“Taking as equal pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, gird thyself for the battle; thus thou shalt not incur sin.” The Bhagavad-Gita (II. Verse 38) “Allein unser Denken and Handeln soil keineswegs von Beifall oder Ablehnung unserer Zeit bestimmt werden, sondern von der bindenden Verpflichtung an eine Wahrheit, die wir erkannten.” Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf, II, Chap. 2, edit 1939, p. 435.)

vii FOREWORD This book is merely an account of my arrest and trial, in western occupied Germany, in early 1949, on the charge of Nazi propaganda, and of my subsequent life in jail. The glimpse one gets, in it, of western occupied Germany, is a glimpse of Germany through my eyes, i.e., through the eyes of a non-German follower of Adolf Hitler. The impression that the representatives of the Occupying Powers might have of the same country from their angle, is probably quite different. God alone knows — and time alone will tell — which is the nearest to objective reality. In the meantime, — should this book come to light before what I call “our Day” — on no consideration should the opponents of the Nazi faith, now in a position to harm them, incriminate any Germans on the ground of my personal impressions, or of words which I might have reported more or less accurately. I have named no Germans in this book, — save one, whom I know now to be dead, and to whom, consequently, the champions of Democracy can do no longer any harm. But several might be recognisable by the posts they held at the time of my imprisonment. What I have just said applies to them: I do not want them to be implicated on account of my impression about them. I thank them however for having given me that impression; for whether true or exaggerated, it has strengthened my confidence in the people whom I call in this book (and in another) “the vanguard of the regenerate Aryan race,” and thereby helped me to find life worth living, even now, in our gloomy times. Lyons (France), the 29th August, 1950. SAVITRI DEVI