In World Cup Surprise, Flags Fly With German Pride

Correction Appended

BERLIN, June 17 — It is everywhere, hanging from windows, sticking out from cars, forming moving seas of black, red and gold in the stadiums whenever the German team, a top contender in World Cup 2006, plays.

The German flag, long weighted by the country's postwar reluctance about open displays of national pride, is flying again, an expression of exuberance as Germany plays host to the World Cup.

"When you see so many German flags flying from windows, that's a development that was long overdue, while not forgetting what happened in this country before," said Christoph Metzelder, a defender on the German team.

Indeed, the chief indicator of the national mood is that almost overnight, once the World Cup began and all those people from other countries arrived with flags and T-shirts in their national colors, it became almost mandatory, certainly desirable, to respond in kind.

Children were shown on television the other day standing under black, red and gold umbrellas; grown-ups are painting their faces in the national colors, either their whole faces or showing a discreet removable tattoo on one cheek. Even underwear is being printed with the colors of Germany.

The display of the flag is topic No. 2 in this country these days — No. 1 is the World Cup itself — talked about in editorials and on talk radio, with people calling in to say that, finally, they feel proud to be German.

This represents a change, "a cathartic moment for Germany," as one longtime foreign observer, Gary Smith, director of the American Academy in Berlin, put it.

For most of the years since World War II, the Germans have not really been sure whether it was appropriate to display emblems showing that they loved their country.

For decades patriotism was associated with nationalism, and that most terrible manifestation of nationalism, blind obedience to an evil leader. If Germans loved Germany, it still seemed bad form to express that love in symbols like the flag.

"One and a half centuries after 1848, we have learned to value and show the colors of our flag as a sign of our democratic nation," the daily Die Welt editorialized after the abrupt ubiquity of the flag became a news story.

The reference in Die Welt was to the emergence of the black, red and gold horizontal bars as the insignia of the failed democratic revolution of 1848.

Its origins, though, go back decades before that, to the Napoleonic Wars, when groups that wanted independence from France began to use those colors to represent their political aspirations.

The design has always represented democratic forces, and was therefore never adopted by the dictatorial ones, whether the monarchy, Bismarck or the Nazis.

The present flag became the official national flag after the country's first democratic republic was created after World War I, but the Nazis did away with it, substituting the swastika.

In the years after World War II, the black, red and gold could certainly be seen in official contexts — fluttering proudly over the glass dome of the restored German Parliament in Berlin, for example. But until the World Cup, the flag was never a ubiquitous public symbol, avidly displayed as the flags of other countries are.

So why, just now, has public sentiment moved toward flag-waving?

Many factors could be involved. Germany has a new chancellor, Angela Merkel, who has emerged as possibly the most effective leader among the big countries of Europe. The economy is on a modest upswing, and consumer confidence is higher than it has been in years. Pope Benedict XVI is a German, which has instilled a certain pride even in this most nonreligious of nations.

And then there is the simple passage of time, the change of the generations.

"To the old generation, the flag symbolized aggressive nationalism, or even some continuity with the Third Reich, even if the Third Reich didn't use that flag," said Paul Nolte, a professor of contemporary history at Berlin's Free University. "Now perhaps there's been a chance to reattach the original democratic, liberal values to the flag that come from the 19th century when it was invented."

The new display of pride is almost strenuously nonnationalistic. There are even German cars that show the German flag on one side and some other flag — the Brazilian one seems popular, perhaps because Brazil is a likely opponent if the German team makes it to the finals — on the other side.

Some commentators on the flag phenomenon deny that it has anything to do with patriotism, saying that flying it is not some expression of national feelings: it is simply fun. Or, as one commentator in Die Welt put it, it is just being in a good mood.

Mr. Smith, with the American Academy in Berlin, said the Germans, who are a homogeneous people, are finding it enjoyable suddenly to be host to so many people from so many countries, many of them wearing national colors of their own.

Mr. Nolte, responding to questions about whether the flag displays have something to do with global political aspirations, was quick to discount that idea. "It doesn't mean that people are thinking in a positive way about Germany's role in the world, or its engagement in Afghanistan or elsewhere," he said.

"A majority of Germans still probably feel uneasy about that," Mr. Nolte continued, referring to Germany's dispatch of troops to Afghanistan, "although it is an important question, what the meaning of the flag is, and that to a certain degree is unanswered yet.

"When all the sporting events are over, what will it stand for: a democratic society, a certain role in the world?" he asked.

"There's the adoption of the symbol, but sometimes the symbol is adopted before it has content," Mr. Nolte said. "But maybe we are on the right way, toward being a friendly, open, democratic and tolerant society."