The World From Berlin: Football Fever and the National Psyche

Germany wouldn’t be Germany if it didn’t take the chance to indulge in a spot of navel gazing during the World Cup. After just one week, the tournament is turning into one huge party. Even clashes between hooligans and police in Dortmund before Wednesday's Germany-Poland game haven’t managed to spoil the mood. The whole country is awash with German flagson cars and balconies, while the streets are filled with people dressed in the national colors, their faces painted, having a good time and chanting "Final!" and "To Berlin!" This outbreak of football fever is prompting the German media to examine how German patriotism and the country's complicated relationship with its national identity have evolved.

According to the center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, it is hardly surprising that those with an allergy to 'Black, Red and Gold' are finding this World Cup unsettling. "The late goal by a substitute born in Switzerland was enough to turn Germany into an elated forest of flags," the paper writes today. "What will happen if the German team's Polish born strikers score, and the country that can already lay claim to the Pope, gets to the final and maybe even wins the title?" The paper wryly notes that Germany wouldn’t be Germany if this enthusiasm for sporting events, "wrapped up in national symbols, didn’t awaken the old fears in one or two doubters." However, the concerns that arose following Germany's World Cup victory in 1990 are no longer merited, according to the FAZ. "In modern societies there are not many opportunities to openly identify with the nation that one belongs to. But there obviously exists such a need." The paper asks if squares full of celebrating people and beeping cars are really evidence of a new German patriotism? It argues that they are "at any rate no reason to fall back into the old ritual of national self-doubt."

Berliner Zeitung also notes that the sight of the now ubiquitous German flags and crowds singing in the stadiums has given rise to the debate "about Germany, the national feeling and/or patriotism." The paper writes that patriotism is a popular word at the moment. "It is less contaminated, it sounds nicer -- more like civil society."

The paper then traces the development of Germany's aversion to nationalism. It writes that after the final in Berne in 1954 the German spectators sang the national anthem, 'Deutschland, Deutschland über alles.' "And they were serious. It was only at the beginning of the 1970s that the climate in the West changed." According to the paper it was then that "the country gradually became aware of the Nazi crimes, and people were less happy to say the 'D' word." However, "the vast majority of fans went on celebrating the German team, but it was a lot less obvious, and less public." According to the paper in this sense "the German flags on cars and balconies show a new relationship to their own country: Germany is not as embarrassing as it was 15 years ago." While the paper argues that the war and its crimes are not forgotten, it writes that "one lives with these memories and at the same time with other feelings."

It adds that "it is clear that one is no longer ashamed of one's country." The paper regards this patriotism as something that was present all along but is only now being displayed in public. According to the paper, this is due to the influence of a Mediterranean way of life on the Germans. "They want to be like that too: with flags, singing, jumping, face paints, and parades of cars."

The financial daily Handelsblatt chastises the doom mongerers in the German media and politics in the run up to the tournament. Like a "German Nostradamus" they predicted the World Cup was about to throw the country into chaos: hoards of drunken hooligans would lay waste to the inner-cities, the touts would charge too much only for cold-blooded controls preventing entry to the stadiums, so that the arenas would be empty because sponsors had found no one to invite.

One week later and "doomsday has been cancelled," the paper writes. The tournament is "bubbling along to a Caribbean rhythm of drumming and Croatian fan songs, accompanied by the beeping of the German parades of cars." The security measures are more relaxed than was previously threatened and the only real incident has been in Dortmund. "The police aren't ruining the atmosphere, and no soldiers are needed to keep the masses in check." The idea of 'a time to make friends' is not wrong, writes the paper. "Who would have thought that Germany could throw off its image as a sourpuss and security-obsessed country?"

The paper can't resist getting a dig in at Germany's leadership. It argues that football can be a lesson for real life: negative thinking hinders, while optimistic openness brings success. "Maybe German business and politicians will learn from this summer's events on and off the pitch: that it is better to be brave and attack, then to talk every new idea to death in advance."

-- Siobhán Dowling, 12:45 p.m. CET