POPE BENEDICT XVI: The Germans are happy that one of their own is Pope, but they're also filled with Teutonic angst because of it, Derek Scally reports from Berlin
Pope Benedict XVI, like all good Germans, loves Bach and Goethe.
Bavarian Weißwurst and Weißbier are delivered to the Vatican for his delectation. When he received a Vatican passport on arrival in 1981, he applied for and received permission from Bonn to keep his German passport as well, rather than have to give it up as is normally the case.
But strip away the factoids in the German media this week, and it becomes clear that Pope Benedict XVI has brought out in Germans what Germans do best: angst. Now a new round in the uncomfortable debate about German nationality could be beginning.
The German Bishops' Conference broached the topic in their otherwise jubilant letter to Pope Benedict: "It is fortunate that nearly 60 years after the end of World War II - particularly in light of the day of the German capitulation - that a German cardinal can be elected to the highest office of the church after such a long time.
"Many did not believe this was possible after the still tangible atrocities unleashed from Germany in the 20th century."
Die Welt newspaper hinted in a front-page editorial that the Holy Spirit, no less, had forgiven Germany for its past atrocities, saying: "The world's conscience has accepted Germany's atonement."
"We are Pope" is how sister paper Bild recorded the moment. Reactions from official Germany were timid in comparison. President Horst Köhler said the new Pope filled Germans with "a bit of pride".
Just how little that bit of pride actually was became clear in Thursday's Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, published in Munich, where Pope Benedict served as archbishop.
Columnist Kurt Kister argued that, unlike his predecessor, the new Pope was only "coincidentally a German", and his nationality would play only a minor role. "Benedict XVI was not chosen as a German," he wrote. "He has lived for decades in the Vatican. The reflexes of the German political class - 60 years after the Holocaust - are irrelevant."
His tone echoed the talk shows, where it appeared that the choice of Pope caused more furrowed brows than smiles.
The angst-filled reaction was too much for Bild, and so it moaned about the moaning.
"My God, what is wrong with us? Where was the joy when 'one of our own' became Pope?" asked the paper in an editorial.
"We lack the courage for real pride. How the Poles rejoiced when their countryman, Karol Wojtyla, assumed St Peter's throne. But here, heavy-handed reserve won out. Sometimes you can really get tired of Germany."
The reaction is perhaps no surprise: the past has made Germans a people unable to feel or admit they are proud of their nationality. Proud to be European, Bavarian or Berliner, yes - but not German.
What made the coverage really interesting, then, was Bild's decision to take on British tabloid editors for their "From Hitler Youth to Pope" headlines. Rather than turn the other cheek, Bild let fly at the reports it said smelled of "sulphur and rotten eggs".
"Whoever read your tabloids yesterday must have thought Hitler had become Pope. We are always the Nazis," wrote columnist Franz Josef Wagner. "What a squalid happiness it is to hate us. But I won't hate back. The Pope will remember you in his prayers."
While the newspapers speculate on Pope Benedict's influence on everything from German politics to the German economy, German theologians are reserving judgment on the significance of the choice.
"You have to differentiate between political integration and theological importance. Benedict XVI was elected as a cardinal, not as a German," said Prof Rainer Kampling, a theologian at Berlin's Free University. "Nevertheless, it seems to be apparent that [ the conclave] had no longer any major reservations about Germany."
Germany is waiting and watching to see how Pope Benedict XVI is received as leader of the Catholic Church and as a German child of the second World War on his first trip to Israel.
But it will be his second major trip, to World Youth Day in Cologne in August, which could see the German Pope help his countrymen deal with their reservations about themselves.
