A Berliner on Britain: don't mention the beer

They drink beer with abandon, indulge in toe-curling displays of ostentatious wealth and hold the trashiest of women to be the epitome of glamour.

That devastating assassination of a nation's character may sound familiar but, for once, it is not the all-too-predictable British verdict on the Germans. Rather, it is the hardly flattering portrait of 21st century Blighty penned by a leading member of the Berlin intelligentsia.

Such are the depths to which Albion has plummetedsince the end of the Second World War, according to Thomas Hüetlin, the recently installed London correspondent of Germany's Der Spiegel magazine. In an article published yesterday under the headline "Huns, Miele [the brand name of a sought-after German washing machine] and Hitler", Mr Hüetlin goes to some lengths to explain "why the English cannot stand the Germans - even 62 years after the end of the war."

"The Huns, that's us Germans," Mr Hüetlin declares. "Dislike of us is a folkloric pleasure that belongs to the island, like driving on the left and the notion that Victoria Beckham is a woman with class."

The dreadful habits of the British include: "The drinking of very much beer in a very short time, going for a walk without socks in winter, the delusion that 42 years after its last win, the national soccer team belongs to a world elite - and, of course, the fact that the Hun is still enemy No 1 - even in the age of Osama bin Laden."

Mr Hüetlin's article is published together with eulogies about other European countries' admiration for the new progressive Germany under Chancellor Angela Merkel, from Der Spiegel's correspondents in Paris, Zurich and Rome.

Britain is the notable Germanophobic exception. Supported by The Sun's front-page photograph of Prince Harry in a Nazi uniform, Mr Hüetlin quotes British experts on Anglo-German relations who insist that the British press panders to the "shabbiest of readers' appetites" by habitually German-bashing.

"The Hun appears on afternoon TV, on computer games and, of course, prior to important sporting events," the author reports. "For you Fritz, ze Euro 96 Championship is over."

British Hun-bashing, according to experts quoted by Mr Hüetlin, stems from the view that, despite losing the war, the Germans were the ones who, in the 1960s, began staying in better hotels than the British and then bagging their sun loungers. "Who won the bloody war anyway?" was the subsequent British cry.

Life in Britain, meanwhile, "resembles a giant face-lift operation - look better, live better, cook better - paraded on endless TV programmes. Understatement, charm and stoicism - once prime British values - have been replaced by a general desire for loads of money," Mr Hüetlin says.

Yet, there is a glimmer of barely discernible light at the end of the tunnel, according to the article: Mr Hüetlin quotes a letter to The Times written during last year's World Cup in Germany. It concludes: "This World Cup is opening many eyes to the fact that the Germans are not miserable, boring people after all."