From Napoleon Bonaparte to David Hasselhoff, all the great men of history have seized the magic of the Brandenburg Gate – some literally.
In 1806, the French general purloined the gate’s horse statues as war booty; on New Year’s Eve 1989, the American singer-actor ended the Cold War with a concert atop the Berlin Wall, the famous gate as his backdrop.
These days the Brandenburg Gate looks like the centre of a vast LSD trip: an oversized goal in a kilometre-long stretch of artificial grass – larger than three soccer pitches – through the centre of the German capital.
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“People are delighted, they want to take off their shoes and walk though it,” said Moritz van Dülmen, chief executive of arts event agency Kulturprojekte Berlin, which realised Berlin’s unusual fan mile.
“We have made a place to hang out in the centre of the city, creating a whole different feeling.”
A different feeling is exactly what the doctor ordered in Germany, home to a sclerotic economy, a soaring housing crisis, rising political extremism. The war in Ukraine is just a train ride to the southeast.
For a month from Friday, Germans have applied for permission to forget all of that as hosts of the European championships. In total 10 cities from Munich to Hamburg are hosting matches, teams and fans. The largest share of the 2.5 million fans are expected to descend on the capital between now and the Olympic Stadium finale on July 14th.
Long before the opening Uefa concert (June 12th), however, there is only one question on everyone’s minds: will lightning strike twice?
It’s 18 years since the 2006 World Cup surprised everyone, a glorious party of “world friends at home with friends” in Germany.
“Beforehand, fans had this image of the ‘correct’ Germans,” said Christian Tänzler of Visit Berlin, the capital’s tourism agency, “and then they came into a country where the sun shone for four weeks and everyone partied and chilled together.”
Even more surprised were the German hosts and how visitors viewed them as a cool, relaxed bunch of people, well able to party without any brown shadows of the past ruining the present.
“All in all, they are not so bad, the Germans,” conceded the London Times afterwards. “Our Anglo-Saxon brothers have been patriotic and passionate, but have remained considerate, unaggressive and friendly. Their footballers were entertaining and their fans partied. Fantastic.”
And what of 2024? So far the weather is looking good, with 28 degrees and and sun forecast, but the public mood still needs work. Travel through Germany and you would be hard-pressed to see signs that a major world sporting event is looming.
Instead you will hear lots of complaints about an increasingly unreliable train network – expected to be the main mode of transport for fans – and rising beer prices: a €2.50 beer in 2006 may cost twice that today.
Confirming a national talent for finding a metaphorical fly in every bowl of soup, Berlin media have obsessed over the potential micro-plastic waste from the €1.2 million fake lawn rather than the parties it may host. Another newspaper worried on Tuesday “how much fan urine” the trees in Berlin’s surrounding Tiergarten park can handle.
In other words, things sound just like June 2006 when, just before the first kick-off, a journalist from the Zeit weekly urged people to celebrate the World Cup “without any tribal markings – not one black-red-gold flag or garland”.
Public mood overruled published mood, however, and millions took back their national colours from the political fringes to celebrate their Sommermärchen, or summer fairy tale, wrapped in black-red-gold flags, wigs and make-up.
Nearly two decades on, with the world on edge, emotions – and security measures – are running high. German authorities say they are ready for everything from drunken fan brawls and Islamist attacks to drone strikes. A recent simulated attack on the Berlin fan mile, with 900 casualties, passed off without a hitch, so to speak.
Still, no one here takes security for granted: before the joyous World Cups of 2006 and 1974, West Germany hosted the notorious 1972 Olympics, when Palestinian terrorists murdered 12 Israeli athletes and trainers.
In Munich, scene of that bloodbath, the tournament kicks off on Friday with Germany playing host to Scotland. Even without the security concerns, many Germans remain concerned at how their national side might not have qualified if they had not been hosting.
After six defeats last year in 11 games, its worst run in nearly 40 years, youthful new trainer Julian Nagelsmann has turned things around and promised fans “healthy aggression towards the opponent’s goal”.
Leading the German squad is İlkay Gündoğan, Germany’s first national captain with migrant roots. Born in 1990 to Turkish parents in the western city of Gelsenkirchen, he knows what he is up against off the pitch as well as on. A recent survey indicated 21 per cent of Germans wished for “more white players” in the national team while 17 per cent regretted having Gündoğan as captain.
The 34-year-old Barcelona midfielder sounded ambivalent in an interview with Der Spiegel this week, pointing out that he was captain because of his talent and not his ethnicity.
“But I know that people like me in leadership positions are important to show the new reality in Germany,” he said. “We may look different but we are German.”
“I already have the idea that we can win this thing,” said Nagelsmann, “and that we can gain faith in winning it.”
