These days, it should be quite easy to bid farewell to London. Whenever one's family descends into the Tube, a sort of nervousness ensues. The cosmopolitan and bustling areas of Edgware Road and Notting Hill today seem like battle fields. It's time to get out of here, right?

In truth, saying goodbye is hard. I have spent the past 18 months in London as a correspondent, and have made numerous friends here. I also have fallen in love with the city. Above all, I am a journalist and leaving now feels like exiting the theater in the middle the dramatic fourth act.

What farces, what triumphs, what tragedies we've had in this last year and a half. The intrigues and wars of succession in Westminster, the gripping sex scandals surrounding ministers, Tory journalists, and football players, Michael Gambon as Falstaff and, of course, the definitive abolition of poverty through a Pink Floyd concert in Hyde Park.

And now, at the very end, this city has really hit me where it hurts. There was the golden hour of the Olympics celebrations in Trafalgar Square and then, only a few days later, the touching commemoration for the victims of terror. Heaven and hell.

London has changed in these past months. The whole British nation has changed. Their tone of voice is different. It is more triumphalist, more defiant, more irritated. And everywhere there is the nagging question of what holds the nation together. What is 'Britishness'?

For me, it is encapsulated in an afternoon I spent on the lawn of Buckingham Palace about two weeks ago surrounded by men in penguin suits and ladies wearing big hats.

Queen Elizabeth II nodded and smiled at her Commonwealth family during her traditional garden party. She worked the reception line, recognizing Lords and commoners, those in Indian saris, Anglican vestments and African burnusses. It was the epitome of politesse.

But then suddenly, all the civilized niceties were drowned out as an inferno of police sirens, claxons and whirring helicopter blades erupted beyond the garden.

It was the Thursday of the second terror attack. London was in a fever. Nobody knew yet whether there were new fatalities. The hunt for suspects was running at full speed.

Yet, here on the lawn, hundreds continued to wait in front of the royal marquee, hoping to watch the queen sip her tea.

It was a scene full of ironies.

What binds us?

Despite the allusions to Blitz-solidarity -- evoked so often in the previous days -- and the seeming unity of British multiculturalism displayed on the lawn, nothing could disguise the ugly fact that it was Britain's own children who had initiated the carnage by signing on to a murderous cult.

And what of the virtues displayed on the green? The stoicism, the education, the famous British humor? Long ago, these classic British traits were devalued in the world beyond the royal hedges. Not by bombs, but by Big Brother, porn, drugs, binge drinking and happy slapping. The island seems to have produced extreme forms of these social ills, but naturally they also exist in France, Germany and elsewhere.

The truth is, societies in the globalized world are atomizing. They are literally whisking past our ears. In France and Germany, too, the nations' multicultural composition is pushing many to ask the question: What is it that really binds us?

These days, the blessings Britain has bestowed on the world are ticked off in confused mantras: parliamentarianism, Shakespeare, football... Yet why do they still hate us?

The question is misguided. It should be: Why aren't there more bombs exploding in western cities? Any sociopath can put together a bomb nowadays and there are plenty of reasons for suicide. The organisers of the World Youth Day in Cologne are already feeling sick at the thought of 800,000 youths carrying backpacks pouring in for the event.

What is Britishness these days? A survey in the Daily Telegraph sought the answer and came up with surprising responses. The rule of law, freedom of speech, parliamentarianism -- in brief, a list most developed nations would likely come up with.

How about economic success? Not very convincing. Sure, the country is on a consumer high. All those property shows! Fine food, fine wine, fine living. The boom is almost as bizarre as the German economic miracle of the 1960s. I don't consider any of this "glue" conducive to group spirit. It is particularly ineffectual for those left out.

What other traits appeared on the list? At the top -- apparently the cornerstone of British Britishness is "resistance to Nazi Germany." This, too, fails to convince. What meaning does that trait hold for a Somali immigrant? Or for youths from Leeds?

In truth, these days, Hitler is worth little more than a lame joke. I recently left a restaurant with the author Ian McEwan and his wife and ran into a well-known director. Ian introduced my wife and me as friends from Germany and the Oscar-winning director raised his arm in a Hitler salute and roared with laughter.

Certainly, it is ridiculous to reduce Germany (Goethe-Schiller-Beethoven!) to the 12 years of Nazi rule. Astonishingly, though, such simplicities do wonders for one's patriotism. Nothing instills pride more than constantly being forced to defend one's nation against clichés.

