Are we still scared of the Germans? Even asking that question in the corridors of the European Union is likely to provoke sorrow and incredulity. The conventional answer is: of course not! Fear of Germany is primitive and backward-looking. The war ended more than 60 years ago.

Poland is currently the skunk of the EU, largely because of its flamboyant violation of this polite consensus. In the run-up to the recent European summit, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland’s prime minister, argued that his country deserved to be given more voting power, in compensation for all the Poles killed by Germans during the second world war.