I wish to write my first piece about something close to me. Post it notes, about ten inches to my right, in green and orange, the pack I would say two thirds of the way to being done.
Now for something that really should be a long way away and in a way sort of is, hundreds of miles in fact, across wild sea and flat terraine, but in fact getting there is extremely easy and I was, not so long ago at a time when the majority were otherwise engaged.
Let me begin by stating my position. I am 'half' German, not to say I speak the language or have ever lived in Germany, but because of father, I am 'half' of him, who is German.
For people outside Germany and who have no real experience of the country it is difficult to explain to the significance last summer, nothing overtly extraordinary took place, nothing for the rest of the world to gawp at through 24 hour news and nothing that would need a NATO or UN intervention, but something that for me at least made me for the first time in my life feel not so stigmatised regarding my admittedly mirky German ancestry. It is easy to do so, living in the country itself it certainly is, where the mention of history is met with shuffling of feet and enjoying the undoubtedly beutiful tune of Deutschland Uber Alles is frowned upon. For someone like myself who has lived in England all his life, I often used to meet the coming of Armistace Day for example with mixed feelings. Please do not think for one second that I had any divided loyalty on the matter, it cannot be argued that it was not ultimately good that Britain and her allies succeeded and with my English Grandfather a Battle of Britain war hero I do feel and always will feel an unkillable level of pride whenever the 11th November arrives. It was the German in me, that unmistakeble 'half' that groaned and wanted to pretend the whole thing had never happend and perhaps envied the Bavarian bourgeoise professionals and their housewives, permanently grinning and not thinking of anything beyond the Alps.
If you have read this far then I am sure you are thinking something along the lines that everything, all this throughly deserved and perhaps you are correct. It was the German middle classes, people like my Grandparents and Great-Grandparents, who allowed this to happen, who were mainly if not solely at fault for the beginning of the War, that paved the way for entire families to be wiped from the Earth in the genocide of 11 and half million people and who ultimately stigmatised any patriotic politics within Europe's boundaries for the past 60 years and maybe even indefinately. But hey, it's not my generations fault. Nor is it of my many German friends, all of whom I met with during my annual holiday and fortnight long piss up in Munich last year, with whom I revelled and celebrated with whilst watching the World Cup and have visibly expressed to me the vast change in the way Germans look at themselves and perhaps even what it means to be German itself in the 21st Century.
I spent almost the whole tournement in Germany. I flew out only a couple of days after England's crap performance against the yanks and one following the German trouncing of that other Auld Enemy of England, Australia, those two results obviously meaning the papers were full from headline to backpage of how the English must immdietely adopt whatever it was, the system, the secret formula that Germany possesed that enabled them to create winning and productive teams from what is lazily seen as an average group of individuals.
I watched England draw with Algeria with some friends in a Munich bar, downing a bottle of Desperados in frustration at every loose pass so that by the time I was put out of my misery by the full time whistle I proclaimed to the table that I would be burning my passport imminently. Of course I didn't and in truth I forgot the result within moments.
Despite my annoyance at England's woeful effort at ending the 44 year drought I couldn't help notice the excitement surrounding me wherever I was. Every new match was met by the sounds of Vuvuzelas filling the air, the side of every road packed with pieces of German engineering draped with the Black Red and Yellow and every other balcony likewise, in the avenue of flats in the small town where I was staying on the outskirts of Munich. I had experienced the aftermath of the previous World Cup held in Germany but for me this was something else. It is truly incredible to be caught in the middle of a nation in the process of discovering itself. As I have said before, this isn't to be compared with the joyous events in Eqypt or hopefully soon to be in Libya and the rest of the Arab world, however this was still a victory of belief in one's self over the scars of history. It is my opnion that Germany has changed fundamentally in previous years, football, sport and the World Cup didn't make it happen, it was merely all a platform for the people to show that a generation after the fall of the wall Germany is indeed united and harbours a self belief which helped the West overcome the physical and mental damage of the War to become the third most prosperous nation on Earth and the demanding challenges and responsibilities that came with re-unification, the result of which now sees this united Germany as the centre of modern day Europe. As we have been forced to start saying in Britain, the Germans may have lost the War but they won the Peace.
