In Europe

a team of young researchers began excavations there. They soon hit upon a network of ruins, part of the cellars and kitchens of the former Gestapo headquarters. Ever since 1987 it has served as an austere memorial, with a path along the stone foundations and what is left of the old plumbing and doors, a kind of modern archaeological site. On and beside the old walls, photographs and documents tell the story of what happened here. No more, and no less.
    There are more remains of the Nazi era to be found beneath the surface of Berlin, and excursions are even organised for those who wish to visit these forms of ‘historical soil pollution’. But the
Topographie des Terrors
is, in all its simplicity, the most terrifying by far. The stones are authentic, as are the lengths of pipe, the chunks of concrete, the wood, the documents, nothing here is a replica. The only thing one wonders is: did the Nazi regime really use that much terror against its own people?
    One is struck again and again, in all the historical documents, by how small the Gestapo organisation really was, by how the Nazis repressed the entire German population with such a relatively small apparatus – particularly compared to, for example, the East German Stasi later in the same century. The Stasi employed more than 100,000 people to keep an eye on 17 million East Germans, while the Gestapo apparently needed no more than 40–60,000 for an empire of some 80 million inhabitants. While resistance groups in other parts of Europe could count on the silent acquiescence of the rest of the population, Hitler's regime maintained its generally accepted authority in Germany almost until the bitter end. In fact,large parts of the population supported that regime enthusiastically. Resistance was so uncommon that it could easily be nipped in the bud. Propaganda was readily believed, repression was a matter of loving one's country, obedience was the rule, informing on neighbours a patriotic duty.
    In his reconstruction of the workings of Nazi terror, Eric Johnson – using recovered Gestapo dossiers – described the sophistication of the system of informing in a town like Krefeld, close to the Dutch border: a sixteen-year-old Jewish girl was turned in for having a relationship with an Aryan worker; a Jewish housepainter who made jokes about Hitler was informed on by his neighbour; a chauffeur sent a letter to the authorities saying his Jewish boss had smuggled illegal publications into the country from the Netherlands. Of all the Gestapo cases against Jews, Johnson's research showed that no less than 41 per cent started with an informant or a complaint. Only 19 per cent were uncovered by the activities of the Gestapo itself, and 8 per cent came from other Nazi organisations. (Similar research into dossiers in Würzburg showed that no fewer than 57 per cent of the Jews arrested had been turned in by German citizens.)
    Wolf Siedler still has a cheerful group photo of his class at the boarding school on Spiekeroog, probably taken in winter 1943–4. The boys are wearing navy uniforms, one of them is having his head chopped off with an axe by Ernstel Jünger, Wolf himself is standing to the left of these two while the rest look on in amusement. Most of the boys in this picture were naval assistants,
Flakhelfer
, as people called them. ‘That meant we had to do general chores around an anti-aircraft position, and that we wore uniforms. The rest of the time we spent in class, but when the air-raid siren went off we would jump up from our desks – eagerly, because of the break it provided – and race off to our positions to help with the shooting.’
    In early January 1944, two men suddenly appeared and arrested Siedler and Jünger. Along with a few other comrades, they were brought before a navy tribunal.
    ‘In those days, we talked about it openly among ourselves: about how the war had already been lost, about the horrendous crimes committed by the SS, and about how Hitler should be hanged from the yardarm.’For weeks, it seems, one of their classmates had been reporting those conversations almost verbatim to the Gestapo. ‘Whenever I would deny something, they would say: ‘Oh, but at 3 p.m. on 17 November, outside the gym, didn't you say such and such?’ That was typical of the situation. There's no truth in the idea that the Germans had closed ranks, or that they were terrorised by the SS and the Gestapo. Not at all: 60 per cent of the people were Nazis