Patriotism is touchy topic for soccer-crazed Germans

By Annette Reuther Jun 10, 2006, 18:30 GMT

Stuttgart, Germany - For Germans, the World Cup is about more than football. It's also a rare chance to escape their aversion to patriotism.

This summer, the host nation's national colours of black, red and gold are turning up all over - even on gummy bears, women's underwear and sofas.

'We're selling huge amounts of flags. Germany is the top seller,' said Lukas Weimann of Pro Feet, a company that supplies flags to major retailers. 'It seems that the Germans don't have a problem with their flag anymore.'

More than 60 years after the Nazis' defeat in World War II, what would be normal in most other countries remains almost taboo in Germany because of the excesses of nationalism under Adolf Hitler.

As the World Cup got under way, some experts fretted that too much flag-waving might rile up Germany's far-right fringe, notorious for racist hate crimes.

Germany's past, including four decades of communist dictatorship in the east until 1990, has left the nation with a pride deficit. A 33-nation University of Chicago study this year ranked Germans - especially east Germans - at the bottom of the national pride scale.

'Even today, embracing the homeland is relatively difficult,' said Martin Schweer, a psychology professor at Germany's University of Vechta. But, he noted, the World Cup gives young Germans in particular a chance to feel good about their country.

Maybe, like the majority of fans across the globe, most Germans are just out to enjoy themselves and cheer for their team.

'Not everyone who waves the flag is making a patriotic or nationalistic statement,' sociologist Klaus Boehnke of Bremen's International University told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

But a recent rise in neo-Nazi violence in Germany is a red flag to many. Boehnke worries that there is 'a fair number of young people at risk' of living out their latent hatred of foreigners during the World Cup.

'These big sporting events also promote the negative kind of nationalism,' he said.