Flying the flag...

There are German flags all over the place at the moment. In windows, on cars, on flagpoles in gardens, even hanging off cranes. During the World Cup children were standing on the street by our house, waving the black-red-gold tricolour at cars driving past.

I know that in America or the UK this would not be unusual. In Germany it is revolutionary. Some years ago we put up a German flag in preparation for a party. The first German person who came in protested and asked us to take it down. So did the second. And the third. “Because of the past” people said, as if the nation was in a sort of permanent penance for its sins.

And then the World Cup came to Germany. Suddenly the world was here, waving their flags. And slowly German flags emerged. And more German flags. All over the place Black-red-gold wherever you looked. By the third week there was a national flag shortage. Honest.

The media picked this up and started talking about how great it was that Germans could be German- and immediately voicing caution that is shouldn’t go too far. Be careful, they said. Remember what happened last time. But the flags kept coming. They are still here. Germans are being Germans again. But it isn't the unpleasant -we-are-better-then-anyone-else- jingoism of Old Germany, or of certain other nations today. It is quite different, as you could tell by looking at those children waving flags outside.

Five Children. Two German, two Turkish and one Chinese.