“I am not complaining, because many men in that war suffered far worse than me. But still, I was astonished at how violent they were. If they had asked us to surrender, we might have done so. I was shocked that the American troops were primed to kill in that way. Why do you say that? Why were you shocked? They came there to kill us, to do violence to us. But this was the war, Herr Hoffmann. How can this have been a surprise, a shock to you? It is hard to explain. I think that in my mind, I always had some idea that the Americans were civilised, but they were misguided, or they were misled. Now that you ask me the question, I try to understand my own feelings and it’s difficult for me. I think that I had the belief, the subconscious belief, that the civilised Americans would not wish to disturb the peace of France. We in the German forces thought that we had gone to such lengths to protect France, to guard its people against harm. I think that deep down I could not believe that the Americans would shatter this peace we had achieved. Of course, I was utterly wrong. You were wrong about the Americans? I was wrong about everything. I know today, ten years later, that everything I believed during the war was a mistake. I understand today that we Germans were not in France to protect the people, we were there only to exploit and persecute them. We should never have been in France, or Russia, Italy, any of those places. The things that we did were appalling . . . everything was wrong. Why would those Americans hate us so much? Why would they cut our throats and break our necks like animals, in the road, without a word? Well, because they knew the truth of what we were doing, that is why.”