Continuing in our series of connecting Scotland to every other country, we come to one of my favourite European nations for architecture, art, and a surprising sense of humour: Germany. It is not an accusation often levelled at the Germans but maybe it’s the Scottish jokes. We get on well as individuals even if our history together has occasionally come to war. Today, that’s all in the past. What is the connection between Scotland and Germany? How have these two countries different climate and attitude found themselves with a similar sense of humour and similar architecture? How has sport served to unite us even though competition is often the source of tension for most countries?
Let’s explore together.
How many Germans in Scotland and Scots in Germany?
Looking it up, there were about 23000 Germans in Scotland as of 2017. The numbers look to have gone down a few years later, as the Office for National Statistics reported 15000 (give or take 6000) in 2023. Possibly the discrepancy is due to Brexit which made the UK in general a less attractive place for EU citizens to live or study.
In the other direction, there is said to be 1373 Scottish people in Germany. This is an incredibly precise number. The source there is Wikipedia and it is not sourced anywhere else, so who knows! Personally, I’m dubious. If you are Scottish in Germany, let us know so we can have some sort of census.
Let’s look at other connections between Scotland and Germany.
The architectural connection between Scotland and Germany
There’s a design feature which is very common in Scotland and Germany: the crow-stepped gable.
You can find these in Scotland but also in Germany. I’ve often had guests on my Edinburgh walking tours remark that they’ve seen similar features in German architecture. On looking it up, it seems like the meeting point for the two countries was in the Netherlands, where Scots used to trade skins and wool.
These steps became incredibly common features in Scottish architecture. It seems like every other building has one, and we have our own name for it, too. The corbie step.
Corbie is a Scots word that means ‘crow’. It comes from the French word ‘corbeau’ which means bird. One thing that is interesting in researching this ongoing series of articles trying to find connections between Scotland and everyone else is that I keep finding connections between everyone else and each other.
The linguistic connection between Scotland and Germany
Recently, I learnt of the great Scots word “hairst” for Autumn. It turns out, this is very similar to the German word for Autumn is Herbst. Both are similar to the English word harvest.
Scots and English are both Anglic languages and are both part of the Germanic language family. Of course, so is German.
The World Wars
There can be no avoiding the fact that some of the most significant points of connection between Scotland and Germany was killing each other. Often in foreign fields, occasionally from the air, also at sea. But in war there was a sense of brotherhood even amongst enemies.
Although, the fighting was fierce and Scottish Highlanders were dubbed “ladies from Hell” due to their kilts. Presumably the fighting skill and bagpipes probably helped.
But anyway, let’s talk the fraternal connection between Scotland and Germany.
The First World War Christmas Truce
One of the most impressive events during the First World War was the 1914 Christmas Truce. The guns fell silent. Soldiers sang carols to each other and wished each other well. This temporary pause in the fighting meant the soldiers could climb out of their trenches and meet each other. There’s all sorts of interesting stories to the truce. It had a profound impact on the soldiers who wrote letters back home about the event.
We’ve been at peace for two days now, hob-nobbing with the Germans half-way across the front and they are only 250 yards away and to see us all in the space between shaking hands, wishing happy greetings and all that, was amazing. It started yesterday, in the morning, and has gone on ever since with us, though they are firing on our right and left. The pipes were playing, cheers, cigars, cigarettes and chocolate handed all round.
~ Captain David M. Bain, 2nd Battalion the Gordon Highlanders
Bodies were buried in a combined ceremony. The brutality of the slaughter from both sides in the war did not extinguish the ability for both people to come to a a brief friendship, even if it only last for a few days before the big guns began firing again.
The Christmas Truce Football Match
One of the most famous part of the Christmas truce was the football match. In reality, this was lots of different football matches. After all, the front stretched from the sea to Switzerland. Some parts of the front had no truce at all. Asking the question of if any Scots played in the WW1 Christmas truce football match can be answered in one word: yes!
But details are nice and I found a lot of these here. Essentially, there was a very important part of the front by the village of Plooegsteert. British forces ended up calling it Plugstreet. It was a forested area but if either side managed to make a significant advance, they might be able to break out a significant distance.
Christmas Day of 1914, they put fighting to one side and decided to have a kick around with a ball. This developed into an actual match of Scotland against Germany. 134th Royal Saxon Regiment against 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Germany won 3 – 2. It was a great moment of coming together in a war which the soldiers had been told would be over by Christmas.
“How marvellous, how wonderful, yet how strange it was. The British officers felt the same way about it. And so Christmas, that celebration of love, managed to bring together mortal enemies as friends, for a time.”
