IDEOLOGIES: The Black Coats

Adolf Hitler called them the "Order of Good Blood," and gave them for a symbol a grinning death's-head. In ten dreadful years, they butchered millions, making good their master's boast that men should "grow sick at the sight of [their] black coats." At Niirnberg, before the court of world opinion, they were forever condemned for crimes against humanity. Yet last week the SS (full name: Schutzstaffel) marched again, jack boots ringing on the cobblestones of the garrison town of Verden in lower Saxony.

Steel Helmets. The occasion seemed harmless: since SS troops are...

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