The triumph is that out of the guilt and the devastation of Germany has emerged one of the most mature, civilised and least jingoistic democracies of the western world. Forget the past? Children are almost all routinely taken to one of several Holocaust memorials. Through facing the past, modern Germany has, at great pain, created a new identity. Over half a century later, as Carol Sarler's article illustrates only too well, it is high time the English learned to do the same.
Colin Speakman
Ilkley, West Yorkshire
What I learned from my father-in-law when he took me to the site of the Buchenwald camp was that in his youth (he was 10 in 1939) there were no easy answers. He was a member of the Hitler Youth - he had to be. Yet he smuggled dairy products to the Jewish ex-customers of his father's dairy in the small town where he lived. He was no hero, I doubt very much whether I would have been, and I wonder with how much bravery Carol Sarler would have conducted herself in such circumstances.
Mike Hayward
Bracknell
I have lived abroad in various countries. In Germany I never encountered anyone denying or refusing to discuss the Holocaust. Having visited some of the most notorious sites I was always overwhelmed by the German presence and the desire of young people to learn about the past and understand why these things happened.
Peter Jones
Carol Sarler says scratch the surface of Hans's mind and you might find 'something nasty lurking there'. I wonder if she watched Question Time from Maidstone the other night, with the first question devoted to the asylum problem. You didn't have to scratch the irate young questioner's mind to see what was lurking behind true-blue eyes blazing with hatred of foreigners and racial prejudice.
Ludwig Rang
London NW3
To use Germans as a scapegoat for our own ineptness at the management of Rover is wrong. Sarler should think before writing and - I never thought I would suggest this - The Observer should think before printing.
Richard Tunaley
Tokyo, Japan
Carol Sarler's article was evidently supposed to be light-hearted, judging by the final line. However, I found it one of the most offensive articles I've read. Her thesis that the sins of the parents should be visited on the children is extreme and outdated, particularly more than 50 years after the Holocaust. Her argument's relevance to the BMW/Rover catastrophe - a poor business strategy finally laid to rest - strikes me as a crassly contentious piece stuck in to get to the bottom of page 15.
Jonathan Reid
Northwich, Cheshire
We don't want forgiveness - you can't forgive a second and third generation. We don't want to forget. But we do want peace and trust. Carol Sarler's argument are a recipe to induce prejudice in any society.
Britta Kleinsorge
Cambridge
