Former French international Bixente Lizarazu summed up the surprise thus in the sports daily l'Equipe: "We knew that the event would we very well organised.

"But the World Cup showed us something we did not expect ... Germany's love for football and for sport, its pitch-perfect gamesmanship and supporters who never let the festive mood slip."

Some observers said it was a relief that the stubborn perception of Germans as a hard-working, punctual and humourless people has at last been given the boot.

Spain's liberal daily El Mundo remarked that the football extravaganza managed a feat no German leader has pulled off since the country was reunified in 1990.

"It has given birth to a new, healthy patriotism and helped a demoralised people to dream again."

It added that Germans have for decades been taught "that pride could turn into a dangerous superiority complex and lead to historic errors which you will have repent for the rest of your life."

With the World Cup, the German youth has "rejected this belief and rid the country of the ghosts of the Third Reich", it concluded.

But Austrian political analyst Anton Pelinka said he does not believe that Germans have changed much.

"What has changed are not the Germans, who are far more 'normal' than many people would believe, what has changed is the way Germans are viewed by the rest of the world."

"Even before the World Cup they were not as uptight as the cliché would have it," he added.

Sylvie Goulard, a lecturer at Paris' Institute for Political Studies, agreed.

"We have seen a cheerful, good-natured country. But this is not a surprise for those who know Germany."

Roger Cohen, a former correspondent for the New York Times in Germany, told Stern magazine he too was convinced that "the Germans have not turned into another nation overnight".

He said he hoped the "liberating effect of the World Cup would not only change the world's view of Germany but also adjust the nation's self-image, unshackling it from the family tree and bringing it closer to the multi-ethnic reality."

Left-leaning French daily Le Monde was intrigued by what it termed a "wave of patriotism light", wondering what "is beneath it and will it last?"

But Goulard said it was disingenuous to say Germany was rediscovering patriotism as the success of reunification has shown that the country knows how to act in its national interest.

Whether there is any real change or not, the World Cup has finally won Germany fans among the English, who have generally been quicker than most to ridicule the Germans and remind them of their World War II past.

The visiting British supporters and journalists were amazed at how well and wholesomely the Germans could party without it all ending in a "drunken brawl", the Independent newspaper said.

Poland's highbrow weekly Polityka thought that the spontaneous street partying which marked the World Cup "looked more like a Love Parade than nationalistic flag-waving."

"Germans have a problem, they want to be patriotic but they are scared of their nationalist sentiments," it added.

Another Polish weekly, Wprost, said what the world saw in the past four weeks was no more than a successful marketing campaign.

"They are denying their true nature and showing the world another face. The message from Berlin is: 'These days we are original and funny and creative,'" said the publication, proving that not everybody's perception of Germany has changed.