Even as some fear fully integrating the robust German economy into the European Community (EC), many "Europeanists" fear exactly the opposite--that unification will tilt Germany back eastward, building a German-dominated bloc in Central Europe.

The imminent shift of the national capital from Bonn in the West to Berlin in the East only underscores the insecurity that many felt when Germany signed a non-aggression accord with the Soviet Union this summer. To these people, the best way to deal with Germany is to integrate it into the rest of the continent as rapidly and in as many ways as possible.

Here, they will find no argument from the Germans. In addition to the open market agreed upon under Europe 1992, Germany will soon join the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Luxembourg in dismantling all internal borders.

In practice, this is almost true already. A stone's throw from concrete remnants of the Maginot Line in Rheingau, France, the French government subsidizes a ferry to take day-laborers and others across the Rhine into Germany, where they go through an unmanned border station.

Germany and its neighbors are practically tripping over each other to integrate the nation into the EC and to sustain the NATO alliance. Driving through Strasbourg, France, a German friend pointed at the European Parliament and proclaimed, "That is the future."

SO IS there any reason to be worried as that Germans develop a new self-confidence in their national identity? If it leads to any loss of vigilance against racism and xenophobia, there is indeed. But as long as nationalism expresses itself as a legitimate pride in the accomplishments of one's nation, why should we fear it? Don't we call that "patriotism" here?

As the soccer fans trudged past me in Munich, I heard a group of them singing. Thinking of the patriotic euphoria after the U.S.'s ice hockey victory in 1980, and I strained to hear the words. Instead of "Deutschland, Deutschland Ueber Alles," I heard, "We're going to drink for seven days straight."