[mhd]

It's not just patriotism and being proud of your country. It's the specific phrases. "Deutschland über Alles" (as in the original text of the hacker) is pretty tied to a specific era and best left alone as a phrase. Actually, "I'm proud to be German" as a phrase is tied to right-wing propaganda, too.

The Wikipedia article on patriotism has a nice statistic, although it's a bit old[1]. A few countries were asked how proud they were of their country, from a scale of 1 to 4. Most of them are in the 3 range (with the US leading with 3.92), Germany had a 1.37.

Again, this isn't really about what you want to express, it's how you do it. And a phrase like "Deutschland über Alles" is basically somewhat between "The South will rise again" and "White Power".

Personally, I find team jersey mentality like that a bit narcissistic, but if it floats your boat... But if you're about to improve the image of something, you shouldn't use the terminology of those you're opposing. That just makes it look like a battle between two equally wrong splinter groups of the same cause.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotism

[radiosnob]

ok, I think I know what you're going for. My response was based on the fact that many germans feel that they cannot express their patriotism because of how other countries/people/stereotypes will view them. intentions be damned. that was one of the great things about the 2006 world cup here. that all disappeared.

I think it is safe to say that what was written in the article was done so deliberately to get a rise from people who want to be a bit "ra-ra".