Jack-booted

She seemed to feel silent, jack-booted watchers standing outside frightened houses, figures kneeling to scrub the pavements, children coldly excluded from their familiar playgrounds, the informer's whisper in the café, fear and suspicion like rheumatism fastening upon the easy intercourse of friends—all the vicious little tricks of modern tyranny.

He wouldn't tell me — blew up about jack-booted gestapos trampling over the leddies' rooms, and took himself off in a black temper.

The Zeppelinfeld arena, in which all those jack-booted men goose-stepped, is an athletic field for American soldiers and also is the setting for local rock festivals.