Those emotionally charged moments ahead of football games see other teams visibly swelling with pride as their fans bellow along to the "Inno di Mameli" and "God Save the Queen." But to the Germans, the experience has always been inevitably tainted by a nagging awareness that their country long ago forfeited its right to national pride.īut in recent weeks, World Cup fever has given rise to a burgeoning sense that maybe it's OK to be German and proud of it after all. Sixty years after World War Two, impassioned expressions of patriotic zeal are still largely taboo in Germany. National pride, "nein danke" English fans have never minded making a show of national pride Image: AP In fact, "Das Deutschlandlied" is relatively harmless - one of the world's only national anthems by a renowned composer and little more than a celebration of "unity, law and freedom." Compare that to the French "La Marseillaise" - "March, march/let impure blood/Water our furrows!" - or lines such as "Their blood has wiped out their foul footsteps' pollution" from "the Star Spangled Banner," and it looks positively mellow.īut for obvious reasons, Germans still balk at references to the Fatherland, while the French have no such qualms.
Unlike just about everyone else in the world, no one in this country learns their national anthem at their mother's knee.
"Do you hum it, or do you sing it?" wondered Berlin newspaper BZ as the World Cup kicked off two weeks ago - and obligingly printed the lyrics for anyone who didn't know the words.
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