The Last Lion. Volume 2: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932-1940

p. 279

“Until Hitler moved into the Reich Chancellery, the men in striped Hosen from the Wilhelmstrasse were celebrated for their breeding, their mastery of elegant diplomatic language, and their meticulous observance of international treaties. Elaborate, almost choreographed manners had always graced relations between powers, however bloody the deeds. ‘When you have to kill a man,’ as Churchill later said, ‘it costs nothing to be polite.” Hitler’s group was different. For the first time in history, the power of a European state was rooted in its lower middle class. In fact, it was rooted in a criminal class.”