Together against forgetting
24 February 2023 – For a long time now, professional clubs in Germany, with the support of the DFL, have been facing up to the past and the role that football played in the inglorious chapters of the country’s history. After all, like virtually all other parts of society, football also bowed to the new government and its ideology after the National Socialists seized power in 1933.
The DFL supports remembrance work at numerous clubs via organisations including the Pool for the Promotion of Innovative Football and Fan Culture (PFiFF). In addition to their own initiatives, many clubs and their supporters are involved in projects promoting a culture of remembrance.
Since 2016, the Hamburg-based ‘Remembrance Network’, a coalition of fans, employees and organisations at Hamburger SV, has been examining the club’s role in National Socialism and the influence of right-wing ideology at the club and among the fan base throughout its history up to the present day. The project, supported by the DFL, received the Julius Hirsch Award from the DFB, the German Football Association, in 2022.
“Remembrance work also at a local level”
For years, Borussia Dortmund has been pursuing a holistic approach and is funding the construction of the ‘Shoah Heritage Collection Center’ at the Holocaust remembrance centre in Yad Vashem (Israel) with a donation of €1 million. The biography of the Holocaust survivor Helmut ‘Sonny’ Sonneberg is part of Eintracht Frankfurt’s remembrance work. Eintracht fan Sonneberg survived the Theresienstadt ghetto during his childhood and supported a number of the club’s projects as a contemporary witness until his death in February 2023. For the last decade, 1. FC Nürnberg has been using the life story of its Jewish former trainer Jenö Konrad (1930-1932) for educational work in its region. With the aid of the membership card index for the years 1928-1955, which was found after once having been feared lost, the club is now shining a light on further biographies of Jewish former members of the club, as well as its role during the National Socialist era.
In Bremen, this type of work has led to an educational offering devised collaboratively by Fanprojekt Bremen e.V. and SV Werder Bremen, whereby young people working in small groups search for traces of the lives of Jewish sportsmen and women, as well as club officials at SV Werder.
“It is crucial that remembrance work is also carried out at a local level, and equally builds a bridge between the past, present and future in the process in order to create a connection for those involved, far beyond the ‘Day of commemoration in German football’ on 27 January,” said Thomas Schneider, head of the DFL Fan Affairs department.
It is precisely this department that is promoting efforts to increase awareness. This includes continuous (further) training for employees from fan affairs departments at clubs in the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2, as well as for employees at fan projects and the Fan Project Coordination Centre (German: Koordinationsstelle Fanprojekte) to combat all forms of discrimination, including racism and anti-Semitism.
Professional football is a social institution in Germany. It unites.
Ansgar Schwenken, member of the DFL Management Board
Financially supported by PFiFF, educational trips to the sites of former ghettos, as well as former concentration and extermination camps such as Theresienstadt and Auschwitz-Birkenau, are intended to support prevention work at the clubs, provide the means for fan work to take effect and further qualify such projects. They are a starting point for individual trips and programmes organised by clubs and fan projects, and provide valuable stimuli for the visits and didactic approaches – locally and beyond.
The commitment of professional football is based on a common understanding for effectively combating anti-Semitism. At the DFL Members Assembly in 2021, the 36 professional clubs from the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 adopted the working definition of anti-Semitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), thereby clearly positioning themselves in opposition to any manifestation of it.
Collaboration with the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the World Jewish Congress
At the conference ‘Anti-Semitism and professional football: challenges, opportunities, network’ at Dortmund’s SIGNAL IDUNA PARK in March 2022, which the DFL organised jointly in collaboration with Borussia Dortmund, the World Jewish Congress and the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the focus was on tackling anti-Semitism within and outside sport.
The speakers included Dr Josef Schuster (President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany), Maram Stern (Executive Vice President of the World Jewish Congress), Dr Felix Klein (Federal Government Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Anti-Semitism) and Mahmut Özdemir, (Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community). Historian Dr Andreas Kahrs guided those present through the day as moderator. Ansgar Schwenken, member of the DFL Management Board, also addressed the guests. He said, “Professional football is a social institution in Germany. It unites. Regardless of background, religion, disability, age or gender, it is a fixed reference point for the people in our country.”
Professional football is also meeting the responsibility that arises from this position with its multifaceted commitment to tackling anti-Semitism.