Football an instrument during the Second World War

Football an instrument during the Second World War

For Nazi Germany, sport was a tool of propaganda, serving both to sympathize with the defeated populations and to demonstrate the superiority of the "Aryan race", even in the camps.

The Match FC Start against Flakelf

End game for the football championships. Stopped since mid-March, due to the health crisis, they should not resume, in France, until next September. A radical measure, almost unprecedented: even at the height of the Second World War, the matches had never stopped. An article  published in the journal Soccer & Society looks back on the instrumentalization of the practice of football during the conflict.

Despite the devastating effect of the Second World War in Europe, in terms of human losses and the destruction of infrastructure, footballers continued to practice their sport. Sometimes in extreme conditions: the study reports that official games were played while the noise of tanks was perceptible around and bullets were flying near the field.

“Everything has been done to ensure that the football league championships and other tournaments are maintained, both in the Allies and in the Axis countries, points out Jorge Tovar, professor in the economic department of the University of the Andes in Colombia, author of the study. It was necessary to entertain the population so that it focuses on something other than the tragic events.

Moreover, for Nazi Germany, sport was a tool of propaganda, serving both to sympathize with the defeated populations and to demonstrate the superiority of the Germans and the “Aryan race”.

SPORT AS A RECRUITMENT BIAS

On the Axis side, competitions were regularly organized within the Third Reich and among its allies: Italy, Croatia, Romania, Finland and Hungary. In Poland, the first country invaded in September 1939, Germany certainly canceled the national championship - which did not resume until 1946 - but face-to-face meetings continued to take place in Silesia, a region in the south -west, seen by the 

Nazis as an integral part of the Third Reich.

Some teams therefore participated in the German cup. "By agreeing to play for Germany, these players could sometimes claim favors, for example obtaining protection for their loved ones", specifies Jorge Tovar. After the war, however, many of them were considered traitors and imprisoned.

In other Polish regions, it happened that German soldiers faced local teams, which sometimes won, as in Rybnik in 1943. Illegal tournaments were also organized. In the fall of 1940, the National Stadium in Warsaw hosted sixteen Polish teams. When they were discovered, these events were harshly suppressed, the soldiers not hesitating to shoot at the supporters (1943, Konstancin) and to send the footballers to the concentration camps (1943, Milanówek). 

FOOTBALL IN THE CAMPS

Paradoxically, these places of confinement also gave rise to tournaments. Sporting events that were of particular importance to the prisoners. In his historical study , Jakub Ferenc of the private university Collegium Civitas in Warsaw, reports the words of the prisoners of the Gross-Rosen camp, in Silesia. They are unanimous: “Playing football was a unique opportunity to feel like a human being again; it was the only time all people in this evil place were equal.

Poster of the "Death Match", organized on August 9, 1942 in kyiv, then occupied by the Germans, between the Soviet team FC Start, formed by former DynamoKiev players and the German team Flakelf.

How were the teams formed? In Gross-Rosen, the players were first selected according to the tasks they performed in the camp. We thus found the team of quarry workers or that of builders. Then, from 1943, when the number of prisoners increased considerably, the tournaments were transformed into an international competition, with meetings between Polish, German, Czech or Soviet teams.

Alas, once the final whistle had sounded, the Nazis were not always fair in the event of defeat. "Only a few hours after a match won by the Polish prisoners against the SS team of the Gross Rosen concentration camp 1min and shortly after drinking beer together, all the prisoners were violently beaten (some of them - to death) by their German torturers," says Jakub Ferenc.

THE ROUND BALL MAKES RESISTANCE

In France too, competitions continued during the war. After the surrender in 1940, the teams were divided, like the rest of the country, into two zones – the north, under German control and the rest under the Vichy regime – with the winners of each zone contesting the final. However, only the Championship of France 1943-1944 will go until its end and will give place to a winner: the federal team Lens-Artois.

In annexed Alsace, the Sporting Club Red Star was seized by Germany and controlled by the SS. As in Poland, the players must evolve in the German championship and wear on their jersey the skull and the acronym of the Schutzstaffel. To strengthen their team, its new leaders are trying to recruit Oscar Heisserer, best French player and licensee of Racing club de Strasbourg, historic opponent of the Red Star. Unthinkable for the footballer: Heisserer refuses the proposal and is forced to flee to Switzerland.

Elsewhere in Europe, the situation is mixed, but, overall, the practice of the round ball remains lively. Authorized despite the occupation, meetings continue in the Netherlands. “The number of players and supporters even increased there during the war,” points out the study. As for England, after having suspended all its matches at the start of the conflict, it finally decided to relaunch the competitions for entertainment purposes, but only at regional level to limit the expenses of petrol for fans and players. A success: 82 teams out of 88 will take part.

Finally, only Norway is an exception: the Norwegian Nazi Party having tried to take over the management of the country's clubs, a "national sports strike" was launched. Players, fans and managers, for the most part, choose not to practice or only during illegal sporting events, during which recruitments for the resistance took place.

In Germany and Italy, on the other hand, the football demonstrations lasted until the last hours of the conflict. In Italy, the national championship ceased only in 1943 when, after major defeats in Africa, Mussolini was arrested by King Victor Emmanuel III. Even as it loses the war, Germany maintains its official matches. In April 1945, Hamburg hosted the last meeting organized in Nazi Germany. Hitler kills himself the next day.