German officialdom still owes something to the pre-war tradition of deference to authority, mercilessly satirised in Carl Zuckmayer’s classic play, The Captain of Köpenick, a new English version of which opens next week in London at the National Theatre. Mr Cameron ought to take an evening off to see this production if he wants to understand what he is up against in Berlin. Disguised in an army officer’s uniform, an ex-con is able to take over the town hall, where all the officials stand to attention. This parable of the perils of official obedience is based on a true story in Prussia before the First World War. While the heel-clicking attitude to military uniforms of the Kaiser’s or Hitler’s Germany has gone, today the European Union is treated with the same blind deference in Germany.