Humour, fashion, elegance and ease — welcome to the rebranded Germany. The World Cup is offering the engine room of the European economy an unprecedented chance to bury the clichés and promote Germany as a vibrant, informal and smiling country. Every film star, fashion model, pop singer and sporting hero has been signed up to drape themselves in black, red and gold and invite “our friends” overseas to join in the party.

A couple of billion people will tune in to the great football fest, and will be witness to a Germany more complex than the stereotype suggests. Most of all, the organisers hope that the million tourists expected will like Germany and the Germans. It may be a hard sell. Germany has spent 60 years trying to overcome the aberrations of 12 years of madness, and is still struggling with its image. It is not helped by countries such as Britain, where fascination with the Nazis is inevitably insatiable and where too many German representatives fall for the bait and overreact to intentionally teasing media coverage. The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has shown that she has a far better grasp of media shenanigans than that of the country’s paid representatives abroad.

Younger Germans, however, are less burdened by historical tragedy and are far readier than the timid political class to promote themselves and take pride in their country’s achievements. This is refreshing. For the achievements are many and varied. The language, alas, is now probably beyond salvation in Britain — though until even recently scientists studied German in order to read important discoveries in the original. But there are now few Britons who can appreciate Goethe or Rilke, sing Bach in German or flip through the sometimes tedious Frankfurter Allgemeine.

Germany, however, should be better known. For all its pessimism — is that not endemic in the German Weltanschauung? — it is still a country of technical innovation, cultural commitment and impressive economic might. Germany, as its citizens are now ready to assert, is a nation whose views, influence and political weight should be more readily acknowledged. In Britain, it was seen in Victorian times as our natural ally in Europe, one linked with this country not simply by royal dynastic succession but also by ties of religion, culture and temperament.

The difficulties in rekindling those ties lie partly in history, but more in politics and perception. Germans have an understandably different attitude to European integration. Until the advent of Frau Merkel, the German leadership proved prickly partners for Tony Blair. And the perception of those who visited Germany was that it was clean, green, efficient, courteous, earnest and rather dull. Those are honourable qualities but hardly likely to attract young Britons. Now Berlin has a chance to show off its wacky exuberance and Dresden to charm with its incomparable skyline, opera and art gallery. As long as England beats Germany on penalties, we can celebrate that country’s achievements as host.