Dear Sir, it is probably my fault that Mr Phillips should have so completely misunderstood the purport of my letter.
I should have made it crystal clear that I was referring to the German nation not to Germans as individuals.
If it has been taken as an exercise in German bashing then I am sorry, but if an apology is due it should be made to Sigmund Freud whose words I (so badly) paraphrased.
It was Freud who created the theory that nations as well as individuals possessed a subconscious. He lived long enough (he died in 1939) to see that his analysis of the German nation was more or less substantiated by the turn of events in Europe. He was equally correct, in my view, in his analysis of the English nation.
A superiority complex and an unshakeable conviction that we are always right, is our lot.
It's all there in his Studies on Hysteria, Totem and Taboo, published I think in about 1905.
Everyone knows that in almost every field of human endeavour, the arts, the sciences, music, medicine, philosophy, you name it, Germans have made enormous contributions for the benefit of all mankind. If only their contributions to peace in Europe had been made on the same scale, what a wonderful world we would be living in today. Of course we must be part of Europe, as we are by virtue of being in the Common Market. But why do we need to be federated?
I completely agree with Mr Phillips on the state of England today. I don't follow football, car-racing or tennis, so I am not sure what the PS is meant to convey.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Thompson
Mahon, Minorca