KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany - The pent up patriotism of several German generations exploded Tuesday, as the German national soccer team defeated Ecuador, finishing as champions of their first-round World Cup group.
    Flags were waved. Anthems were sung. Cars, decked in red, black and gold, cruised the streets with radios blaring and more flags flapping in the wind.
    A people with good cause for pensiveness, when it comes to nationalism, Germans have used the occasion, as hosts of the 2006 tournament broadcast around the world, to spread their patriotic wings.
    "We're taking lessons from the American playbook, when it comes to these things which we have not done for a very long time," said Randy Schoeler's small gift shop, near Frankfurt, is piled floor to ceiling, with red, black and gold merchandise.
    But Schoeler stresses a noted difference in the way his nation does pride from what the Americans do.
    "What I don't sell before July 9, I know I won't sell at all," he said.
    July 9 is the end of the tournament and, many Germans say, will be the end of the sort of flag-waving and flag-wearing nationalism that Americans are known for. And Schoeler, like many Germans, feels his country's new model for patriotism might serve Americans well.
    "Yes, we will wave the flag, we will be proud of Germany and,
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perhaps afterward, we will not be so afraid to wave the flag," he said. "But it will never again become a religion for us. It is our flag, not our God."
    Wolfgang Tewes, a former German military officer who has traveled extensively in the United States, said American-style patriotism "will never work" in Germany. "Our history would not allow it," he said.
    Germans, he said, are particularly nervous about rallying around their flag in a time of war - Germany is one of many NATO countries with troops in Afghanistan.
    "When I go to Ramstein Air Base I see the streets lined with American flags," he observed. "You would never see that near a German base."
    Siegfreid Warter, a former employee of America Online in Saarbrucken, on the German-French border, said he expects that the nationalism that has built up over the past few months makes him nervous.
    "It makes me feel like I am in the United States," he said. "And the United States reminds me of what Germany once was."
    While most Germans don't dare suggest the United States is like their nation was under Hitler's regime, some say they see the most powerful nation in the world as being led down a similar path.
    "There is fear of terrorism, which President Bush uses to defend everything he does," Warter said. "Bush has begun speaking about degrees of evil - that perhaps keeping a man in a torturous position for 48 hours isn't torture, but keeping him in that position for longer than that is."
    Stephan Schroeer, a native of Kaiserslautern, who has also traveled extensively in the United States said he can't envision Germans ever standing for the national anthem the way he saw Americans do at a Dallas Cowboys game he attended. And he sees a difference in the way Germans are, this month, waving the flag and how Americans treat the Stars and Stripes.
    "You can be proud of your nation, but you can doubt the government," he said. "If this is a chance to be proud of the nation, then that is fine, but just because you are proud, doesn't mean everything we are doing, as a nation is OK."
    That, he said, is a lesson Germans learned the hard way. And one, he feels, that Americans might do well to follow.
    mlaplante@sltrib.com Tagline
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    q=l Matthew D. LaPlante is reporting from Germany on a World Affairs Journalism Fellowship administered by the International Center for Journalists. The Fellowship is funded by the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.