The day German Chancellor Gerhard Shroeder was enraged by his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi after the latter had likened a left-wing German Member of the European Parliament to a Nazi commander, I happened to be in the Black Forest town of Freiburg.
There, a popular Italian restaurant had put up a huge menu board on which was written,
' Wir haben Berlusconi nicht gewaehlt ' (We did not vote for Berlusconi). I was pleasantly amused.
Owing to its Nazi past, Germany has been treading a very fine line when it comes to handling its relations with other European nations.
It is often said that the best way to shut a German person up during a quarrel is to say,
' Are you born with a Nazi streak? '
Sad to say, I once did such a tasteless thing