Go Hug Yourself

The weather gets colder, the skies get greyer and the days get shorter. Winter in Germany is slowly settling in and the faces are dropping faster than the temperatures. One would think that as the year comes to an end, the German public would welcome a comforting cuddle. Not so. A campaign intended to spread the love on an international scale has come undone on Berlin's hardened streets.

Seven men and women set up the Berlin version of an international craze for "Free Hugs" on Alexanderplatz, Berlin's biggest square, over the weekend. The Berlin team set up the service after an internet forum, Hospitality Club, announced simultaneous hugging would take place on Saturday in a number of European cities including Düsseldorf, Lyon, Warsaw and Helsinki.

Too cool for a cuddle

However, the German team didn't factor in the possibility that the notoriously cool and detached Berliners would avoid such random displays of public hugging like a dose of the plague. Even attempts to get the hugging ball rolling by cuddling each other didn't bring any pedestrians over to join the team.

Eventually a few brave souls volunteered to be hugged by the Berlin team, only to be exposed as tourists from outside Germany. Meanwhile, Berlin's trendies went about their business by giving the huggers a wide berth.

Global campaign to spread the love

The Free Hugs campaign was started by Australian Juan Mann who, on arrival in his home town of Sydney after time away in London, found that things had changed for him. Feeling alone and like a tourist in his own city, Mann says on the campaign website that he just needed someone to hug him and tell him everything was going to be okay. So he started his campaign to spread a little joy around the globe.

Aided by the YouTube video consolidating web site -- on which the Australian posted a film of a man wearing a "Free Hugs" placard as he walks up a street and hugs strangers -- Mann's campaign took off round the world and became a global phenomenon. Except in Berlin.