Not a vestige of liberty survived; not a man remained in office, be he university don or inspector of gas meters, who had not manifested complete submission to the conquerors. The whole machinery of administration, from top to bottom, was seized and made to serve the ends of tyranny; every free association of Britons collapsed or was dissolved. It was a nation of slaves that ate its breakfast in the morning and trudged off to what work there was for it to do. One fine morning we of the foreign Press (and I was accounted “foreign” now) donned our glossy tall hats and morning coats and went along to what O’Flynn described as the funeral. The Führer, his arm still resting in its sling, had gone back to receive the daemonic acclamations of his own people; but the Reich Commissioner had arrived, in pomp and circumstance, and was about to state his will and pleasure concerning the disposal of the body. It was the last humiliation to learn that Herr Joachim von Ribbentrop was that Commissioner.
