Patriotism  To Fly the Flag or Not?

Germany’s national flag was rarely seen in everyday life for decades. When the men’s soccer World Cup was held in 2006, however, the country unexpectedly erupted in a euphoric blaze of black, red and gold – a phenomenon that had already died down again by the time Germany staged EURO 2024. So what happened?

When Germans think back to the men’s soccer 2006 World Cup, many remember all the big debates surrounding the national flag. For the few weeks that Germany hosted the tournament, the German flag was suddenly to be seen everywhere for the first time since the Second World War. People attached small flags to their cars, hung them from their balconies and waved them proudly in the stadium and in the street every time the home team won. This prompted many people in the media to question whether this was in fact permissible. Was this a new and relaxed brand of festive patriotism – or the harbinger of a dangerous nationalist resurgence?

National Pride Even Without Flag Waving

People in other countries don’t always get the point of these discussions. In the USA, for example, it’s perfectly normal to have the star-spangled banner flying proudly outside your house or emblazoned on your t-shirt. But for a long time this was anything but normal in Germany. This has a lot to do with the country’s National Socialist history – though in fact the Nazis didn’t even use today’s German flag. All the same, it was considered taboo to display overly blatant national pride following this dark chapter of history.

This shouldn’t imply that Germans realized better than other people what danger national pride poses. Nationalism and racist violence were very much a feature of life in both West and East Germany. And in the years following German reunification in 1990, people of migrant background suffered a wave of attacks and racist assaults in Germany. Ever since a large number of refugees arrived in the country in 2015, there has been a new spate of ever more shocking right-wing and racist violence.

To understand this apparent contradiction – that although national pride was socially unacceptable this did nothing to halt racist violence – it’s important to know that Germans carved out a national identity for themselves on the basis of their world-beating ability to never forget. They are proud that they remember the Holocaust so often, especially in the context of what happened to the Jews. This strange mixture of self-flagellation for their crimes during the war on the one hand and feelings of superiority on the other has given rise to a sense of national pride whether they wave their national flag or not.

Soccer Championships Foster a Sense of Superiority

The 2006 World Cup changed all that. Ever since, it has become much more acceptable to display the German flag. At first, this was widely welcomed as a positive development in the media. The 2010 German men’s team was described as an “international team” because so many of the players were of migrant background. They were seen as the poster boys of a liberal Germany with a new brand of harmless nationalism. Yet nationalism is never entirely without consequences. And soon it was no longer just about celebrating soccer.

Many studies have found that nationalist attitudes and violence against those who look different increase – not only in Germany – following success in soccer tournaments. It makes no difference that numerous members of many national teams are of migrant background. Soccer championships foster a sense of superiority. The tone of the debate quickly shifted in Germany, too. There were increasingly vociferous calls for players of migrant background to join in when the national anthem was sung. "In the eyes of [DFB President] Grindel and his supporters I’m a German when we win – and an immigrant when we lose,“ Mesut Özil said in a statement when he quit the national team in 2018.

Displays of the German national flag also began to take on increasingly right-wing dimensions. From 2014, it was flown at far-right Pegida demonstrations and soon became the public symbol of right-wing extremists, including the far-right party Alternative for Germany.

The Flag Is Bowing Out of Soccer

In this sense, the meaning and significance of the national flag have undergone a transformation. When it first appeared in the nineteenth century, it was actually a symbol of middle-class liberals. These days, by contrast, it is often reasonable to assume that people who flaunt the German flag – on their balconies, for instance – even when no soccer tournament is taking place are on the right of the political spectrum. This divide was also evident when German hosted EURO 2024: many people were far more self-conscious about waving a German flag then that they had been in 2006. The far right had appropriated the flag’s symbolism.

Do we need a new symbol? Perhaps that’s not the right discussion. After all, national teams will always go hand in hand with national pride, feelings of superiority and the degradation of others – and player diversity will do nothing to change this (on the contrary, migrant players are expected to embrace supposedly German values particularly keenly). International tournaments constitute an endless battle between nations – one that ends in one winner and many losers. At the official 2014 World Cup celebrations that saw Germany beat Argentina in the final, some members of the German team performed a kind of misconceived jig on stage, imitating defeated Argentinians and proud Germans, which sparked international criticism. Taking part in a battle between nations will inevitably fuel nationalist narratives. With or without a national flag.