Die Mail hat mich gebeten, für ihre Sonntagsausgabe ein paar Gedanken zum Thema deutsch-englische Beziehungen beizusteuern. Der Anlass ist der Wechsel des Teamcaptains der englischen Fußball-Nationalelf von Tottenham Hotspurs in London zum FC Bayern nach München. Man versteht den Text besser, wenn man die Fawlty-Towers-Folge "The Germans" kennt.
Hier die ungekürzte Fassung meines Beitrags in der Mail on Sunday:
Don’t mention the war? It is hard to avoid when discussing Anglo-German affairs – and discuss them we must as this is a defining moment. We are witnessing history in the making. England’s football idol number one, the captain of the Three Lions’, Harry – or shall we now say Harald? – Kane is joining Germany’s most glorious football club Bayern Munich.
The circumstances of his arrival in Munich on Friday night had epic qualities and will be talked about for years to come. After weeks and weeks of nail-biting negotiations, after last-minute interventions from various invested parties that almost killed the deal, after a mysterious hold-up at the airport of the private jet supposed to take England’s captain to Germany, Kane finally touched down in country with virtually every news outlet out there following and reporting his every step as if it was the Pope, the President and possibly even Elvis Presley who was going to step out of that plane at Oberpaffenhofen airport near Munich. Germany is celebrating the arrival of England’s football captain like a moon-landing.
Willkommen, Herr Kane! This is a historic moment! Not since the Beatles (who, by the way, started their career in Hamburg) has anyone from your isles created such a buzz over here.
This juncture in Anglo-German affairs seems like a good moment to put old rivalries – from beach towel tussels to Brexit – aside to celebrate what really is the world’s most intriguing love-hate-relationship, a relationship so strong and fraught with consequences that it has shaped today’s world like no other.
My first love was an English rose (of German-Jewish descent), my best friend is a born and bred Londoner (an Arsenal supporter regrettably), I went to school and studied in your country, my heart jumps joyfully every time I put my foot on your shores, yet I never try to hide my Germanness and my German accent when I visit, feeling like the living proof of the affinity of both our cultures. I am German. In fact, I am Saxon. We Saxons are regarded as the most German of the Germans. A bit too serious and a bit too eccentric in the eyes of most. The crazy genius composer Richard Wagner was from Saxony. As was Martin Luther. And Caspar David Friedrich whose eerie Romantic landscape paintings showing tiny humans dwarfed by the elements allow a glimpse into our love for the irrational and our strange fascination with nature.
But, then again, as a Saxon am I not quintessentially English? At school we were taught that the lands that around the year 900 gradually came to be known as “Englalonde” were originally inhabited by various Germanic tribes, most notably Saxons, Franks, Frisians, Angles and Jutes. So are the English really Germans? It’s not quite as simple as that.
When the troops of Julius Caesar entered the shores of what the Greeks called “Bretaniki” at 55 BC they found a great variety of tribes. When the Romans left again, roughly 500 years later, the population of South-East England, having enjoyed the civilized life of Roman culture for generations, took a dim view of those they called barbarians who started coming in from the north and threatened their lush, latinised way of life with their hot baths and massages and theatres and all that. Where did they appeal for help? The Romans were busy with their own empire falling apart so they, according to the works of Gildas the Wise, the only substantial source for history of this time, the Romanized Brits reached out to their closest relatives on the continent: the Saxons and Angles, Germanic tribes in what is now the north of Germany.
So, when we Germans started moving in from around 500 AD, we did that – I must insist – because we were asked to. It was definitely no invasion! In fact we were supposed to help fend off invasions from Celts and Picts and all that northern lot.
As is often the case with relatives moving in, they outstay their welcome or, even worse, make the rest of the family come over and move in as well. That’s regrettably what we did. The English Channel already then was a very poor natural hindrance for undesired immigration. The ease with which one could cross it from Saxon territory at Germany’s northern coast allowed not only warriors but whole tribes and families to make the move. The show of force must have been so overwhelming, the cultural supersession so complete, that, rather like British colonialists in ages closer to our own, local Roman customs and languages disappeared and were replaced by Anglo-Saxon ones. Until, roughly another 500 years later the Normans arrived and added another layer of cultural diversification.
So, in essence, just as the German tribe of the Franks that moved west across the Rhine became the French, the German tribes that came across the Channel, the Angles and the Saxons became the English.
Why though, if we are that closely related, do we squabble so much? I believe it is because we are too closely related and hence simply too similar. Just as most of us are irritated when hearing one’s own recorded voice, we see our own flaws in those who are closest. The tussle of the beach towels between Krauts and Brits, one of the most die-hard Anglo-German clichés, is a case in point. We are so similar, that we do exactly the same things (including ending up with embarrassing sunburns) and tend to deride each other for it. It is a bit like laughing at one’s mirror image really.
