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Germany tries to purge Nazi past before World Cup

(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-04-11 09:33

There were some 40,000 Jews in German sport clubs -- or about one-tenth of pre-war Jewish population of 400,000. By 1945, there were only a few thousand Jews alive in Germany.

"The Germans just accepted it," he said. "They felt there wasn't a lot they could do. Afterwards, they all claimed they were ashamed. But at the time there was a lot of enthusiasm for the Nazis. Most thought "So what"? when Jews disappeared."

Not everyone at the symposium accepted the criticism from the post-war historians and soccer officials aimed at the generation that lived through the Nazi era.

"You're all assuming here that the DFB was a major supporter of the Hitler dictatorship and I firmly reject that view," said Rudi Michel, 84, a long-time broadcast journalist and close ally of Sepp Herberger, who coached the German national side from 1936-64, winning the World Cup in 1954.

"There was nothing we could do and we were just following orders," said Michel. "We were all forced to live by the laws under the swastika. Everything is controlled in a dictatorship.

"We couldn't play youth league matches unless we had a stamp verifying we were Hitler youth members. If we didn't give the Hitler salute we weren't allowed to play. Every organisation had to follow the Nazi's orders. That's the way it was."