Immigrants wave the German flag

So the Lebanese immigrant was stunned when German left-wing groups tore down the 1,000-sq-ft flag - not just once, but twice.

"I don't understand them at all - every American or Frenchman would be proud to show their flag and cheer for their football team," the 39-year-old said at his Berlin shop. "It's not like there's still a swastika on the flag."

It's a paradox: Immigrants are rallying around Germany's diverse football team that includes players with roots in Turkey, Ghana, Poland, Tunisia, and other countries. But 65 years after the Second World War, some are still against any expression of national pride and feel uneasy about cheering "Deutschland, Deutschland" during a World Cup match.

Of course there are millions of Germans, especially from the younger generation, who don't hesitate to paint their faces with the German tricolour.

But such overt expressions of German national pride only appeared widely in the country when it hosted the World Cup four years ago.

At this World Cup, what has caught the eye is that Berlin's immigrant neighbourhoods like Neukoelln, Wedding or Kreuzberg have many more black-red-and-gold flags on cars, balconies and shop fronts than more traditionally German quarters such as Mitte or Prenzlauer Berg. That's largely because this year's team seems like a celebration of the nation's multi-ethnicity. The team of 23 includes 11 players with immigrant roots.

It all reflects the country's transition to one where 15 million out of 82m inhabitants claim immigrant background.

"These players, who are the children of former guest workers and bi-national parents … represent Germany on the world's stage," Cem Ozdemir, joint-leader of the Green Party and the son of Turkish immigrants, told daily Die Welt.

While the nation has rallied behind the World Cup team, relations between immigrants and Germans are not always easy.

To further complicate things, the legacy of the Holocaust still looms large - even when it comes to sporting events. Heide Schwartz, a 58-year-old teacher from Berlin, said even though she liked watching the World Cup games, she would never adorn her car with a flag, because "Germany did too many horrible things during the Third Reich to be able cheer out loud for this country."

The German radical left-wing group "Autonome WM-Gruppe" went a step further and published a post on the internet calling for the destruction of Bassal's flag.

Bassal, who moved to Germany 25 years ago, responded to the threats by organising a group of five immigrants from Turkey, Egypt and Lebanon to protect the German flag overnight from vandalism.

"This flag has nothing to do with politics," Bassal explained. "It's about celebrating our great German team, which is half immigrant anyway."

Indeed, while the team has players such as Thomas Mueller and Bastian Schweinsteiger with deep German roots, it also has Sami Khedira, whose father is Tunisian, Polish-born Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski, Ghanian-rooted Jerome Boateng, and Mesut Oezil, whose parents are Turkish, and who has become a star player for the team.

"We belong here, no matter if the left or extreme right does not like us," Bassal said. "In the end we're even going to teach the Germans how to cheer for Germany again."