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[3 postings and a clarification follow -- ed.]
Since several people have written to me on this point, please let me
offer a small clarification: the radio program I was listening to
included recorded chants of "Heil! Heil!" in the background of its
discussion of the ritual elements of Catholic masses and soccer
games. I've never heard such a chant in Germany.
H-German Review Editor Susan Boettcher
University of Texas
From: "Alex J. Kay" <alexjkay@gmx.de>
Subject: Re: MfG 8: Boettcher on the World Cup in Wolfenbüttel
Date: Monday, June 26, 2006
An "Absence of History" in the German Capital?
Having moved to Berlin at the end of 2001, I am now experiencing my
third major football competition as a resident of Germany. There was
a lot of celebrating when Germany reached the World Cup Final in
2002, but - unless my memory deceives me - nothing to compare with
that which we have witnessed over the last fortnight. This is
particularly true in the case of the masses of black, red and gold
flags. A substantial proportion of cars have at least one and - in
some cases - as many as four German flags fluttering from their
roofs. The number of people carrying flags is just as large.
I would absolutely agree with Andrew Port when he writes that most
Germans who wave flags during the World Cup "know--and if they don't,
they should--that flag waving in this country, because of its past,
has very special meaning". So, how can we explain their actions? Is
it an attempt to free themselves from the constraints of the past, to
establish a new, "positive" nationalism? Or is it, as a young
(German) friend of mine put it, illustrative of "a frightening
'Absence of History' in the minds of young people"? She suspects that
"history isn't relevant for them; they don't care".
Although people of all ages can be seen carrying flags or with flags
attached to their cars, it is undoubtedly young people who constitute
the majority. In many cases, they combine the flying of the flag with
"Deutschland" chants. It may turn out to have been merely a case of
football-fever-bandwagon-jumping heightened by the fact that Germany
is hosting the tournament. The concern, however, that these people
are - whether consciously or subconsciously - suppressing the past
and hence the "special meaning" of their actions, is doubtlessly a
valid one.
Alex J. Kay
Stiftung Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas
From: Andrew Gow <andrew.gow@ualberta.ca>
Subject: Re: MfG 8: Boettcher on the World Cup in Wolfenbüttel
Date: Monday, June 26, 2006
I recently left a hockey-crazed Edmonton just before the Oilers
choked on the last game (so Canadian!) in the Stanley Cup series and
arrived in a football-crazed Germany. I will admit up front that I
hate all organized sports, hated playing them, hate watching them or
even hearing about them. I am a hostile observer. I am also a
descendant of European Jews with a historic and cultural suspicion
about public enthusiasms of all kinds, German or not.
There was not much going on in Frankfurt an der Oder, but Heidelberg
was fairly hot with football cheering and so forth, and Nürnberg was
positively wild. This trajectory might seem to suggest the following
pattern: phlegmatic Ossis, enthusiastic university town, crazed lower-
middle class fans. However, there are some complications. The wildest
fans in Nürnberg were the English--the train was packed with them
("Swantig beers, bitter") and forty plane-loads had flown in from
Manchester and Stanstead mainly to crowd the Hauptplatz and stare at
the screen. A British scalper in a beer garden one afternoon before a
big game suggested to a confederate that he would sell a ticket for
500 pounds, but that he was not ready to pay that much, though he
could see prices of 1,000 pounds coming... Someone managed to wreck
my sleep that night with one of those wretched air horns, blown
strategically at two-hour intervals through the wee hours. The
loudest people in Heidelberg were foreigners--Brazlilians, Italians,
and Americans; and in Frankfurt on the Oder, the quietest town of the
lot, there are scarcely any foreigners, except Poles, and they were a
bit noisier than the quiet Germans.
Back in Edmonton, city council ponders what to do about hockey-fan
hooliganism. One night aftern an Edmonton win, windows were broken
and bonfires started on the main thoroughfare of the university
district. A booming economy, a low drinking age and relative
tolerance to public consumption fueled loutish hockey-fan behaviour.
Canadian hockey fans and boosters already cultivate a populist
resistance to the civil behaviour that normally characterizes
Canadian public space. Hockey as played here is brutal and bloody.
Quasi-fascist 'Blut-und-Boden' notions are by no means limited to
Europe: one colleague of mine once remarked that no-one who does not
feel hockey deep in his gut is really Canadian. A bit of flag-waving
in the German streets--new as it is--seems relatively mild by
comparison.
Andrew Gow
University of Alberta
From: Christopher Jackson <jacksonc@sfsu.edu>
Subject: Re: MfG 8: Boettcher on the World Cup in Wolfenbüttel
Date: Monday, June 26, 2006
I do not have a problem with Germans flying their national colors;
after all,
the schwarz-rot-gold has a fine pedigree going back to 1848 (and even
before). Everybody else is flying the flags of their countries, and
since the
World Cup is organized on a nation-state basis, it is not surprising.
What is surprising is a TV shot that I glimpsed a couple of days
ago: the
flag that someone was flying was the battle flag of the American
Confederacy.
I observed this many times while living in Germany (admittedly years
ago),
particularly among truckers. What gives there? Do you know what it
means?
Is it a legally acceptable code for racist sentiment when the
Hakenkreuz is
verboten?
Christopher R. Jackson
San Francisco State University
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
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