BERLIN — Germans who visit the United States are often surprised by the unabashed way Americans display the flag on their front porches.

"If I am driving through someplace in Germany and I see someone who has planted a flag in his garden, I think to myself that this must be the home of a neo-Nazi," said Wolfgang Kaschuba, an ethnologist at Berlin's Humboldt University. "In Germany we have to avoid certain practices that are normal in other countries."

German politicians do not wear the little flag lapel pins that are de rigueur for American politicians, nor do German officials use the black, red and gold German flag as a stage prop during television interviews. And Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder would never end a speech by asking God to bless the Fatherland.

But as the United States and its World War II allies prepared to mark today's 60th anniversary of the Nazi surrender, Schroeder has suggested that perhaps the time had come for Germans to set aside their chronic guilt and feel a little patriotic.

As part of that effort, Schroeder has been repackaging this year's V-E Day commemoration as something other than Germany's defeat. The chancellor has been calling it Germany's "liberation from fascism."

To Americans, that may sound like an attempt to jump on the winners' bandwagon, but to Germans, whose country was destroyed by the war, it is an acknowledgment that Germany's defeat was nothing to mourn.

The recent film "Downfall," the first German movie to portray Hitler in a dramatic context, has drawn millions to theaters and reflects some of this newly evolving German sense of self. A common reaction of those who have seen the film is, "Hitler was a monster. Thank God we lost."

Six decades after the war, most Germans feel responsibility — but not guilt — for what happened during the Nazi years; they feel pride — but not quite patriotism — for the reunified democracy that Germany has become since.

Cinema, popular music, literature and art best capture the zeitgeist. From the edgy paintings of blond-haired, blue-eyed "Aryan" youth by Norbert Bisky, 35, an artist from eastern Germany, to the new wave of pop musicians who sing only in German, there is a new feeling that finally it is OK to be German.

This new sense of German pride began to gather momentum after reunification in 1990, but for many such as Nhoah Hoena, 43, producer of the Berlin pop band MIA, it did not solidify until the Iraq war.

"When the war started, the world was very aware that Germany was against it. I was in Argentina at the time, and people would clap me on the shoulders, saying, 'You Germans, you stood against it and that's great,' " Hoena said. "For a change it felt good to be German. I had only known the feeling of being rather ashamed of being German."

Still, Germany remains a country where the president, Horst Koehler, can create a small scandal by declaring, "I love our country." When Koehler spoke those words in his inaugural address, some complained it sounded "too patriotic."

But a little more patriotism would be a healthy thing — "as long as you understand the difference between patriotism and nationalism," said historian Volker Kronenberg, 34.

"Hitler and his men were nationalists. They used nationalism to pervert traditional [German] values," Kronenberg said.

"Patriotism is something very different. It's a feeling that Germans belong together because of their language and culture, not because they are superior to other nations."

But other Germans, especially those born in the 1940s or 1950s, are still uncomfortable with any notion of German patriotism.

"We don't need patriotism in Germany. We had enough of it 60 years ago," said Hans-Christian Stroebele, a parliamentarian from the Green Party.