It was easy enough for them to forbid a word that annoyed them, or even to burn and destroy all the books whose authors they did not like. In one particular case, however, they could not touch me without at the same time hurting a man whom they needed more than anyone else in this critical moment for their prestige before the world, the greatest, the most famous living composer of the German nation, Richard Strauss, together with whom I had just finished an opera.