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 Landing at the capital's Tegel airport, captain Philipp Lahm led
the team down the plane's stairs holding above his head the golden
trophy secured in Sunday's final, with midfielder Bastian
Schweinsteiger close behind him wrapped in a German flag.
Nearly half a million revelers packed Berlin's "fan mile", a 1.3 km
stretch of road running from the west of the capital up to the
iconic Brandenburg Gate, for a massive party. Many more lined the
streets in the city center along the team's route.
Fans in Germany shirts, many with their faces painted in black, red
and gold and some wearing wigs and bandanas in the national colors,
had started drinking beer hours before the team's touchdown.
"It's an amazing atmosphere, it doesn't get any better than this,"
said Lukas Klein, 19, who drove through the night from the northern
city of Bremen to be in Berlin. He told his boss he was sick.
 A roar went up from the crowd when the team's plane circled
overhead, and the fans counted down from 10 to its touchdown on the
tarmac. "Football's coming home!" they bellowed.
"I am really excited to welcome the world cup winners during my
lifetime. I am from East Germany and this is important," said
Guenther Richter, 51, from East Berlin.
Sunday's 1-0 victory over Argentina in Rio de Janeiro marked the
first time a reunified Germany has been world champion, with West
Germany having won the trophy in 1954, 1974 and 1990.
Television channels blanketed the airwaves with coverage and
newspapers dedicated whole editions to the victory.
"This is what four feels like!" splashed top-selling Bild on its
front cover, with a picture of the team with their hands raised.
Underneath it described what it considered the four attributes of
the team: self-confident, together, fierce, modern.
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Germany snatched the win in extra time with a stunning goal from
fresh-faced Mario Goetze, the nation's 22-year-old boy wonder.
The crowds chanted Goetze's name along with that of Schweinsteiger,
who got a battering during the final match and ended up with a
bloody cut under his eye.
"Welcome, World Champions!" Berliner Zeitung splashed on its front
page.
Even the usually sober Handelsblatt business daily ran a picture on
its front page of coach Joachim Loew, affectionately known as Jogi,
under the headline "Model Germany".
The success of the national team since 2006, when Germany hosted the
World Cup, is widely seen as having helped Germans take greater
pride in their nationality, which their history had previously made
them uncomfortable about displaying.
(Reporting by Anja Nilsson, Reuters Television; Writing by Madeline
Chambers; Editing by Stephen Brown and John Stonestreet)
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