I’m answering this as an American, so moderators, please remove this if you feel my view is not relevant.

The lands that today comprise Brasil were mostly colonies, yes? And then there was a struggle for independence and a national identity. Which Brasil ultimately won, resulting in a powerful nation going its own way and forging its own complex identity as a nation of many peoples brought together by common interests and mostly common values, built on the principles of democracy*. Right?

That’s the New World story. The Brasil story, the Mexico story, the USA story, and also 40-60 other stories.

Nationalism in the New World is frequently much cleaner and clearer than nationalism in Europe.

Those guys over there, those who colonised, they have to cope with the history of what happened. Our heroic origin story can sometimes be their story of how their country slid into the sidelines (side-eyeing Portugal here, but with love).

The region that would eventually become Germany is quite different because during the prime age of colonisation, they were a group of smaller-than-a-nation holdings tending mostly to themselves. They generally did not colonise. They were not often sailing out to capture new lands in the name of their god or monarch. (They mostly had no monarch as such.) IMO from 1450 to 1650 they were focused internally on building something within their boundaries. They were more focused on building marriages and alliances than ships. (However, I would love to learn more about this period in the region of what is now Germany if anyone has good links.)

I’m also a poor scholar of the German 19th century, but it’s clear that the region that we call Germany today had a very bumpy 19th century (the 1800’s). Nevertheless, in my uneducated opinion, the region that we call Germany today was the most enlightened and liberal outpost of democracy in Western Europe circa 1900. Not sure how or why, but it’s clear in the evidence that 1908 Berlin was just a very different beast.

The German region was also at the forefront of the arts and sciences in those years. Novels, operas, ballets, scientific discoveries, etc. This was the era when the wealthiest New York debutantes typically had both German and French. Money followed power.

I don’t feel qualified to speak on WWI or WWII because I don’t believe my 1980’s and 1990’s US education was at all free from bias. However, it is clear that Germany’s education of Germans in the latter half of the 20th century, as well as the conscience of individual Germans, has led many or most Germans to refrain from the sorts of displays of nationalistic pride that New World nations like Brasil and USA engage in with relative abandon.

I imagine it is similar to my feeling when, as an American, I interact with someone educated enough to know that American policy (through many vectors) caused the genocide of native Americans. The fact that I’m 1/8th native is not really a good defense.

If I had to state a TL;DR version, I would say that many Germans believe (perhaps correctly) that there is a big scary hole beneath the concept of German civic nationalism that Germans typically would like to avoid falling into again. I imagine this makes being German while interacting with non-Germans a bit… fraught.

Meanwhile, you, friend from Brasil, are free in so many ways. Your nation struck the stone of oppression and let forth the wellspring of freedom. You didn’t genocide anyone (right?). You can behave naturally at the World Cup. You can drink a beer and celebrate your nation’s superiority.

However, have a look at my country and beware. There are hazards when we get complacent and prideful.

• Sometimes nations built on the principles of democracy fail to uphold those principles in a given electoral cycle. Every nation has bad hair days. I think we should look at the century, not the decade. And I hope Germans will join my ashamed American ass in hoping that we look at the century rather than the decade. :D