It's your Heimspiel

Last night Germany won the third-place medal in the World Cup championship. And thus ends the most anthropologically fascinating month of my German journey.

“No, of course I’m not proud to be a German,” my friends used to say. It hasn’t been long enough to wipe out the black marks in contemporary history. In a country with thousands of years of history archived in architecture and monuments and memory, the seventy-five years since Hitler took power, the sixty years since WWII ended, the seventeen years since communism fell are but the blink of an eye. When it comes to patriotism, Germans are nothing if not hesitant.

And then came the WM. For the Fussball Weltmeisterschaft, inhibitions took a hiatus. The divided Germany reunited under gold, black and red Mohawks and flags and capes and sang the national anthem with gusto. Lukas Podolski, Oliver Kahn and Bastian Schweinsteiger temporarily replaced Goethe, Lessing and Schiller in the mouths of the proud.

Old and young blew airhorns with enthusiasm. Strangers smiled at each other in the streets. Decorated Turks and Germans high-fived. Journalists threw objectivity to the wind and donned fan gear. And for two and a half kilometers in front of the Brandenburg Gate, elated fans clogged the streets this morning hoping to get a glance of the Nationalmannschaft as they left the bus, utterly victorious and sporting t-shirts with “Danke Deutschland” emblazoned across the front.

They received a king’s welcome. For the first time, I have seen Germans absolutely satisfied with third place. Absolutely satisfied to belong to this country, to fly this flag, to put differences aside and cheer on something bigger than they.

Unashamed.