The revival of German nationalism

Dear Reader,

A crumbling old cookery book fell into my hands recently. Its cover is attached by a thread, and its pages have turned brittle and brown.

Titled “Der Weg zum Herzen des Mannes,” it is full of wholesome recipes meant to help an inexperienced young housewife keep her husband happy.

Inside, I found a loose leaf of paper addressed to a Frau Geiger. It was a recipe for raspberry buns. And it was signed with the words “mit deutschem Gruß, Heil Hitler!”

It was a startling reminder that the enthralment with Nazism seeped into intimate aspects of everyday life - politics was even woven into a dessert recipe.

But, on closer inspection, the recipe took on an even darker turn.

There are other hand-written notes in the book and they all contain blots and smudges - the unmistakable marks of a fountain pen. But this one, dry and scrawled, was quite obviously written with a ballpoint pen.

Here’s the curious thing: there were no ballpoint pens in Nazi Germany. The biro's inventor, László Bíró, w…