The boys were famous in Germany before ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ had been released in the country. Niall admitted to Bravo WebTV in October 2011, ‘Well, obviously in Germany they didn’t get to see us on The X Factor so all they know us from is, like, YouTube and Twitter, which is kind of mind blowing for us because obviously our UK fans know us from The X Factor and stuff. It’s kinda strange how people find out about things. The power of the Internet is really strong.’
Louis added, ‘It makes us amazingly proud; it’s such a crazy thing. I don’t think we feel famous here yet but the support we have here already is just incredible. It’s just really flattering.’
Germany narrowly missed out on winning the Bring 1D To Me competition, which was won by Holland, Sweden and Italy, but the boys gave German fans a second chance because they had been so close to winning. A message on their website read, ‘The boys really wanted to give you one last chance to win the final air miles so we’ve laid down a final challenge! We want 1,000 signatures on this Bring 1D To Me Twitter petition by midnight on Sunday, 11 September. If you get all the signatures, 1D will be coming to Germany too! Good luck and we hope that you can Bring 1D To you!’
German fans managed to get more than 1,000 signatures, so the boys made their trip on 4 October 2011. As well as doing a signing, they performed for fans and answered some questions too.
A month after their first trip, they performed at The Dome, a massive TV show and music event, which is held every three months.
Harry’s uncle and cousin live in Hamburg, Germany and, on his first visit to the country with Liam, Louis, Zayn and Niall, he couldn’t remember if he had been before when he was younger or not but thought he probably had. The others had never been before.
After the boys had been to Germany a few times, they were asked by the German X Factor host on the red carpet of the Bambi Awards what makes German Directioners special. Louis replied, ‘I suppose just their support; you know, we’ve been here three or four times and the support every time has just been absolutely incredible, so we can’t really thank them enough for that.’
The first nationwide German 1D flash mob happened on 19 May 2012 in 17 German cities. It was choreographed by D!’s Dance Club! To see the video, search on YouTube for ‘One Direction – Flash mob Germany’. Flash mobs happened in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Hannover, Dortmund and Stuttgart, as well as in other cities. At the end of the video, you can see some funny outtakes of football fans that got in the way of the cameras.
The winners of the German Go1Den ticket were Isabelle and Nhu, whose video received the most votes. Their video was a 30-second 1D rap based on the ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’. Check it out on YouTube by searching for ‘Muc3’.
Emma is 19 and from Ronse in Belgium. She met the boys on Saturday, 22 September at the MediaPark in Cologne, Germany’s fourth-biggest city. She made lots of friends while she was waiting to see Harry, Zayn, Louis, Niall and Liam. ‘It only took a few minutes of chatting to build up a friendship,’ she reveals. ‘We all loved One Direction so much. We had slept on the cold hard ground of the MediaPark together and shared blankets, food and our stories. The rest of the world could say whatever they wanted; we had each other. And we all had the same goal: meeting our boys.’
After waiting 24 hours, Emma and her friends were only moments away from meeting the boys when one of her new friends, Natalie, got really nervous and asked Emma if she would stay with her. Emma promised she would and they stood in line and headed for the stage where the boys were all sitting.
Emma takes up the story: ‘I heard Natalie say, “They’re real, this is real, they’re actually here!” as soon as she spotted them. I turned to look at her and saw tears of happiness pouring down her face, as I felt hot tears running down mine as well. It had been a battle, we’d had to stay so long in the cold and there’d been fights with the girls who tried to get in front of us. We’d had no sleep, no food, we’d been standing up for nine hours straight. I knew that she understood me completely and that was all I needed; we turned back to the stage where the boys were posing for the cameras.
‘The security guard bellowed that we were on and that we had to move. I looked back at Natalie one last time and we nodded. I climbed the few stairs that separated me from the stage. Up there another security guard waited and looked me up and down, head to toe. I had a paper in my hand, a little letter that my friend had asked me to give to Liam, and five little camera-shaped water guns, which I had bought for the boys. He looked at the paper and took it from me. “But it’s for Liam,” I muttered, but he didn’t care. I quickly hid my water guns and managed to sneak them past him.’
Emma almost tripped over her feet when she took the last step separating her from Zayn, who sat first at the table. She swallowed the lump in her throat and managed to hold back the tears. ‘I put the cover of my DVD on the table so the boys could sign it,’ she remembers. ‘Zayn looked up at me and said hi. I swallowed again and put one of the cameras on the table. “I got you something,” I managed to say. He looked at the camera, then back at me. “What is it?” he asked (which made my knees go weak). “Push it,” I told him. I managed to stop him just in time from squirting the water in his own face. “Oh, is it water?” he asked, realising what it was. I nodded and he smiled. “Thank you!” he said before he aimed the gun between me and Natalie. I smiled. Never had I expected him to be so sweet and he was actually happy with a stupid gift, him being a millionaire and all.
‘Next was Harry, then Louis, then Liam and, last but not least at all, Niall. They were all really sweet and caring and they seemed genuinely happy. When it was over, I just froze and the security guard pushed me towards the exit of the stage. Everything after that is one big blur. I remember looking back and finding Natalie. We broke down in sobs and had to sit down on the ground to catch our breath. My heart was still racing and images passed before my eyes. I had never ever in my life felt this way.’
If you want to follow Emma on, her Twitter name is @stylesandpotter.