Statistics on Anglo-German Relations

• 26% of Britons polled by Gallup in the 1980's perceived Germany to be their country's closest ally in Europe - by 1992, this figure had shrunk to only 12%.


• In 1986, 28% of Britons indicated that they had a great degree of trust in Germany, with only 18% claiming that they had "no trust at all" in Germany.


• By 1995, poll results suggested that only 10% of Britons "trusted" the Germans with a massive 35% indicating that they had "no trust at all" in the Federal Republic.


• In 1977, 23% of people believed in 1977 that National Socialism could one day return in Germany. By 1995, this percentage had more than doubled to 53%.

From "Why Learn German 1", via Transblawg

"For some unaccountable reason, perpetuating crude stereotypes about other European countries - but particularly Germany - remains a socially acceptable journalistic pastime in the United Kingdom long after the dangers of peddling cliches about African and Asian nations have rightly been recognised.

[...]

(The Ambassador's) impressions were confirmed by a recent survey of 10-16 year old British schoolchildren which asked the question - "What do you associate with Germany?" 78% of them said "World War II" and 50% mentioned Hitler. A 1998 survey of British schoolchildren put Hitler at the top of the list of the 10 most famous Germans with 68% of the vote. And a report published in 1999 by Aberdeen University showed how, especially above the age of 12, a sample of children would react much more negatively to a photograph when told that it was of a German than when shown the same photograph two weeks previously without any mention of nationality. "We have the best army in the world thanks to Oliver Cromwell. We beat Germany in World War Two," one ten-year-old said."