WHATEVER their cultural preconceptions, the 100,000 England fans expected in Germany next summer for the World Cup will be presented with plenty of reminders of the Second World War. On Thursday, subway workers discovered an unexploded 500lb British bomb in Berlin, prompting the evacuation of the German state opera and surrounding buildings.

Allied bombs are regularly found in the German capital and comfortably defused. The local authorities only hope the same can be said of a situation that will see England fans mixing en masse with home fans unlikely to appreciate even the odd rendition of The Dambusters or The Great Escape. Most England fans will show proper respect to their hosts but there is still a minority of fans who consider it amusing or simply provocative to sing “Ten German bombers”.

With some fans’ groups planning to print T-shirts with Basil Fawlty’s famous line “don’t mention the war” translated into German, it is clear that old stereotypes refuse to die. “The Germans find it upsetting. They cannot understand why we don’t seem capable of growing up,” Sir Peter Torry, the British ambassador to Germany, said. “I hope that the clichés of 60 years ago are not warmed up. This is a chance to convey Germany as it is today, not as it was. Germany is our most important European partner. They’re standing next to us in Afghanistan and Kosovo.”

The strategy to deal with the influx of supporters, many without tickets, starts in earnest now that it is known that England will be playing in some of the tournament’s smallest stadiums. Meetings between security and communications officials at the FA and Fifa and British embassy staff based in Germany take place on Monday. Liz Dow, the British consul to Lisbon, will also pass on her experience of Euro 2004 while David Swift, deputy chief constable of Staffordshire police and a specialist on football violence, will fly out to Germany to assess England’s group stage venues in Frankfurt, Cologne and Nuremberg.

The authorities could have done without England drawing the latter venue. The city is inextricably linked to the memory of Nazism because of the party rallies and the famous war trials in 1945. The marching ground where thousands of followers swore allegiance to Adolf Hitler stands just beside the stadium, which will have a capacity of 32,341 in the group stage. The British authorities will be at pains to stress that it is illegal to glorify Nazism, meaning that mock Nazi salutes or goosesteps will not be interpreted as jokes but rather breaches of the law. British policeman are expected to be on hand to help to bridge the cultural divide, under an agreement to be finalised in January, although it is not yet clear whether they will have powers of arrest.

Torry does not believe local police will be heavy handed. “The style of policing is not about storm troopers on the street. It’s sensible and proportionate,” he said. “I remember being in Bonn during the Heysel Stadium disaster and the reputation of English fans was rock bottom. Those days are long in the past. People recognise the quality of English football and the improvements we have made in the game.”

At the 1988 European Championships, the last leading football tournament held in Germany, there was trouble between England, Holland and Germany fans. Stricter controls on the movement of fans and better identification of potential trouble makers has led to significantly lower levels of hooliganism.

More than 3,000 England fans will be stranded at home under banning orders. With Germany bordered by nine countries, a greater concern could be terrorism. All 220,000 people working inside the 12 stadiums, from caterers to journalists, will be subject to background checks.

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