Donald Trump’s election has prompted some deep soul-searching in Germany. One of the most intriguing areas is on nuclear weapons policy. In an oracular pronouncement seized on by the media, Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of the ruling Christian Democrats, said that if Mr Trump’s America “no longer wants to offer a nuclear security guarantee, Europe still needs a nuclear umbrella”. One of the publishers of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung then gave the screw another twist. Given Russian rearmament and a smallish Anglo-French panoply, let’s think the “unthinkable” — our “own nuclear deterrent”.

In fact, the Germans have thought about it since the early days of the Federal Republic, not to speak of the Third Reich’s scientists who had to stop when Hitler denounced the project as “Jewish physics”.

After the war, the losers went about it in an oblique, precautionary way by building a civilian nuclear industry that became the envy of the world. The purpose was not to sneak into the club of the nuclear powers. That was strictly verboten while Hitler’s heirs were on probation in the west and at the top of the east’s enemy list. The point was to hedge. What was good for civilian nuclear energy was also good for the military side.