Unidos da Tijuca school, the third-oldest samba school, reigning carnival champions, chose to go for a German theme at this year's Carnival with an unusual title for their 80-minute performance in February 2013: "Alemanha Encantada" or "Enchanted Germany," which is about "Brazil and Germany coming together: colours, cultures, and capabilities," the Tagesspiegel newspaper reported. It was a mammoth show, involving eight floats, built on buses, with various Germanic features – including outsized Playmobil figures, the moon (to represent Germany pioneering rocket scientists, e.g. Wernher von Braun), and figures from ancient Germanic mythology, including thunder god Thor. Artistic director Paulo Barros, who has already choreographed two winning Sambadrome performances, packed Germany into five acts, beginning with Germanic gods and assorted mythic creatures. There follows Goethe's Faust, Bertolt Brecht's outcast characters, Fritz Lang robots, and a depiction of Marlene Dietrich as The Blue Angel. Meanwhile, the "Universe of Children" section is dedicated to German fairytales and toys. The whole spectacle was broadcast in its entirety on Brazilian TV station Globo-TV, with an audience of more than 190 million viewers. Forced assimilation We most desire that at any cost a German country containing some 20 to 30 million Germans may grow in the twentieth century in Brazil, and that, no matter whether it remains a portion of Brazil or becomes a self-containing state or enters into close relations with our empire. Gustav von Schmoller, German economist (1900). When Germans first arrived in Southern Brazil in 1824, they found a country with a climate, vegetation and culture very different from those of Germany. Southern Brazil was a land of gauchos, cattle herders who lived, and still live, in the Pampas region of the Southern Cone. In the following decades, however, waves of German-speaking immigrants arrived, to the point that in many areas of Southern Brazil the vast majority of the inhabitants were Germans and even after three or four generations born in Brazil, these people used to consider themselves Germans. Between 1937 and 1945 a significant portion of the Brazilian population suffered interference in daily life produced by a "campaign of nationalization". This population – called "alien" by the Brazilian government – was composed of immigrants and their descendants. Both the Brazilian Empire and the early Republic allowed groups of immigrants to settle in isolated communities, mainly in Southern Brazil, and to some extent in other parts, such as Espírito Santo, in the Southeast.