The World of Yesterday but hated politics and shunned political engagement. His autobiography shows some reluctance to analyse Nazism as a political ideology; he tended simply to regard it as the rule of one particularly evil man, Hitler. Zweig was struck that the "Berghof", Hitler's mountain residence in Berchtesgaden, was just across the valley from his own house outside Salzburg. Berchtesgaden was an area of early Nazi activity. Zweig believed strongly in Europeanism against nationalism. Zweig also describes his passion for collecting manuscripts, mostly literary and musical. Zweig collaborated in the early 1930s with composer Richard Strauss on the opera "Die schweigsame Frau", which
Fortified Sector of the Lower Rhine March 1940, also known as the Strasbourg Division. At this time the Herrlisheim sub-sector passed to the control of the neighboring Fortified Sector of Haguenau. At the midpoint of the Battle of France on 1 June 1940, the fortress troops of the 103rd DIF amounted to two fortress infantry regiments in four battalions plus one regular infantry regiment with three battalions, comprising 485 officers and 15,500 men. The sector includes the following major fortified positions. The casemates were generally about apart, with gaps in areas of marshy ground or old sections of the Rhine. 172nd Fortress Infantry Regiment ("172 Régiment