The Germans are second only to the British in their fascination for newspaper stories involving Nazis and sex. Television documentaries entitled "Hitler's women" regularly get top viewing figures.

No suprise then that Bild, Germany's mass circulation newspaper (readership estimated at 12 million), had as its front page splash a gritty black and white photograph of a black-clad prositute and a naked grey-haired Englishman. "Uproar over Nazi Sex party!" said the headline. "Five hour orgy on video, Whores wear Nazi uniforms". The newspaper stresses that the man is only allegedly Max Mosley.

But inside the newspaper -- on page 19 close to the usual Formula One coverage -- Bild makes clear that Mr Mosley is of prime initerest to German readers: educated in the elite German boarding school Salem, a friend of Michael Schumacher, and that rare Englishman -- a fluent German speaker. A photograph of Oswald Mosley making a Hitler salute underlines the fact that the family has two generations of links with Germany.

No other German newspaper covers the affair quite so extensively -- Bild has three other pictures from the News of the World video -- but it is clear why the story is unusually spicey for a German public. Wearing Nazi uniforms is banned as is the display of the swastika -- the pictures of Prince Harry's fancy dress party gave readers a rare chance chance to see the Nazi symbol, and even then some newspapers blocked it out. The idea that Englishmen could pay to be whipped by women dressed in these uniforms, or those of concentration camp prisoners, is deeply shocking, a violation of Germany's deepest and darkest taboos.