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| Football under the sign of the Swastika
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Theo Zwanziger, managing director of the German Football Federation.
Photo: Football Federation
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A two-day symposium discussing the implications of football during the Nazi era took place in Bad Boll, a small town near Stuttgart, last week.
The event, “Football Under the Sign of the Swastika – Learning from History”, was jointly organised by the Lutheran Bad Boll Academy and the German Football Federation.
Representatives from the fields of sport, sciences, politics as well as clergy discussed ways in which sport clubs and associations should go about remembering their sport during the Nazi period.
Stefan Kramer, secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany also participated.
Reflecting on past
Dr. Theo Zwanziger, managing director of the German Football Federation, expressed his satisfaction at the result of the meetings. “Our aim was to try and come as close to our terrible past as possible, in these two days,” Zwanziger said in a press conference.
“Through the abundance of constructive yet critical talks, we were quite successful at approaching our dark history. However, I want to make clear that this topic should be seen as an ongoing process and that this symposium is neither a beginning nor an end of this discussion,” Zwanziger continued.
The federal interior minister, Wolfgang Schaueble, told reporters that “it is good that the Football Federation is confronting its past. I know of no other field except for football that has played such an important role in the integration process of our society. It is a role model that can be followed. Nevertheless the concept of fair play needs to be once again put on the forefront of the game,” Schaeuble said.
Schaueble referred to hooligan and right-wing fan clubs which often chant racist, anti-Semitic slogans at foreign football stars.
Prize for tolerance
Zwanziger’s collegue, Football Federation president Manfred von Richthofen, said that his organisation must also face up to the actions of the communist East German regime. Richthofen referred to the many football players who actively worked for the East German secret police, the Stasi.
“We must work on these issues because one day we are going to need to give constructive answers to our youth concerning our country’s past,” von Richthofen said.
Already last year, the organisers of the symposium created and funded the Julius Hirsch Foundation in honour of Germany’s pre-war Jewish football star.
Hirsch, who played for Germany’s national team prior to the Nazi’s rise to power, was murdered in Auschwitz. The foundation aims to honour football clubs who have committed themselves to promoting the ideals of freedom, tolerance and humanity. In December 2005, the prestigious Bayern-Muenchen team became the first recipient of the 20,000 euro prize.
“As much as it might hurt us to confront the past, confronting it will keep us from forgetting it…and it will avoid that such terrible things ever happen in Germany again,” Zwanziger said at the prize ceremony.
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