JAIME RODRÍGUEZ
@JaimeRodrigC
Madrid
Updated Monday, June 29, 2020 - 10:20
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- The day Stalin fell in love with football
He really didn't want to be there, in that Germany-Norway quarter-final, because his interest in the day's agenda was rowing. Or the pole. Or horse riding, according to the crossing of historical versions that are consulted. All, of course, agree that Adolf Hitler was not interested in soccer in the least.
To him, to the monster, it seemed a crude, primitive thing, that of running and kicking a ball. In fact, the sport itself thought for a long time that it was a waste of time until they convinced him of its appeal to spread the message to the people. That is why he accepted the Games in Berlin in 1936, despite the fact that when he came to power, three years earlier, he asked about the need to spend money on such a show. He wasn't motivated in the least by such a multiracial meeting at home.
It was his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels , who made him see the enormous possibilities of the Olympic event. From the initial skepticism, the Führer turned to enthusiasm, pouring all possible resources so that the appointment went as it went, in a big way. Even the special envoys of the American newspapers, already very critical of the German drift, surrendered to the impeccable organization. The streets appeared spotless, the anti-Jewish graffiti was erased and in each corner a speaker narrated the marks and medals of the different modalities.
For the visitor, the section had no gaps. The vetted press was able to return to Berlin, between the spell of the recovered nightlife of the capital and the martial attention of the volunteers. A paradise made by Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's flagship director, who broke technical barriers with her film Olympia.
But the golden glow did not hide the fangs of the growing regime. The charged political atmosphere has permeated the Games since its opening parade, with applause for nations that threw their arms up to the sky and whistles for those that resisted paying homage to the host. Later, on the track, the treacherous sport brought colors to Hitler himself more than once, with Jesse Owens as the universal icon.
From Owens to Norway
The black athlete who left his Aryan rivals behind. Legend has it that Hitler refused to shake hands with the champion for his hatred of race, but the sprinter himself, according to other testimonies, spent the rest of his life saying otherwise. Yes, that it was he himself who came to greet the fledgling tyrant and that, before leaving the stadium, he had no problem in returning the gesture. His other great fright came in soccer, in the Germany-Norway to which Goebbels insisted on going, as Cristobal Villalobos Salas tells in Soccer and fascism (Altamarea), an entertaining book that reviews the volcanic relations of Mussolini, Hitler and Franco with the ball.
The same editorial published before the Russia World Cup Soccer and Power in the USSR by Stalin , where the first day of the communist dictator in a game is also narrated. It was in July 36, just a month before Hitler's football debut, and he liked it so much that the planned half-hour exhibition had to stretch a little longer. Looking for his entertainment, the party was not more than a succession of rehearsed plays, a species of ballet with ball to entertain a unique and dangerous spectator.
The Hitler thing was real competition. After starting the competition sweeping Luxembourg, the host team appeared as a favorite with the selection of a friendly country. The local coach, Otto Nerz , saw it so easily that he even dared to leave some starters on the bench. He would pay the mistake for the rest of his life.
The Fuehrer is enraged. I can not stand it. I am a bundle of nerves », the almighty propaganda minister would later write in his diary, who could not avoid that August 7, 36 that his boss left before the end of the game. Spain, which Italy massacred to kicks in the 1934 World Cup, did not attend the Games because of its internal combustion. The Popular Front had decided not to send a delegation to the land of the Nazis and to counterprogram with another international competition in Barcelona. The outbreak of the Civil War extinguished the sport.
The unexpected rebellion
In Berlin, Hitler could not tolerate what he was seeing, that 0-2 of the brave Norwegians, led by their captain, Jorgen Juve , and by a technician, Asjbörn Halvorsen , who was one of the first to take good care of physical preparation and the tactic, expert in working the novel norm of the offside. Already as a star of Hamburg, years before he did not say goodbye to his colleagues with the Nazi salute. And later, in occupied Norway, he ended up in concentration camps after protesting seeing the Nazi commissioner in Oslo deliver the Norwegian Cup, rather than the exiled King.
The Gestapo imprisoned him, being found by the French in 45 with his health shattered. He would die 10 years later. His bronze at 36 is still the best achievement in Norwegian football today. And he kicked Hitler out of football forever.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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