Sport, the Nazis and the DDR. What role did sport play in legitimating German political regimes befo

During the years preceding and following the Second World War political upheaval was widespread as the two significant wars of the twentieth century paved the way for radical regime changes across the European continent. European politics was uncertain and all these regimes, be they democratic, fascist or communist undertook efforts to legitimate themselves in both the eyes of their own citizens and in those of onlookers abroad. In an age when the regime embodied and sought to define what it meant to be a member of their particular state, the variety and scope of methods which were utilised to perform the aforementioned task of legitimation extended into many aspects of society. Sport (although traditionally an apolitical activity) had become a cornerstone of European society by the early part of the century and it was therefore unable to avoid these efforts.

The case of Germany can provide an intriguing insight as the Nazi and Communist regimes which bookend the war allow similar and contrasting strands to be examined. These can also be applied to the various other cases throughout Europe.

The Nazi regime utilised sport in various ways in its attempts to legitimise itself. Although the party had officially taken power democratically the NSDAP had to cement its power with only a 43.9% share of the vote in 1933. The process of establishing control and legitimacy touched all corners of society and sport was no exception. To become legitimate the Nazis and Nazism had to dominate the everyday lives of Germans throughout the country. Gleichschaltung sought to bring all bodies and institutions within Germany under Nazi control, including sporting institutions . Hart-Davis writes that “under the direction of Tschammer und Osten, all sport became gleichgeschaltet, or ‘coordinated’” (1), and as Hesse-Lichtenberger alludes to, sporting bodies and clubs were often more than willing to become Nazified to impress their new superiors; “By the time the Nazis ‘left no choice’, most sports bodies had long since chosen the path they wanted to follow.” (2) The National Socialist League of the Reich for Physical Exercise acted to co-ordinate all physical education and sports throughout the Reich. Meanwhile, the large workers’ sport movement which had developed within factories was quickly obliterated as part of efforts to discredit and weaken the Communist party and Social Democrats and thus reduce the threat of revolutionary activity.

With dominant structures in place, sport could be used as a propaganda tool to indoctrinate the German people with the Nazi world-view and hence legitimise the regime in their eyes. To the Nazis, sport and physical education were inextricably intertwined and a cornerstone of Nazi ideology. Both occupied similar roles in the development of a National Socialist society. In fact, Kurt Munch articulated that “Athletics and sport are the preparatory school of political driving power of the service of the State.” (3) Sport and physical activity both acted to create a strong and healthy populace (4) which would help make Germany great again. Walters describes how “the Nazis saw sport as being essential not only for the body corporal, but also for the body politic,” (5) and through participation in physical activity in a controlled environment the German population was subject to consistent indoctrination. Physical education began to take upon much greater importance within schools as exercise hours were gradually extended and physical performance began to arguably take up as much importance as academic work. To many - especially the young - the opportunity to stay active was harmless and enjoyable whilst a healthy nation as well as embodying Nazi ideology was also an attractive notion to the population.

In fact, the traditionally dominant culture of physical activity within the Turnervereine (gymnastics associations) across the country helped facilitate this goal coupled with the aim to create a Volksgemeinschaft, or national community. The gymnastics ethos embodied much of the values and attributes which the Nazis valued. As Schiller and Young point out, it politically allowed “regional and particular loyalties to flourish while simultaneously fostering the projected unity of the greater German Volk.” (6) The Nazis were able to capitalise on an ethos which had parallels with their own world-view, making, for some, the transition towards a new state more acceptable.

The increased emphasis on physical exercise for the German youth facilitated a greater acceptance of militaristic ideas and proto-military training. As a result, partially due to the greater use of sports through schools (both specialist and ordinary) and the Hitler Youth, the regime hoped that a generation which had grown up in an enclosed Nazi sphere would be more accepting of the regime both in a legal and ideological sense. Klaus Fischer succinctly summarised this issue of aligning the values of the population with those of the regime: “Since the aim of Nazi education was to produce obedient followers and to further expansion and conquest, it logically followed that indoctrination and sports were two of the twin pillars of the Nazi temple. The aim of education was not to aid self-discovery but to indoctrinate young people to think like Nationalists.” (7)

Furthermore, sport also had a role to play in gaining legitimacy through methods coupled with propaganda which gave citizens reason to like the regime in the 1930s. The Strength Through Joy (KdF) movement founded in 1933 was modelled on fascist Italy’s Dopolavoro and provided opportunities for leisure, including sport, for millions of Germans of all levels of income. One of its subsidiaries, Beauty of Labour also attempted to improve working conditions with one aspect of this being greater provision of sports facilities for workers. Elite sport and the 1936 Berlin Olympics gave the German population a reason to be proud of the strength of their country and to rally behind the regime.

As well as being used to gain domestic legitimacy, the Olympics, significantly, were seen as a means of affording Germany and Hitler’s new regime greater respect within the international community. Although he had initially seen the Games as a ‘Jewish’ pursuit, Hitler was soon won over when he understood the implications they could have for propaganda. Germany had the opportunity to present itself on the world stage as a country which was back on track economically and was not only agreeable to deal with in international affairs but was superior to the rest of the world.

