team spirit, or any form of European patriotism. In Amsterdam, despite the blazing headlines, I had observed a remarkable lethargy. For the first time in half a century the Netherlands was at war, in an offensive roleno less, but the prime minister did not even deem it necessary to announce that to parliament in person.
    Everywhere I go here in Germany, the subject of the new war is brought up within the first fifteen minutes. The Dutch-German border suddenly turns out to be a deep chasm, a vast sea separating two worlds. According to one survey, more than half of all Germans believe that we are on the brink of a major European war. At a pavement café I begin a conversation with an older couple from Düsseldorf. They have trouble sleeping, they tell me, Kosovo stirs up old memories. ‘Entire families wandered the streets at night, my father sometimes took them in,’ she tells me. ‘At home I still have the bicycle I used to save my own skin back then, racing along on wooden wheels just ahead of the advancing Russian Army. Everyone of my generation fled at some point, and almost everyone went through a bombardment.’ Her husband, a retired contractor, says: ‘The conviction that there must