Status Updates From Der Fragebogen

Once again my cyclist appeared. He was having a hard time riding his machine by now. Instead of a little note he carried a huge placard. On it was written: ALTBURG near CALW, 101 VOTES CAST, 100 NATIONAL-SOCIALIST. Beneath this my good friend had scribbled: "The one for the Socialists was my father's. He only did it to annoy me."

And the brown, earthenware pot that still stank. These walls and this ceiling threatened to crush me. This cell was a hole in space, a sinister, loathsome hole filled with evil thoughts. Were I to close my eyes it would all seize hold of me.

Officialdom inevitably inclines towards terrorism whenever it is sufficiently powerful to be able to do so. Every blank form which leaves an office that has any real power is a warrant of arrest in thin disguise. But if madness has its methods there is yet a point at which the methods themselves are patently mad.