When is a German not a German?

Yesterday a gunman in Frankfurt shot dead two American airmen as they boarded a bus outside the German city's airport. The Mail has, via German paper Die Welt, got hold of a picture of the prime suspect. Here's the headline:



So he's a Kosovan? Someone from Kosovo, right? Which is why the Mail also provides a handy little box-out explaining all about the way Kosovans in Kosovo keep getting recruited by terrorist groups:


But hidden away in the middle of the story is this factoid:

"Uka, whose family come from the northern town of Mitrovica, was born and educated in Germany where his family moved to some 40 years ago."

So this Kosovan Muslim was actually born and raised in Germany a mere two decades after his family arrived in the country.

At least the Mail is being consistent - the paper has previously suggested that second- and third-generation immigrants in this country are not actually British, hence the suggestion that its headline on 29 April should read "Immigrant's grandson marries unemployed woman, moves to lavish house paid for by YOU".

The Mail also has form on this issue in Germany. Ahead of England's catastrophically poor showing in the second round of the World Cup last summer, they came up with this little gem:

There was also a nice little graphic to explain just how foreign those cheating Krauts are:


Close reading shows that of the 11 "foreign" players, six were born in Germany. Boggle-eyed Mesut Ozil is included in the list of foreigners despite being born in Germany to German parents, because his folks "are of Turkish origin". The Mail never got around to claiming that Ashley Cole (father born in Barbados), Emile Heskey (mother from Barbuda, father from Antigua) and David James (father from Jamaica) were "foreigners"...