A popular news story this week centers on the "outrage" of German tennis players after the United States Tennis Association committed an unforced error by playing the wrong National Anthem -- the Nazi one -- during the Fed Cup tournament in Hawaii.
Would you like some cheese with that whine?
According to Reuters, German coach Barbara Ritter called the mistake an "absolute scandal, a disrespectful incident and inexcusable," while player Andrea Petkovic stated she never felt more disrespected in her whole life. "It was the epitome of ignorance," claimed Petkovic.
And although the USTA has apologized, the Germans are still madder than a mosquito at a mannequin factory.
Here's some advice for the Germans: Get over it
It wasn't that the USTA played the wrong anthem -- just the wrong part of it. The version played at the tournament included the first stanza, which was used by the Nazis as propaganda. Although the Germans scrapped that verse after the war, the song itself, "Deutschlandlied" is still the national anthem. Except nowadays they only sing the third verse.
And that's a mistake that is, indeed, unfortunate, but definitely not an "absolute scandal." Nor is it the "epitome of ignorance." At best it could be described as unintentionally disrespectful -- and even that is pushing it since, you know, most of us tend to begin a song at the song's beginning.
Sorry, Germany, that we Americans have more important matters on our hands than becoming intimately acquainted with the arcane rules and traditions governing how your precious little song should be performed. You wouldn't see any of us flying off the handle if some tennis match in Berlin featured the wrong verse of the "Star Spangled Banner" would you?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes.
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep, as it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Actually, some Americans might appreciate it, since very few of us know that our national anthem even has a second verse.
And a third verse. And a fourth verse.
So, Germany, maybe instead of getting your lederhosen in a knot over an innocent mistake, you could use this mishap not as an opportunity to bash the very nation that helped liberate you from a Nazi regime, but as an opportunity to display tolerance, acceptance, and forgiveness. Anything less would be quite (dare I say?) Nazi-ish of you.
