Franz Beckenbauer, the president of the FIFA Football World Cup 2006 organising committee, poses in front of a poster promoting Germany's service and friendliness campaign. Photograph: Michael Keppeler/AFP/Getty
With only 94 days left until the start of the World Cup, Germany today launched a campaign to persuade Germans to be a bit more - well - friendly.
More than a million people are expected to travel to Germany for the tournament, which takes place in June and July. Billions more are likely to watch the games from home.
Up until now, Michael Glos, Germany's economics minister, admitted today, Germans have been best known for their punctuality and love of order. But Mr Glos wants the country to show it is a tolerant, open and friendly place in which to stage football's greatest tournament. "We want to throw out a few prejudices," he said. "We want to prove that we are a friendly nation."
I've always thought that the Germans' reputation for grumpiness is undeserved, and to make that point more forcefully, the government has launched a new TV ad campaign aimed at encouraging Germans to lay on a friendly welcome for their World Cup guests.
The 50-second ad shows smiling hotel workers, guards and a young woman wearing a low-cut Bavarian dirndl rolling out red carpets.
My problem is not so much with the spot but with its accompanying poster, soon to be plastered all over German billboards. It shows 64 people standing on more red carpets, led by Franz Beckenbauer, the legendary president of Germany's 2006 World Cup organising committee.
There is a Bavarian folk dancer, an air hostess, a violinist, several kids, a TV reporter and a policeman. They are all white. The poster doesn't feature a single black face - a bit odd considering that modern Germany is a multi-ethnic country in which there are more than three million residents originally of Turkish origin alone.
It's quite striking. The only "foreigners" appear to be the man at the back with a white hat on, who looks as though he might run one of Germany's many doner kebab shops, and the Japanese-looking chap holding out a plate of sushi.
Yesterday Beckenbauer - who has been at the centre of a storm here after criticising Germany's coach, Jürgen Klinsmann - said Berliners didn't deserve their famous reputation for Schnauze (it's an untranslatable phrase - but could be best rendered as a sort of in-your-face witty rudeness). "We are a very friendly people," he said.
He's right. Germans really are very friendly. But it would be nice to see a poster that reflected a more international Germany and all the various people who live here.