Having been frozen out of the international community since the Great War, hosting the Olympics offered a great deal of prestige. As effectively illustrated by Senn “Berlin viewed hosting the Olympics as an opportunity to offset foreign criticism of its domestic policies.” (8) Over the course of the games anti-semitic propaganda was removed or at least toned down to prevent international criticism (even two members of the German team were of Jewish descent), whilst the Games themselves were conducted on the grandest scale ever. The vast Olympic Stadium and other state of the art sporting facilities showed German economic might whilst foreign visitors consistently wrote of the enjoyable few weeks they had experienced during the Games. Furthermore, Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia, which paid homage to the role which the Nazis saw sport play in producing healthy bodies (with many similarities to the Olympic amateur spirit) was shown around the world and received critical acclaim. (9) William L. Shirer wrote that “Hitler and his Nazi thugs had succeeded in making the XIth Olympiad the most colourful in history and, what was more important, had used the Olympics to fool the world into believing that Nazi Germany was a peaceful, civilised and contented nation.” (10) By no means did everyone believe this and the reprieve did not last long but it indicates the significance which the Nazis attributed to the role sport could play in legitimising a state in the international community.

Shifting focus back towards domestic support, the athletic pursuits’ demonstration of the supposed efficacy of the regime was perhaps even more significant. Superiority on the sports field could be used as a means of showing superiority on the battlefield and state engagement in sport was not only a means of improving the association between ideology, success and the regime but also increased the possibility of military success. Bruno Malitz, an SA officer wrote that “The State will name the team” (11) and the impression of state involvement was also made upon Jack Crump, an English sport administrator: “We had the impression that we were competing against a scientifically organized machine… It was all very serious and highly planned.” (12) German athletes dominated the medals throughout the Games, emphatically finishing top of the medals table. Success in elite sport demonstrated German dominance over other nations of the world but success was not only a triumph for Germany but a triumph for the Nazi regime. As Walters clearly describes that, “to Nazi minds, the Olympics proved the efficacy of their system of government. If the Games were a political litmus test, then the result was a triumph for fascism.” (13) German strength was depicted primarily as an outcome of Nazi rule.

The Allied victory over the Nazi experiment led to the foundation of two distinct political establishments within the confines of what constitutes modern day Germany: The democratic FDR in the west and the communist DDR in the east. Sport also had a role to play in legitimating these regimes, significantly in Communist East Germany, where one extreme state had been replaced by another supposedly at the other end of the political spectrum. Sport’s role was not so different to that of the previous establishment. Toby Rider writes how “the Soviet [sport] model developed in two “main directions,” that being the implementation of “mass” (massovost) sport for all to promote “defence, health and integration,” and elite (masterstvo) sport “to gain international recognition” for Communism.” (14) The Socialist Unity Party (SED), placed into power by the Soviets, utilised a very similar model to (meet) their own ends, whilst striking similarities in sport’s role can be seen in comparison to the preceding Nazi system.

Examining these two ‘main directions’, firstly the SED took upon a control of mass sport. After indoctrination with Nazi ideology the party needed to change the ideals of the population so that they reflected those of Communism. Workers’ sport was reintroduced having been purged during the Nazi era whilst youth organisations such as the Free German Youth (FDJ) were founded, through which it was hoped both osmosis and overt propaganda would teach Communist principles. Initially, “in its early ‘democratic’ and ‘non-partisan’ guise, the FDJ clearly held many attractions,” (15) and could distance the new regime from the old regime and both its ideology and negative connotations. Youths and young adults were targeted as they were “regarded as relatively untainted by the evils of Nazi socialization, and thus capable of being socialized in the values and goals of socialism.” (16) This idea reflected much of what the Nazis had used to their advantage before the war and from 1952 one of the FDJ’s “main tasks was the recruitment and so-called ‘Wehrerziehung’, or military education, of all East German youth.” (17) Whilst the Society for Sport and Technology was also introduced. Sport, once again, was used to encourage an understanding of the value of a healthy population amongst the East Germans which in turn would be ready to leap to the defence of the ideology with which they had been indoctrinated. The extent to which such attempted indoctrination was successful is another question but there is certainly evidence that the regime felt that mass sport was an important societal avenue to exploit when attempting to gain legitimation.

Equally the Communists found a role for elite sport. East Germany is perhaps most notorious internationally for its state-sponsored elite sports programme. Although much of the system for the development of athletes and particularly its widespread doping programme was developed in the 1970s to 1980s, much of the legitimation process took place over a long period of time as the DDR tried to consistently legitimate itself in comparison to the democratic West. The East German state had a desire to prove itself to the world due to what Dennis and Grix describe as “its serious legitimacy deficit and lack of cohesive ‘national’ history or culture.” (18) By developing international athletes who could compete on the world stage from when the Olympic team of the old Germany competed as separate entities in 1968, the Communist state (once again like the Nazis) could “gain de jure international recognition.” (19) Undoubtedly, sporting success was something citizens could support and which increased acceptance for the regime, further strengthening the web of the supposed benefits of Communism over American capitalism.

