Quake 3 Arena - where is the console key?

hello,

i have posted this in some quake forums, but there are only windows quakers...noone could answer this:

i have a macbookpro with german language keyboard layout.

to enter the console in the game, i had to press the tilde key.

nothing happens when i do that.

can anybody please tell me how to manage that?

do i have to set my mbp to english keyboard layout, or do i have to set my tilde key to another key?

thx