Herr Ober, da ist eine fliege in meiner suppe....

[Mr T.]

Sorry, Germany, but the joke's still on you
By Tony Paterson in Berlin
(Filed: 08/08/2004)


A German campaign to persuade the British to embrace their historic foe seems to have flopped.

Perhaps that is no surprise: the two-year advertising drive was based on jokes about Germans, and used images of Claudia Schiffer and jokes about beach towels.

A survey by the Goethe Institute has found that most Britons still think of little other than the Second World War, football and cars when Germany is mentioned.

Many others questioned said that the Holocaust was the first thing they thought of in connection with Germany, although the authors of the survey have apparently drawn solace from the discovery that most Britons no longer view Germans as a breed of "goose-stepping Nazis".

Only a third of the young Britons questioned said that they had a positive view of Germany. The survey follows a campaign by the Goethe Institute, - an organisation funded by the German government to promote Germany abroad - that had the aim of altering what were perceived as ignorant British views of Germany as a country full of "beer-drinking Bavarians, Nazis and car engineers".

The Cool Germany campaign, which echoes a similarly unsuccessful attempt ("Cool Britannia") by Tony Blair's Government to market Britain, targeted more than 4,000 British schools and businesses in an attempt to promote positive interest in the country and encourage the learning of German.

It involved 20,000 "humorous" postcards displaying jokes about beach towels and soccer matches and photographs of Boris Becker, the former Wimbledon tennis champion, and Claudia Schiffer, the model.

"Learn German and find out that there's more to the Germans than blondes," urged one of the campaign slogans. Others encouraged young British to "snowboard on Germany's mountains and sunbathe on its beaches". The campaign's German organisers claimed at its launch two years ago that Britain was a country "hostile" to foreign languages and that they had decided to use jokes because humour was one of the "few languages" understood on the other side of the Channel.

Last week, however, as the findings of a survey of 500 Britons aged between 16 and 25 were published, it appeared that the jokes had fallen flat. Klaus Krischok, a spokesman for the Goethe Institute, conceded: "It appears that we have not yet managed to market Germany as a trendy, sexy or fashionable country. It is interesting [for that read 'irritating'] how stubborn stereotypes appear to be in Britain."

Mr Krischok said that one student, asked what Germany meant to him, had replied: "Nothing positive other than cars." Another said that Germany's "bad reputation over the Holocaust" was the first thing he thought of when the country's name was mentioned.

Sixty-three per cent of the British interviewees said they did not know of any "famous person" from Germany. The only name that regularly cropped up was Claudia Schiffer, who lives in Britain with her British husband.

The survey participants thought positively about Germany only when it came to its scientific and technological achievements and what were regarded as its good infrastructure and high standard of living. Only 22 per cent of those questioned said they could speak a little German.

In contrast, 97 per cent of 500 young Germans questioned in a parallel survey said that they had a basic knowledge of English, while 25 per cent considered themselves fluent. Eighty-four per cent of the Germans knew at least one British celebrity and almost 50 per cent had a positive view of the country. Negative German appraisals were limited to Britain's decision to side with the US in the invasion of Iraq.

Mr Krischok said, however, that despite the survey's disappointing British results, the campaign had achieved some success. "We are no longer talking about British stereotypes of Germans as a nation of Nazis who spend all their time goose-stepping about the place," he said. "The idea that the British don't like us is a thing of the past.

"However, the survey has shown that the British need to be better informed about Germany, especially in schools, and this takes time." He added: "Unfortunately, some elements of the British media still continue to reinforce the old stereotype of the Germans as 'Huns'."

Despite its lack of success so far, the Goethe Institute plans to continue its campaign next year. "We are now running into third editions of those postcards, which shows that not all British are that disinterested in Germany," Mr Krischok said.