Dennis and Grix argue that for totalitarian regimes legitimation and rule could not act solely as a ‘top down’ process, as “ordinary people were not only essential for the implementation of policies in many micro-areas but also influenced those very policies.” (20) Policy from the party was not absolute and the fact that various opinions could be found within society was one of the problems of legitimation. Therefore, it was not possible for the SED (and the Nazis) to move in and completely alter the entire structures of sport in society. The view to create ideal Nazi (21) and Communist clubs, for example, was a gradual process and it is important to bear in mind that sport wasn’t an so malleable that it could immediately be moulded to (meet the exact shape expected by the respective regime) the shape of however the respective regime wanted due to the nature of legitimation. Regimes had to work within the framework and understand the views of the populace, otherwise sections of the population would be less accepting, as was the case with the unpopularity of supposed ‘state sponsored’ football teams Dynamo Berlin (22) and Dynamo Moscow (23).

However, increasing control over sport and manipulating its connotations was important in trying to gain legitimacy. As previously mentioned, although theoretically occupying opposite ends of the political spectrum both regimes had much in common with an attempt to bring the population around to holding a certain ideology which would legitimate their positions as strong and lawful states. This was not just the case in Germany. As Dennis and Grix wrote, “The political instrumentalisation of sport and government involvement in elite sport in communist, fascist and democratic states is usually motivated by an attempt to seek prestige on behalf of a state, in many cases by showing that a nation’s sporting success is rooted in a specific political system and its alleged superiority.” (24) Sport had a role to play through formal and informal means in legitimating many regimes across the continent either side of the Second World War. Fascist Italy and the Soviet Union both utilised sport to their own advantage whilst sport equally served to epitomise the progress of the Federal Republic through West Germany’s victory in the 1954 World Cup. The important position of sport as a part of modern society made its position not only an important barometer of popular opinion but also in some cases a tool to be exploited in order to increase acceptance of the regime particularly in an era of polarized and extreme ideologies. Although the various regimes wanted to inculcate their citizens with contrasting ideas, they often used similar methods. These two distinctly different regimes utilised methods developed themselves and by others of the period and worked with contemporary public opinion to show this ‘alleged superiority’ and subsequently constantly attempted to legitimate their respective regimes in an era of sweeping change and modernisation.

References:

(1) Hart-Davis, D., (1986) Hitler’s Games, Harper & Row, New York. p67

(2) Hesse-Lichtenberger, U., (2003) Tor! The Story of German Football, WSC Books p63

(3) From Hart-Davis, D., (1986). p71

(4) This was outlined by Hitler as “of radiant mind and magnificent body” in the Nazi handbook Sport and State. From Walters, G., (2006) Berlin Games: How Hitler Stole the Olympic Dream, John Murray

(5) Ibid.

(6) Schiller, K., & Young, C., (2009) The History and Historiography of Sport in Germany: Social, Cultural and Political Perspectives, German History Vol. 27, No. 3, Oxford. p321

(7) Fischer, K. P., (1995) Nazi Germany : A New History, Continuum Publishing, New York. p349

(8) Senn, A. E., (1999) Power, Politics, and the Olympic Games, Human Kinetics. p52

(9) Olympia. (1938) Directed by Leni Riefenstahl [Film] Germany: Tobis. & Muller.

(10) From Senn, A. E., (1999) Power, Politics, and the Olympic Games, Human Kinetics. p62

(11) Quote from Malitz, B., The Spirit of Sport in the National Socialist Ideology in Hart-Davis, D., (1986) Hitler’s Games, Harper & Row, New York. p64

(12) Senn, A. E., (1999). p61

(13) Walters, G., (2006)

(14) Rider, T. C., (2013) Eastern Europe’s Unwanted Athletes, Journal of Sport History, Volume 40, Number 3, Fall 2013, pp. 435-453, University of Illinois Press. p439

(15) McDougall, A., (2008) A duty to forget? : The 'Hitler Youth Generation' and the transition from Nazism to Communism in Postwar East Germany, c.1945-49, German History Vol. 26, No. 1, Oxford. p37

(16) McCardle, A. W., & Boenau A. B., eds., (1984) East Germany, a New German Nation under Socialism?, University Press of America p71

(17) Ibid. p73 (18) Dennis, M., & Grix, J., (2012) Sport under Communism : behind the East German "miracle", Palgrave Macmillan. p19

(19) Ibid. p19 (20) Ibid. p4 (21) Hesse-Lichtenberger, U., (2003). p62

(22) McDougall, A., (2014) The People's Game: Football, State and Society in East Germany, Cambridge. p229

(23) Edelmen, R., (2002) A Small Way of Saying "No": Moscow Working Men, Spartak Soccer, and the Communist Party, 1900-1945, The American Historical Review, Vol. 107, No. 5.

(24) Dennis, M., & Grix, J., (2012). p3

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