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In Last Waltz in Vienna: The Destruction of a Family 1842-1942 (London: Mamillan, 1981), the Viennese George Clare (Klaar) describes his surprise, as an adolescent, on reaching Berlin from newly annexed Vienna, where there had been an explosion of popular anti-Semitism, to discover that Jews there, just prior to Kristallnacht, were leading, superficially at least, a ″normal″ life.

″What would you like to do this evening,″ his slightly older German cousin asks him. ″D′you want to go to a cinema, the theatre or just for a drive round Berlin?″ ″But how can we?″ Clare asks. ″We′re Jews.″ ″Yes and don′t I know it,″ his cousin replies. ″But what′s that got to do with it?″ ″It seemed incredible to me,″ the mature George Clare continues in his memoir, ″but it was perfectly true—in Berlin, in the capital of the Third Reich, in the very lion′s den, Jews were still allowed in September 1938 to visit places of entertainment, coffee houses; some even still owned patisseries, they could own cars and shop where they pleased. On the whole of the Kurfurstendamm, one of the city′s most elegant streets, I saw only one shop with the sign ′No Jewish customers,′ so universally displayed in Vienna. Indeed, many Kurfurstendamm shops were still run by their Jewish proprietors. [...] Nor, as I could see for myself, did the ′Aryan′ German customers keep away from those shops. [...] Later that evening, when we drove back to our hotel, through crowded, busy streets, brighly lit by many-coloured neon lights, [.] I sensed the invigorating pace and intensity of Berlin. [.] I was overwhelmed by that city and also breathed more freely there than I had in Vienna during the previous six months. With every additional day my impression grew stronger, and it was shared by my parents, that after Nazi Vienna, one felt in Berlin almost as if one had emigrated and escaped from Hitler′s rule″ (p. 209). These are, of course, an adult′s memories of his experiences as a youth. In addition, Berlin should probably not be taken as characteristic of Germany as a whole. Nonetheless, the testimony is worth noting.