German "Champs of Hearts" Bid Farewell to Fans in Berlin

The World Cup final between France and Italy might still be taking place Sunday evening, but the ecstatic celebrations after Germany's 3-1 win against Portugal in the so-called "mini final" in Stuttgart on Saturday will be hard to top.

"You are our world champions," headlined mass tabloid Bild am Sonntag. "Third place -- but with all respect to France and Italy it is we who feel like the world champions."

On Sunday, German fans did celebrate their "Klinsmen," as the national team's been nicknamed because of coach Jürgen Klinsmann, like world champions. According to some estimates, up to one million people had gathered at Berlin's central fan mile to welcome the bronze medal winners.

Holding up signs that read: "We Are Proud of You," "Thank You," and "2010" to indicate another chance to win at the next World Cup in South Africa, the crowd welcomed the players and their support staff, all of whom wore T-shirts that read "Thank You, Germany" on the front and had the number 82, for 82 million German fans, on the back.

"We have had a four-week long party like there has never been in Germany," Klinsmann told the crowd. "We are savoring every second of this. A thousand thanks."

But he still refused to say whether he would stay on as coach, asking people to give him some time to reflect.

Blair praises German Cup

British Prime Minister Tony Blair meanwhile said Sunday that Germany had changed its image abroad for the better.

"The old clichés have been replaced by a new, positive and fairer image of Germany," he wrote in a column for Bild am Sonntag.

He acknowledged that the Germans were disappointed they had to settle for third place and leave Italy and France to battle it out in the final.

"But you can console yourselves and be proud that Germany is among the biggest winners of the tournament and that it deserves it," Blair wrote, adding that the tournament had "beat all expectations," particularly in its smooth organization.

The World Cup has finally won Germany fans among the English, who have generally been

quicker than most to ridicule the Germans and remind them of their World War II past.

Visiting British supporters and journalists were amazed at how well and wholesomely the Germans could party without it all ending in a "drunken brawl", the Independent newspaper said.

World marveled by "new Germany"

Some observers said it was a relief that the stubborn perception of Germans as a hard-working, punctual and humorless people has at last been given the boot.

Spain's liberal daily El Mundo remarked that the event managed a feat no German leader has pulled off since the country was reunified in 1990.

"It has given birth to a new, healthy patriotism and helped a demoralized people to dream again," it wrote, adding that Germans have for decades been taught "that pride could turn into a dangerous superiority complex and lead to historic errors which you will have repent for the rest of your life."

With the World Cup, the German youth has "rejected this belief and rid the country of the ghosts of the Third Reich", it concluded.

A change in perception

But Austrian political analyst Anton Pelinka said he does not believe that Germans have changed much.

"What has changed are not the Germans, who are far more 'normal' than many people would believe, what has changed is the way Germans are viewed by the rest of the world," he said. "Even before the World Cup they were not as uptight as the cliché would have it."

Sylvie Goulard, a lecturer at Paris' Institute for Political Studies, agreed.

"We have seen a cheerful, good-natured country," she said. "But this is not a surprise for those who know Germany."

Roger Cohen, a former correspondent for The New York Times in Germany, told Stern magazine he too was convinced that "the Germans have not turned into another nation overnight."

He said he hoped the "liberating effect of the World Cup would not only change the world's view of Germany but also adjust the nation's self-image, unshackling it from the family tree and bringing it closer to the multi-ethnic reality."