He had picked Pili up at noon from Klara’s place — a bungalow on a dreary post-war housing estate in

Lichtenrade, in the southern suburbs. Park in the street, sound the horn twice, watch for the twitch in the parlour curtain. This was the routine which had evolved, unspoken, since their divorce five years ago — a means of avoiding embarrassing encounters; a ritual to be endured one Sunday in four, work permitting, under the strict provisions of the Reich Marriages Act. It was rare for him to see his son on a Tuesday, but this was a school vacation: since 1959, children had been given a week off for the Fuhrer’s birthday, rather than for Easter.

The door had opened and Pili had appeared, like a shy child-actor being pushed out on stage against his will. Wearing his new Pimpf uniform — crisp black shirt and dark blue shorts — he had climbed wordlessly into the car. March had given him an awkward hug.

“You look smart. How’s school?”

“All right.”

“And your mother?”

The boy shrugged.

“What would you like to do?”

He shrugged again.

They had lunch in Budapester Strasse, opposite the Zoo, in a modern place with vinyl seats and a plastic-topped table: father and son, one with beer and sausages, the other with apple juice and a hamburger. They talked about the Pimpf and Pili brightened. Until you were a Pimpf you were nothing, “a non-uniformed creature who has never participated in a group meeting or a route march”. You were allowed to join when you were ten, and stayed until you were fourteen, when you passed into the full Hitler Youth.

“I was top in the initiation test.”

“Good lad.”

“You have to run sixty metres in twelve seconds,” said Pili. “Do the long jump and the shot-put. There’s a route march — a day and a half. Written stuff. Party philosophy. And you have to recite the Horst Wessel Lied.”