Young Adolf

He had no job, no address, no qualification and he refused to admit to any religious beliefs. His entire life, with its small triumphs and disasters, its boundless hopes and aspirations for the future, was condensed to a few words scrawled on a piece of grey paper the size of a visiting card. This puny dossier was no sooner completed than it was stamped with a row of figures that effectively obliterated his name and date of birth. For some reason he had been terrified at the sight of those impersonal digits. Не longed to make a scene, to insist they brand these same numbers on his forehead or his wrist, thus drawing attention to their own lack of humanity.