Say it loud, were German and were proud.

last updated 8 January 2015

Germany

Markus Hesselmann

Germans are beginning to shed their long taboo against patriotism, said Markus Hesselmann in Berlin’s Der Tagesspiegel. With the national soul-searching that followed World War II came a deep distrust of flag-waving, saluting, and anything else that smacked of nationalistic fervor. At a soccer World Cup final in the 1970s, not only did the German fans refuse to sing the national anthem, so did the victorious players. Cheering on Germany was so problematic that most Germans didn’t even try, and instead allied themselves with teams from other countries, such as England or Brazil. “The Cameroon team was a German favorite” for quite some time. This knee-jerk rejection of the “fatherland” reached its peak after the reunification of East and West Germany, when many leftists here feared that Germany would once again succumb to fascism and territorial aggression. But that didn’t happen. Germany has grown up, and so have Germans. Slowly, we’ve learned that “progressive, internationalist thinking needn’t be incompatible with patriotism.” Now that the German national team is “a multi-culti, diverse group,” with several foreign-born and even two black players, supporting it “is actually fun.” And it’s something Germans can do proudly, without those old pangs of guilt.