Also, the closer you are, the more you are prone to envy.
When Kaiser Wilhelm, Germany’s last reigning monarch, ambitiously started building up his navy and founded colonies in far-flung corners of the world, he was driven by envy. He aspired to be on eye level with the British Empire. He wanted Germany to be more like Britain. He adored his grandmother Queen Victoria and loved wearing his British Army uniform (he held the honorary position of colonel-in-chief of the 1st Royal Dragoons). The First World War gave Britain the opportunity to put Germany back in its place. When Germany rose again and Hitler came to power, the feeling of abhorrence was anything but unanimous. There were many prominent figures, in the establishment, among the workers, in government and right up into the highest royal circles who sympathized with Germany during the early years of the Third Reich. But: Shht! This is not something one should dwell on festive occasions like this, I mentioned it once, I think I got away with it alright, as Fawlty the Great would put it. What I actually want to say is: We are frightfully similar. Frightful in the most literal sense sometimes.
It takes one to know one. Maybe that is why Margaret Thatcher was not exactly delighted when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. "We beat the Germans twice, and now they're back”, she said after Helmut Kohl unveiled his 10-point-plan for German reunification one month after the wall’s fall. I was friends with Britain’s ambassador at the time, Sir Christopher Mallaby. Years later he told me how he pleaded with the then-Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd for Britain to show support and not to resist history – Hurd agreed and pleaded with Mrs. Thatcher as well. To no avail. She remained a bitter opponent of German reunification. Ralf Dahrendorf, the German philosopher who taught at Oxford, told me in an interview at the time: “I fully understand Mister Thatcher.” Why, I asked. He answered by posing a question and giving the answer himself: “Do you know why Germans are so keen about building a ever more united Europe? Because Germany is afraid of its own power and wants to be tied down in supranational structure like the EU. Of course you distrusts someone who has fear of himself.” Dahrendorf was certainly one of the view of understood both, the Germans and the English. Today, modern Germans can simply not comprehend why a country would hesitate to sign away what in their eyes are abstract notions like sovereignty. Just like Merkel did not get Boris Johnson. Merkel hated Boris, to be precise. He was too flamboyant for her taste. But there was also a whiff of envy in the way figures of the German political establishment like Merkel looked at Boris. Germans prefer their politicians to be dull. Listening to our chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is about as inspiring as having someone read out the user manual of a Miele appliance. Hence we envy you for the sense of entertainment that engulfs even your political sphere, while you envy us for politicians who are a little bit dull but do to get things done. The grass is always greener on the other side…
There is one thing though that we absolutely do not have and have reason to envy you for: Love for tradition and the respect for one’s own culture and history. The pictures of the Queen’s state funeral made us shiver in respect and painfully aware of the old anti-republican witticism: “There are no fairy tales about presidents.” When King Charles chose Germany for his first state visit, our cities stood still in awe for the occasion and when the King, in a gesture nobody thought possible, came to Hamburg and laid a wreath at the ruins of St Nikolai church, a little-known memorial site for the civilian victims of the air raids carried out by the RAF, the German media was so astonished that they tried to play down the significance.
Here is another reason why we Krauts love you Brits! For obvious reasons, we have difficulties embracing large junks of our history and heritage, so we love you, our closest relatives, your history, your heritage, your way of celebrating the pride you have for your nation, the way also you celebrate football because we do not dare to love ourselves.
Moments like these when we can stand side by side to cheer on the same team therefore feel like a relief. And cheer on together we will. Just you wait until Bayern faces some Spanish or Italian football giant in the Champions League with Harry Kane up front. Even Spurs supporters, after some understandable heartache, have reasons to join in cheering for Bayern with Kane, given the proud Jewish heritage of both clubs. Of both clubs? Indeed. Bayern Munich was originally founded by a circle of mainly Jewish football enthusiasts, one of the first chairmen was the Jewish businessman Kurt Landauer who was put in the Dachau concentration camp by the Nazis and managed to flee to Switzerland before returning after the war to rebuild the club from ruins.
My most beloved tenant at Fawlty Towers has always been the Major. A gentleman to my liking, slightly deluded and always friendly. But his dictum “Bunch of Krauts, that's what they are, all of 'em. Bad eggs!” is not true. Landauer for one was no bad egg and his FC Bayern is a fantastic choice for an English lad from north London. And the fact that the fourth child of Mr. and Mrs. Kane will be a “Munich kindl” – as the children of this beautiful town are known – puts a huge smile not only on my face.
