Partner club of VfB Stuttgart: How the "Blitzkrieg" team caused a stir

The German word "Blitzkrieg" has not yet completely disappeared from the website of the American football club German American Kickers.

When the presidium is presented, there is a small reference to the starting point of the dispute, which has led to a storm of indignation in the social media in the past few days.

Under the short biography of the technical director it says that he is also the assistant coach of the U12 boys' team, nicknamed "Blitzkrieg".

A word that not only, but especially in Germany, immediately leads to associations with the barbarism of National Socialism.

And right now, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as a sports team nickname seems quite disturbing.

For this reason, the Bundesliga soccer club VfB Stuttgart, cooperation partner of the German American Kickers (GAK) in the youth field, has asked the club from Trenton in the American state of New Jersey to rename the team and delete the term from its website.

VfB only found out about the dubious nickname, which the U12s have had for five years, via a post on Facebook on March 27th.

"The name is inappropriate.

We conveyed this to our partner and he acted in our interest," says VfB Marketing Director Rouven Kasper. "The U12 team is now called Crocodiles." Based on the Stuttgart mascot Fritzle, a crocodile.

The GAK, which emerged in 1962 from the merger of the German clubs Liederkranz SC and Aurora, quickly and reasonably humorously solved the problem.

But in the United States, they didn't really understand all the excitement in distant Stuttgart, Paul Bette admits.

The president of the GAK told the FAZ that there are numerous teams in the United States that call themselves Blitzkrieg.

"Most Americans don't know what the word means in German and what the historical context is, including us."

"Lyrics have nothing to do with war"

That's why those responsible for the club didn't think anything bad when they showed a picture of their U12s on Facebook.

You can see shyly smiling boys in the traditional white VfB jersey with the red breast ring.

The club headlined: "Our U 12 boys GAK Blitzkrieg after their VfB Stuttgart training." President Bette says that they are all proud of the cooperation.

"We benefit greatly from the great experience and the training content that they convey to us digitally and in person."

But the Stuttgart-based company could also benefit by making their name better known in the globally competitive New York market.

VfB's request to change the name was followed immediately, Bette adds, "because it might have been insulting for our new partner." He still doesn't understand the whole thing to this day.

The name Blitzkrieg goes back to a song by the American punk rock band The Ramones from the 1980s, he says.

"Blitzkrieg Bop".

It is also frequently played in Germany ("Hey ho, let's go").

Bette is convinced: "The lyrics have nothing to do with war."

There was a digital trainer session on the day of the Facebook entry.

"The trainers of the GAK were totally surprised by the shitstorm," emphasizes Sebastian Schächter.

He is the founder of Schächter Sports, an agency that not only arranges foreign cooperation partners for VfB in the Bundesliga, but also supports them in terms of content.

As early as the end of February, during the first training course for coaches, he came across the nickname, Schächter told the FAZ.

The "Blitzkrieg" cause opens the view on the international cooperation of the Bundesliga clubs.

The German Football League (DFL) pays funding to the clubs if they work with international football clubs.

For most first division clubs, it is not necessarily about promoting the elite, but about cultivating intercultural exchange and establishing modern forms of training and in-depth training for coaches abroad.

Historical digressions for GAK

The Stuttgart marketing board member Kasper is something of a pioneer.

He set up the Asia office in Shanghai for FC Bayern and was later responsible for the record champions' entire Asia-Pacific business.

While Munich is building football schools to promote talent and perhaps later to bind them to the club, VfB's foreign commitments are still in their infancy.

"We can also imagine establishing permanent football schools abroad at some point," says Kasper.

But at the moment it's all about positioning the VfB Stuttgart brand in the relevant markets.

It helps in the USA that VfB head coach Pellegrino Matarazzo grew up just an hour and a half from Trenton.

He has also exchanged ideas with American sports journalists.

"An engagement abroad requires sensitivity and consideration for cultural differences on both sides," says Kasper.

In order to avoid further misunderstandings, not only football-related topics should be on the agenda in the future, but there should also be historical digressions.

In two or three weeks, a German historian will bring the GAK club officials closer to the German perspective on the topic of blitzkrieg.

"We are very sorry that there was such an outcry in Germany," said President Bette at the end.

They are a club in which ethnic and religious backgrounds play no role.

"We are a family club that wants to enable young players from socially disadvantaged families to get a football education." One message is particularly important to him: "We will definitely no longer use the nickname Blitzkrieg."