Fascism & Football: When Germany were the inferior team

German national soccer team players execute the nazi salute, 04 June 1938 at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, before the start of their World Cup match against Switzerland.

The 1938 World Cup was played in France. In the opening match, the new German side comprising five Austrians in the starting 11 was drawn to play Switzerland- a team they were expected to beat. A 1-1 draw meant that the sides had to meet in a replay of the game. Germany took the lead in the match scoring two quick goals, but the longer the game went, the more apparent it became that the Germans and Austrians were not playing for the same side. Switzerland scored four goals to advance to the next stage of the tournament, and the team that Hitler had taken personal efforts to make world-class came back home before anyone had anticipated. This was another humiliation on the football field for Hitler’s Germany.

On August 9th, 1942, the Start Stadium in Kiev, present capital of Ukraine, became the site of one of football’s most infamous moments. This was when the ‘Death Match’ took place. The Second World War was in progress and the city was under Nazi occupation at the time. Flakelf, the German official Luftwaffe (aerial warfare branch of the German Wehrmacht during World War II) team, assembled with pure and perfect Aryans, insisted to replay FC Start, a side which was proving to be a very good at the time.

The first game between Flakelf and Start took place three days before the Death Match. Start won the game comfortably as the score line read 5-1. For Hitler and the Nazis, this loss was unbearable. After all, the strictly Aryanised German team was supposed to be indestructible and much superior to the Soviet locals. The loss put Hitler’s philosophy in clear danger.

The story goes that Germans, whose egos had taken a mighty toll by the defeat, asked the Kiev team for a rematch. The German team, which was supposed to be much superior in the realm of sport, was unsure of the locals and warned them beforehand to lose the match.

Before the game started, a man dressed in Schutzstaffel (SS) uniform entered Start’s locker room with a message. The SS was a ‘major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party’. He told them that he was the referee, asked them to adhere to do the rules and greet the opponents in ‘their fashion’. It meant that the players were asked to do the Nazi Salute- raise hand and say “Heil Hitler”. It became clear to them that the SS Officer, the referee of the game, was asking them to lose the match. The locals also were aware that decisions would not go their way. But they were not to be intimidated by this.

In response to Flakelf’s “Heil Hitler!”, FC Start, pretending to do the same, began raising their arms only to put it on their chests and yell “Fizcult Hura!” which was the Soviet sporting salute meaning “Fitness, culture, hoorah.”.

The match didn’t start well for the Kiev unit as they went to half-time trailing the Germans 3-1. Halftime again saw an SS officer coming to FC Start’s locker room and asking them to lose or beware of the consequences. This probably motivated the players who had seen their country captured by the ruthless invaders as they made a heroic comeback scoring four goals and winning the replay 5-3. But Start players knew that their actions would hold a result. Few days later, a few of the players (reported to be five or six in various accounts) were summoned to a Gestapo (official secret police of Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe) official’s office. They were to never return. It is certain that, Nikolai Korotkykh, the Start forward, was tortured to death soon after. The rest of the players were sent to Siretz, a death camp feigned as labor camp two days after Korotkykh’s death. It was a death sentence, and ultimately resulted in the infamous term Death Match.

(This incident has been reported as a legend, because it involves propaganda of two nations- Soviet Union, who exaggerate the spirit shown by their nationals and Germany, who went to lengths to deny it. However, Makar Goncharenko, a player for FC Start spoke about the match in various accounts, one of which has been taped by the staff of the World War II museum)

Like in Italy, football was used to politicize the game for the Nazi cause. Hitler used the sizable charm of the game for his propaganda use. It is true that Germans were incompetent then and didn’t help Hitler’s cause of justifying the superiority of the Aryan race but Hitler won in his main aims as his ulterior motives almost always came through.