Germany’s Unicorn Craze
The mythical creature rises in uncertain times.
Sometime in 2016, as Germany was reeling from disagreements over migration, politics, and national identity, the country received a magical visitor. The unicorn appeared on hats, liqueur bottles, cereal boxes, condom wrappers. By last summer, it seemed as much a part of the German landscape as bratwurst.
In Frankfurt, a. Someone on the Berlin subway has been altering the signs with a little horn to welcome fairy-tale creatures, too. This whimsical infatuation has made its way into the fictional world as well: In an episode of , a dead body from the present era is revealed to have a unicorn tattoo. “I’ve seen some weird things,” one of the investigators from the 1950s—the pre-unicorn era—says. “But this here definitely outdoes it all.”
