They have a reputation for faultless efficiency and planning events with meticulous detail.

So perhaps we should be worried that Germans already believe London 2012 will be an 'Olympic-sized disaster'.

Germany's leading news magazine has launched an attack on Britain’s preparations for the Olympics, poking fun at facilities and warning that the Games are destined to go down in history as a gigantic 'soggy mess'.

The article in Der Spiegel trashes numerous aspects about the Games, from the 'clattering' Tube system that will transport most spectators to Olympic venues to pavements that are 'too narrow' and a passport control situation at Heathrow bordering on chaotic.

'London and the Olympic Games are clearly not made for each other,' it said.

'Visitors will need determination and, most of all, patience to reach the venues at all. And, for the locals, it all can’t end soon enough.'

The article claims that the Olympics, which will run from July 27 to August 12, will be an 'arduous obstacle course for everyone'.

'Starting this week, the world’s biggest financial centre will be gripped by a special condition usually only seen in wartime,' it reads.

'Its 7.8million inhabitants are about to be joined by an average of 1million additional visitors per day.

'The already overloaded public-transportation system will be burdened with an additional 3 million fares per day.

'A total of 109 miles of the city’s streets will be closed off to normal traffic.

'Almost twice as many soldiers as Britain has in Afghanistan, a helicopter carrier and special forces units armed to the teeth will make the city look like it’s under siege.'

The Germans, whose last efforts at hosting the Olympic Games saw Israeli athletes murdered in Munich in a security fiasco in 1972, then criticise an aspect beyond our control - the weather.

It reads: 'And then there’s England’s classic bad weather, which has some wondering whether the Summer Games will turn into a fiasco.

(Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)