Gulliver - The first two lines of Heine's poem are often quoted in the sense you put in it but originally it is a deep-drawn sigh of homesickness, not so much for the fatherland ("it can't decay") but for his mother ("she might die") and all his other friends long gone.

Azizi - I appreciated your contribution very much. Racism was one of the mainstreams of Nazi Germany. Not only the Jews were prosecuted, but other races, too, Gypsies, Slavs, and Negroes weren't held in high esteem. Example: During the Olympic Games in 1936 Hitler congratulated the winners with a handshake, but not Jesse Owens (for those who don't know him: he was a famous runner, and black).

Racism was still virulent in the post-war times. This stopped in the early fifties when the movie Toxi was shown. It is about a daughter of a white mother, dead, and a black father, transferred and never heard of. The girl, aged five, bearing out all resentiments finally wins the hearts of all people she meets. She is so nice, so cute - you could hear the tears drop in the audience. Seeing her fate people became aware what a nonsense racism is. (In the end her father comes back and holds her in his arms - under the christmas tree.)

It was said above that a common school for all races is the best way to fight racism. So it was in my country; the offspring of black and white marriages weren't discriminated. Later on, since l963, they were conscripted and fully accepted in the army. The first soldier in my old company to get the medal of merit was one of them. Fine guy.

McGrath - Hitler toured through the entire Nation during the election campaigns, and a lot of people had the chance to see him in action.
A late distant relative slobbered over "his steely eyes" she had looked into.
Opposite story: In my late grandfather's wallet I found a coloured image of Hitler. Good grief! My grandfather! But when I turned the image I read on the backside: "In these eyes you see the entire abyss of criminal intent." He must have used in those days for counterpropaganda.