Guten Tag, Your Majesty

This week the Queen of England is coming to Berlin on a state visit. This pending excitement has stirred up the media, especially after England’s tabloid the Daily Express said Germans were calling for an apology for World War Two bombings. This is coming from the same paper that recently said all Germans were Nazis. Nice. One German tabloid, Bild, jumped on the bandwagen and asked when she would apologise. But most German papers reacted contemptuously to the idea and said they didn’t want or need an apology. Which is lucky because I think they would be waiting a while!

Apart from that, the Queen’s visit reminds me of the time I met her in person, which was actually last time she came in 2000. I happened to be in Berlin and I happened to work for the British Council teaching English, and she came to see our new building in Hackescher Markt. The fanfare was pretty overwhelming, with big crowds and cameras and loads of scary German police. We’d all been prepped on etiquette – if you meet the Queen, call her Your Majesty and curtsey. If you shake hands, do so with limp fingers so as not to hurt her…and so on.

When she showed up, she looked even smaller than I imagined. She looked at me and asked a question, but I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to reveal my funny accent, my age, or the fact that I wasn’t working 100% legally in Germany (or even 1%). It didn’t matter – the question was a generic one and someone else answered, even remembering the “Your Majesty” bit. Jolly good.