A friend of mine was playing “army” with some other children in Scotland when he was little (visiting his grandmother - he was born & raised in the US), and as they split into teams (some being the Germans), he said he would be an American. They all looked at him, then asked why he wanted to be an American when the British had won the war?
Too funny; he was too young to realize Britain had even fought in it...
Yes, Europeans have strange memories.