Hitler spoof

Please allow me, a British national (not an English national as one news item in The Jakarta Post had it), to comment on the Hitler spoof referred to by Ian Buruma in his commentary on the No to the euro campaign in the UK.

I share his disgust at this for the simple reason that if any nation has made a success at rebuilding civil society it is Germany. Anybody with a halfway detached view of things could see that whatever faults German society may have the nation's remarkable comeback from the horrors of the Nazi era is nothing short of commendable.

We all know there are neo-Nazi elements abroad in Germany but these exist in the UK too -- I know, I have demonstrated against the racist National Front -- and Germany's mainstream is anything but neo-Nazi.

This Hitler spoof is an insult to remarkable people like Chancellor Willy Brandt, one of the finest Europeans of his time, who helped reconfigure Germany into an active democracy.

DAVID JARDINE, Jakarta