If the Hagel hearings had done nothing else—they had in fact done everything else in their revelations, if not the final outcome—they had, in this time of postelection dreariness, shown Republicans come roaring to life.
Stefan is the son of a cast-off diplomat who is sacked from the East German foreign service for a minor misdemeanour just as the Vogel family was about to be posted to New York and escape the dreariness of East Berlin.