In this age of globalized markets, nations function like brand names. Everyone considers themselves tolerant, all are proud of their inventors, explorers, martial leaders. But there are differences. You buy hifis from the Japanese, cars from the Germans, wine and cheese from the French. Americans are generous, and the Brits have a sense of humor.

The differences are stubborn, persistent and they exist for good reasons.

British advertising is truly funny, "Absolute Power" is electrifying, Ricky Gervais is my favorite. And journalism on the island is true entertainment. There is little as lively as the cultivated hooliganism of daily columnists. With them, I can get into really good scrapes.

I can't say how much I admired the courage of Anthony Barnett from opendemocracy.co.uk, who put my controversial VE-Day-piece on his Web site. And I loved the common sense and sharp wit displayed by Minette Marrin in the Sunday Times in response to some of my more critical pieces. Ditto for Miles Kington in the Independent. And there has been the fair reporting of my stance regarding the British obsession with the Nazis (the war IS over!) by Elizabeth Day in the Sunday Telegraph. I also can't forget Steve Crawshaw, who reminded us Germans in an essay for DER SPIEGEL that we need to show more humor and Anne McElvoy, the brillant deputy editor from the "Evening Standard" who brought the best out of me by overworking my articles. Both Anne and Steve spent years of their carreers in Germany and definitely know more about the German soul than I do.

My brother's cherry wood drawers and my hate mail

My plea to all my British colleagues: don't lose your sense of humor in these times of tension! Don't think too hard about what Britishness is and whether you are liked or not. It might be funny to hear this from a German, but I have a very good reason for saying this.

After London landed the 2012 Olympics, I joked that this country has succeeded in everything (Done away with poverty! Won The Champions League! Is home to Rachel Weisz!) and that it would now probably attack the German coastal region of Schleswig-Holstein and become a danger to world peace.

"Not that it would be a shame about Schleswig-Holstein", I wrote, "but it is a matter of principle."

My column was intended as and headed a 'sketch'. IT WAS A JOKE. But some of you media folk forgot to tell your readers, and treated it as a declaration of war. Yes indeed, the war was mentioned, especially the German invasion of Poland, and the recall of my brother, who serves as German Ambassador to this country, was seriously demanded.

What a glorious scandal, even more so, if it could have been presented to the readers after the terror attack. But, of course, my sketch was written and published on SPIEGEL Online before that horrible day. Luke Harding from the Guardian called me up soon after wanting to run a piece on it. While we were talking, the London bombs went off. Needless to say, the debate ended there.

At least for most. The Daily Mail still couldn't resist -- and even ran a diatribe against me after the terrorist onslaught. Their battle cry? London is in agony and the Germans are savaging Britain!

I called the writer and asked him why he wrote that. He said: "To hurt you guys." Well, he mainly hurt my brother.

The Daily Mail incidentally has a very twisted relationship with Germany. My first somewhat critical report about the island, which was run by the Independent, was greeted by the Mail with the line: "Oi, mein your own business, German!"

The paper (1.3 million circulation) deeply resents everything German these days, whereas in the 1930s, under Lord Rothermere, it held true affection for the Germans and especially the Nazis and the Führer. Aren't they, ahem, confusing things? Shouldn't the jabs be poised in the opposite direction?

Anyway, my brother cringed at all the "bad" publicity. Everyone who knows him knows how hard he works for acceptance for Germany. He is a diplomat, I am not. We are in different lines of work. We are two different people. I am a bit more careless, especially with my jokes. But from the start, he was held accountable for them. Terribly unfair.

Now permafrost has settled between us. He no longer comes by for breakfast. I suspect he has barricaded the door with that old cherry wood chest of drawers he has. Behind it, he is likely still busy preventing war between our great nations over the Schlesweig-Holstein-Question.

Instead of dinner invitations I now receive those brown embassy envelopes containing the hate mail he has been receiving since my column appeared. Blue, hectically scribbled letters with restless lines, punctuated with slogans in capital letters, like 'GO TO HELL!'

I would like to again take advantage of this opportunity to clarify: I do not believe that Britain will attack Schleswig-Holstein. I was joking. I'm pleased to be able to make this clear once and for all.

How I long to be a subject of the Queen!

One thing that disturbed me about the above-mentioned survey on Britishness was the Queen's poor placing somewhere in the middle. If there is one thing for which I envy my British friends, it is the Queen.