Ok, let's mention the war then

On my way out to dinner last night I met a bunch of football fans from Bayer Leverkusen who were on their way to a match with Middlesbrough here in Stuttgart. The Middlesbrough crowd were piled all over the steps of the main 'Schlossplatz' (Stuttgart's castle), and true to their reputation, were chanting slogans and littering the place with beer bottles. They had also hung two judicious St George's Cross flags about four by six metres, on the bandstand. Presumably some subtle message as to the supremacy of their nationality.

Flags are pretty stupid things in the first place. The only reason nation states need flags is because they have no real common culture. Somebody from Middlesbrough has no more in common with a lawyer from Shropshire than they have with a Schwabian from Stuttgart. Down to their very language, the Shropshire lawyer would struggle harder to understand the Middlesbrough fan than he would to understand the Stuttgart supporter. So the flag is devoid of any cultural significance. Especially since most Englishmen would struggle to explain what it actually symbolises.

So why fly this thing over the main square here? Is it to remind the Germans of the fact that the National Socialist government of the 1940s was reduced to a pulp with the help of Churchill? Should I credit a fan with a 24 pack of beer puking on the steps of Stuttgart's castle with even that much historical knowledge? Perhaps I could hazard to say that the same egocentric feeling of dominance which led to the Third Reich is exactly what prompted the football fanatic to hang up the flag. But that would be assuming the worst of people, and that's just wrong.

The last I heard, the British fans who have tickets for the world cup here in Germany will be wearing t-shirts of John Cleese doing the Hitler walk, bearing the phrase "Don't mention the war". This is a response to the FIFA's hard line on English fans coming over for matches and provoking Germans with Nazi salutes and the like. The mere idea that we could put away the war for even the space of a few football matches, is just plain naive.

Rather than picturing these stupid flags, I have posted up a picture of a stature of Venus which was dedicated to the Prussian Empress in the 1880s, which stands tucked away in a gorgeous hill in Stuttgart. She'll be looking over the rest of this town with her expression of amused resignation when all this malarchy flares up in Stuttgart again for the World Cup. And to be sure, none of the travelling football fans will get to see this insignificant sculptural wonder. They'll be too busy reminding the Germans that their culture was obliterated in World War II.