~ Lieutenant Kurt Zehmisch, 134th Saxons in his diary
Football can be a great unifier. More on that later.
Second World War
Scots fought all over the world during the wars, with varying levels of success. The Second World War has a very important place in the general British national consciousness but also in Scotland’s
The Fall of France, 1940
Scots found themselves among those captured when the Battle of France ended badly. In Dunkirk: the Men They Left Behind by Sean Longden, there are many personal stories of soldiers who missed the evacuation and found themselves either captured or having to escape to get home. It’s a gripping read and tells the story well.
It’s an interesting contrast with the Christmas Truce, for sure. There’s some grim stories in there of soldiers being harassed by civilians. It’s hard to read, but nobody goes into the Second World War expecting a love story.
A Second World War love story
A cute wee story I discovered on the Scottish Diaspora Tapestry, a source I’m going to be making regular use of, involves a love story. A woman called Isabella fell in love with a German POW named Helmut Joswig. They faced discrimination in Scotland and in Germany but they made it work and had a bunch of kids and grandkids. It’s amazing that love can flourish even with difficulty.
No Scotland No Party
It’s fair to say that Scotland, throughout most of my life (born 92) has not been a contender in football. At international level, Scotland’s something of a rarity in competitions. Not being a football expert, I cannot get into the problems in Scottish football with much expertise but it probably starts with the fact we’re a relatively small nation of under 5.5 million people. We’re also tied to a much larger nation down south that’s almost 10 times our size and speaks essentially the same language (though Scots is a thing and you can read a bit about that here.) Money tends to focus in the English Premier League, that’s also where a lot of our top talent goes, which means those clubs can have better youth facilities which makes their young players better while ours dwindle in comparison.
Anyway, not our topic today, Scotland qualified for the Euros of 2024 after a run of five wins in a row. The Tartan Army could finally get itself back on tour again!
Aside on the Tartan Army
This is the name of the Scottish international football fans, it’s a name that originates from the 1970s, and represents the idea that we have a bunch of truly devoted followers in Scotland who know we haven’t got the greatest chance of success, but love to travel anyway. You can find more here.
We even sing songs about how we’re not going to win.
No Scotland No Party part 2
So what’s the connection between Scotland and Germany here? The Euros of 2024 were held in Germany and the Tartan Army was there. Interestingly enough, though the games of the group stage were played in Munch (versus Germany, lost), Stuttgart (versus Hungary, lost), and Cologne (versus Switzerland, drew), Scots wound up all over Germany. A lot of people who couldn’t get tickets nevertheless decided they would go for a good drink and a laugh with the Germans. Without tickets, they didn’t need to go to specific cities so several ended up in places like Berlin, Dresden, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, etc. Germany has a lot of cities and Scots were in them all!
Fan zones set up across Germany were teeming with boys in kilts.
The Scottish football fans became very popular. Our fans were drinking heavily, emptying an entire brewery, getting into all sorts of mischief, but also doing good deeds. There’s a great video of a couple of Scottish fans helping a man in Cologne in the rain.
Every German who subsequently came to Scotland who had met our fans told me they were the absolute best fun. Scottish football fans were voted the best by viewers of media outlet RTL. It all just goes to show that there is an amazing connection between Scotland and Germany, and we just sort of vibe well together.
Conclusion on the Connection Between Scotland and Germany
In conclusion, I have no real notion of where the similarities come from, but there definitely are a fair few which are worth exploring. There are even others which I have not gone into, such as our love of sausages which contain animal parts most reject. The climate in certain northern German towns and cities is also quite similar given their proximity to the North Sea. But the conclusion is that we have got a connection, a strong and interesting one. A connection tested on the battlefield and the football field, but which nevertheless makes for a fun combination.
I find Germans to be amongst my favourite guests as I think there’s a notion amongst visitors that there is a connection. There is a familiarity and hospitality in Scotland which German guests enjoy, and our cheeky sense of humour seems to break through. Jokes about the English do well. As does our similarly inventive natures.
And on that topic, definitely book onto my Old Town tour so you can hear my argument for why Scots invented the car. I promise you even those from Stuttgart and Wolfsburg will find it hilarious.
The writer of this piece also loves that the German word for butterfly is schmetterling.
Trying to write connections between every country, it will take forever I’m sure.
Here’s Greece, here’s Wales, here’s Iceland. Currently working on others but it’s probably going to be 100k words plus at the rate I’m going!
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