there was always a screen behind which to evade

“There was always a screen behind which one could hide — a superior who in turn had his superior— orders, instructions, duties, commands— and finally the many-headed monster, morale, necessity, hard reality, responsibility, or whatever it was called— there was always a screen behind which to evade the simple law of humanity.”

(Erich Maria Remarque, Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country, 1946).