``How come advertising in Germany is so bad ?'' asked Heimar Schroeter, chief executive officer of Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett (MC&LB) in Germany, in a guide to European advertising cultures released at the Cannes Advertising Festival last month. Germans travel abroad more than any other nationality so why does this not lead to fresher, wittier advertising, Schroeter asks in the paper published by Leo Burnett, USA.

Agency heads and creatives attending Cannes' showcase for the world's most imaginative publicity ideas agreed that Europe's biggest advertising market is in creative malaise.

From more than 10,000 world-wide entries in the annual competition, just four German campaigns took homeawards -- one in the new ``Cyber Lions'' category for a website, two for print ads and one for a TV commercial.By contrast, US and British agencies scooped more than 50 coveted Cannes Lions each.

Some say the role of promotion and image in German business has been overshadowed by its mastery of things technical and that advertising agencies fail to press their ideas on conservative clients. For others, the country that put ``Arbeit macht Frei'' (work brings freedom) over the gates to the death camp at Auschwitz still feels the shadow of Nazism. Schroeter believes a realisation is dawning that the use of propaganda earlier this century to win people to the Third Reich and the banning of works associated with goebbels after World War Two may still harm freedom of expression in commerce today. ``While all papers and TV stations are full of news about Germany and the Jews, and the Swiss banks' politics from the thirties through today, no one has ever investigated the connection and the effect this time periodhad on German advertising,'' Schroeter said.

``The shadow of the former `minister for propaganda' is still hanging over the attitude toward advertising and a subconscious reluctance to seduce remains,'' he wrote.

A seminal 1920s book by Claude Hopkins called ``My Life in Advertising,'' which influenced a generation of creatives in the US and elsewhere, was taken up by goebbels and, like director Leni Riefenstahl's films of nazi rallies, was forbidden in Germany after World War Two.

Many older Germans still distrust advertising, Schroeter said. ``Their favourite excuse is that they were seduced by our profession. Clients from that generation insist on facts. No good story, no surprise, no emotional sell.''

The influence of Nazi Times was too heavy a topic for advertising delegates attending the week-long industry festival in the sun.

But many agreed that German adverts are hampered by perfectionism, management failure and a lack of honesty. ``Young creatives want to get things absolutely perfect.Every sentence has to be correct. Germany is full of technicians, but I sometimes wish the creatives would be more crazy,'' said creative director Rene Clohse of Saatchi & Saatchi in Frankfurt. ``The development has stopped. I don't see the passion and energy for doing new things intellectually, the will to be part of a standard-setting community,'' he told Reuters.

The best German ideas come from elsewhere, he noted. The new US Volkswagen Beetle print campaign, which won a Grand Prix for its US Originator at Cannes, was a ``perfect example of Bauhaus'' modernism. German-born creator Conrad of the American Marlboro Mancigarette campaign, called on German agencies to stop yielding to clients.