The Rise of Europe: UK and Germany Make Nice at World Cup

From the New York Times:

July 1, 2006

At World Cup, No More World War for British and Germans

By RICHARD BERNSTEIN

BERLIN, June 28 — World War II, which, of course, officially ended six decades ago, seems in a way to be finally over as the World Cup unfolds in Germany and the English and Germans are full of praise for each other.

It was only a few weeks ago as the World Cup neared that British officials were issuing stern warnings to Germany-bound English fans against mocking the Germans by giving Nazi salutes, goose stepping, and so forth.

And it does not seem so long ago that the 1996 European Championship was being played in Britain, and the English tabloids printed pictures of tanks and Nazi helmets and headlines like "Let's Blitz Fritz!"

There have been almost no serious examples of that sort of thing this time, just as there has been relatively little of the British hooliganism that some were predicting a few weeks ago would be a common danger to German lives and property.

Instead, there have been scenes like the one described the other day by the newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung, after a melee in which some 300 English fans in Stuttgart were taken into custody, and there were some fights between English and German fans. "What the headlines missed was the gigantic party only a hundred meters away, where fans from the island were partying peacefully with Germans," the paper reported.

Then there was the account, received by the British Embassy in Berlin a few days ago, about a group of English fans who set out to burn the German flag until some other English fans stopped them.

"If Germany were a woman, England would be her late admirer," the newspaper Bild Zeitung's British correspondent wrote this week, characterizing the view of Germany filtering back to England, "someone who, out of ignorance, nearly let this beauty slip through the net."

According to The Sunday Times, which used the words "young, lively, anarchic and brilliant" to describe Germany: "It seems as though the British suddenly want to make up for all the nasty slander of the past."

The new, informal British-German treaty of peace and friendship is all part of the good mood in Germany as the World Cup unfolds, a mood that is part relief that none the potentially diplomacy-shaking bad things — hooliganism, terror attacks, infuriating security precautions, mammoth traffic jams — have taken place on a wide scale, at least not yet.

But when it comes to Germany and Britain, of course, one is talking not only about a history of devastating wars that find a way of being refought over and over in the newspapers and in popular opinion, but also one of the fiercest soccer rivalries on the planet.

In a much-remembered final in 1966, West Germany lost to England on an English shot that the referee said had crossed the line but that the Germans felt rather strongly had been blocked. After that, and until 1994, England reached the final stages of the tournament four times, and three of those times was knocked out by Germany.

Then came the ferociously contested European Championship of 1996, when the tabloids went to town on Germany's wartime past, to such an extent that the editor of The Daily Mirror, which published five pages of faked pictures of the German team wearing World War II helmets, publicly apologized for going too far. In any event, to the disappointment of the English fans, Germany knocked their team out in the semifinals and went on to win the tournament.

It isn't that everybody is behaving well. There have been plenty of English fans singing the 10 German Bombers song — in which the Royal Air Force knocks all the planes down — and a few hundred British fans have been arrested for rowdiness. But mostly there has been a sense of delighted discovery of Germany by the English, who have expressed surprise that Germany is not a country of leather shorts and humorless people who work all the time and even approach their pleasures, like soccer, with grim determination.

"The British press has to be here, and they are confronted with reality," Cornelia Naumann, program director of the British-German Society in Berlin, said. "That's the basic point. When you are far away you can project so many of your stereotypes on another country or person and there's no reality test. Now there is a test and the Germans are doing quite well," she added.

"There's an assumption that the English and Germans don't get on, but I've always thought this was exaggerated," Jonathan Brenton, head of media at the British Embassy in Berlin, said. "The truth is we work together very well."

In the international business community, we know the EU has its problems coming together, but the longer term trend is toward greater cooperation and economic growth. Cooperation makes for economic and political strength, and that's good for business. As investors survey the prospects for the EU's future, small signs like this one of new generations eschewing old animosities matter. Politics follows popular cultural movements, and not vice-versa.

It helps that Europeans are making a new assessment of geopolitics, as polls reflect. American geopolitical isolation, loss of moral standing, militarism and out-of-control debt don't strengthen American prospects, as economic allies subtly band together to fill the competitive vacuum created by loss of U. S. standing. My international business friends and colleagues all note how Americans are received quite differently abroad now than they were ten years ago. In international contexts, when there are fewer clear rules in place to enforce contracts, trust and ad hoc security bonds are necessary to make business deals work. Loss of American stature and trust are bad for American business.

It's great to see old wounds begin to heal between the UK and Germany. I'm not trying to build up the small signs noted in this story to be more meaningful than they are, but they do in my estimation betoken a growing trend. Furthermore, though the article does not mention it, the notable decline in American popularity in Europe is part of the backdrop of this story, without doubt. American business leaders should take note.