Never Again: German Football remembers on 81st anniversary of Auschwitz-Birkenau liberation
The Nazi regime exploited sport in various ways. It was used as a tool to boost work ethic and military readiness, as well as to standardise leisure activities. Above all, sport served as as a weapon for propaganda. The 1936 Olympic games in Berlin were used by the Nazis to demonstrate their power and entrench their ideology far beyond Germany's borders.
Even German football, which counted Jewish man Walther Bensemann as one of its pioneers - a founding father of the German FA (DFB) and also created the still-loved football magazine kicker - was not immune to Nazi hatred. On the contrary, many clubs actively participated in the disenfranchisement of Jewish citizens, although the Nazi leadership initially refrained from pushing this in sports with the Berlin Olympics in mind.
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