It didn’t stop there. The numbers grew in waves of a dozen; three, four, five, six – each appearing as if by magic from behind the lip at the top of the alm. For a moment, Wilde expected them to keep coming until a whole army occupied the open meadow behind the village. But it stopped at six – seventy-two men in all. Fewer soldiers than a British Army company.

Their torches and the light from the fires gave the snow a golden-yellow glow, contrasting strangely with the dark uniforms and the black helmets of the marching men.

The drummers led the way, six of them, one for each line, thudding out a pagan beat, which intensified as they approached the village. Behind them came the flag-bearers, carrying vast swastika battle colours.

It was a recreation in miniature of one of Hitler’s satanic Nuremberg rallies. But those menacing ranks of men in their hundreds of thousands were long gone. Many to mass battlefield graves in the East, many to the misery and hunger of a POW camp. These few were the dismal, defiant remnants of an army that was supposed to conquer the world.

The word remnants was correct. For after his initial shock, Wilde saw that these were not all hard, fighting men. On the contrary, some were boys, most were old men. Their uniforms of helmets, high boots and SS flashes on the lapels should be intimidating, but these were merely ill-fitting.

That said, the men and boys were armed to kill.

A gasp went up from the watching villagers and Wilde looked back towards the Boden house. The front door was open and light streamed out onto the snowy street.

Julius Boden stepped out in full SS officer’s uniform and regalia, his cap at a jaunty angle. Behind him, Wilde saw the faces of his mother and another woman, Lilly Marais, holding back in the doorway. Boden left them and marched alone up the village street, looking from side to side, greeting his people with straight-arm salutes as he went. The men saluted him back, the women went down on their knees. Some begged to kiss his hand.

He held his hand to them and they grasped it and planted their lips on it. Then he touched them on the shoulder to raise them to their feet, as though he were a messiah with his disciples.

A hundred metres above him, the men with torches continued their parade, breaking into two columns, each of which marched around the bonfires. Then, in an intricate manoeuvre, they crossed and formed a human swastika.