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While the public in the US debates an alleged ‘love affair‘ of the mainstream media with the Democratic presidential hopeful, there is absolutely not the slightest doubt about the big crush the German press and public alike have on Obama. The Germans are pretty much a fourteen-year old teenager right now, minus the pimples, but with all the obsessions a young and unexperienced heart can develop when it is captivated by a charming heartthrob for the first time.

First, it’s where should he speak, then it’s who gets how much time to talk to him, and then it went completly bizarre with the B.Z. asking: “Why did Obama have no time for his Berlin cousin?“, the event magazine Zitty offering cut-out American flags for Obama’s visit and the Zeit calculating that Obama is in fact 4.6875 percent German. Latest highlight in this series of highly pubescent Schwärmereien about the personality, looks and feels (literally!) of Obama is a story by Europe’s biggest newspaper tabloid Bild. In what can only be called a diary entry turned front page, Judith Bonesky pours a bucket full of puppy love on the Senator from Illinois. “I worked out with Obama,” is the minutiae of her encounter with Obama in the gym of the Ritz-Carlton.

“‘Hi, how’s it going?’ asks Obama in his deep voice. My heart beats,” remembers Bonesky in her Bild article.

Obama then starts his workout routine. “He goes and picks up a pair of 16 kilo weights and starts curling them with his left and right arms, 30 repetitions on each side.  Then, amazingly, he picks up the 32 kilo weights! Very slowly he lifts them, first 10 curls with his right, then 10 with his left. He breathes deeply in and out and takes a sip of water from his 0,5 litre Evian bottle.” (Neither the exclamation points nor the accentuations by us).

Finally, the photo. “‘I’m Barack Obama, nice to meet you!’ he says, and puts his arm across my shoulder. I put my arm around his hip – wow, he didn’t even sweat! WHAT A MAN!” Oh! My! God!

In the New York Times Obama tells a different tale. “I’m just realizing what I’ve got to become accustomed to. The fact that I was played like that at the gym. Do you remember ‘The Color of Money’ with Paul Newman? And Forest Whitaker is sort of sitting there, acting like he doesn’t know how to play pool. And then he hustles the hustler. She hustled us. We walk into the gym. She’s already on the treadmill. She looks like just an ordinary German girl. She smiles and sort of waves, shyly, but doesn’t go out of her way to say anything. As I’m walking out, she says: ‘Oh, can I have a picture? I’m a big fan.’ Reggie takes the picture.”

No wonder the New York Times deems the “German Press Agog Over Obama.” The print media’s coverage was trumped in nervousness and awkwardness only by the German TV news, as the FAS describes here. Maybe it’s all just a cultural misunderstanding. For Obama it was just a flirt. For the Germans it’s most definitely love.

By Kolja Langnese

Enjoy our small collection of German magazine covers featuring Obama. If you have more, send them my way so I can add them.

[Show as slideshow]