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CLASSIC: Why British Soccer Players Saluted the Nazis · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Hot take. You guys, I think Nazis are bad. I
0:03
Speaker 1: don't think.
0:03
Speaker 2: Ah, yeah, I think you're probably right. Nazis Nazi scum.
0:07
Speaker 2: Die No, die Nazi scum. What's the what's the old adage?
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Speaker 2: I agree with both versions of it with you. They
0:14
Speaker 2: have never been great and they've always historically kind of
0:16
Speaker 2: insisted on themselves.
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Speaker 1: And recently we recorded a series about the World's Fair
0:24
Speaker 1: just as a concept. It's called the World Expo these days,
0:28
Speaker 1: but we talked a bit about the soft diplomatic power
0:33
Speaker 1: that nations nations sought for when they hosted a World's Fair.
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Speaker 1: And this is the same thing we see in sporting
0:42
Speaker 1: events in history and in the modern day. There's a
0:45
Speaker 1: propaganda power to it.
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Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, there's a certain fervor and zealotry that goes
0:51
Speaker 2: along with being a super fan of any sport that
0:54
Speaker 2: can be weaponized.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely check out our episode on sports. They're in stuff
1:01
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. And while you're at it,
1:04
Speaker 1: join us for today's classic episode, why British soccer players
1:09
Speaker 1: saluted the Nazis and the lead up to World War Two.
1:12
Speaker 1: Inquiring minds would like to know.
1:14
Speaker 3: Let's throw it ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
1:45
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to
1:48
Speaker 1: start today's episode with a look at something that happened
1:51
Speaker 1: very recently in American history, and that is the controversy
1:57
Speaker 1: taking place in American football. Not with the rest of
2:00
Speaker 1: the world calls football, that's the controversy taking place in
2:02
Speaker 1: American football regarding players taking a knee in protest during
2:07
Speaker 1: the national anthem.
2:08
Speaker 2: I refuse, wait, are you supposed to take any You know,
2:11
Speaker 2: you're not supposed to take a knee. It's disrespectful to
2:14
Speaker 2: take a mee. In fact, the NFL, I believe, just
2:17
Speaker 2: came out with new rules that require players contractually to
2:24
Speaker 2: stand for the national anthem. But as you say, Ben, yes,
2:27
Speaker 2: it was an act of defiance, a way of standing
2:30
Speaker 2: up or taking a knee, rather for their particular cause.
2:35
Speaker 4: Is that okay, Casey, that's great.
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Speaker 1: Oh and that's our super producer, Casey.
2:38
Speaker 4: Pegram, who is in fact on the case.
2:43
Speaker 1: And I'm Ben and you are oh and that makes
2:46
Speaker 1: this ridiculous history. Yeah, we are not the It's no
2:50
Speaker 1: secret that you and I are not die hard INFL fans,
2:54
Speaker 1: But like many people in this country, and in other countries.
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Speaker 1: We were fast needed by this story, by this process
3:03
Speaker 1: of protest and counter protest, and Noel, as you pointed
3:07
Speaker 1: out just a second ago, the NFL did in May
3:11
Speaker 1: of twenty eighteen ban the practice of taking a knee.
3:16
Speaker 1: Although this is a tremendously controversial ban.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's being appealed or picketed or you know,
3:23
Speaker 2: protested in some way by.
3:24
Speaker 4: The union, the players union, I believe.
3:27
Speaker 2: Because come on, man, like, if you can't protest as
3:31
Speaker 2: a multimillionaire overpaid sports figure, you know, what does that
3:35
Speaker 2: say for the rest of us?
3:36
Speaker 1: And what does it say about free speech as well?
3:38
Speaker 2: Exactly, But we're talking about I'm not this exactly kind
3:44
Speaker 2: of it's weird, it's part of the story. But we're
3:47
Speaker 2: talking about kind of the opposite of this, which is
3:50
Speaker 2: using sports as propaganda.
3:53
Speaker 1: Right, I would say that we were talking about a
3:56
Speaker 1: larger context because this specific event in modern history provides
4:02
Speaker 1: an excellent point of comparison to the earlier events that
4:08
Speaker 1: I think surprised both of us when we began digging
4:10
Speaker 1: into this, and sporting events on an international scale have
4:15
Speaker 1: long functioned as acts of propaganda, you know, iconic moments
4:20
Speaker 1: in history occurred at the Olympics, for instance.
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Speaker 2: Right, absolutely, And what is the Olympics if not a
4:24
Speaker 2: chance for various countries to achieve perhaps not global dominance
4:31
Speaker 2: and hegemony, but at least dominance on the field of.
4:34
Speaker 4: Sport, right, faux battle?
4:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And we see it in the World Cup,
4:38
Speaker 1: we see it in the World Series, we see it
4:40
Speaker 1: in the Super Bowl. And today's episode involves a tremendously
4:48
Speaker 1: important political event that took place on a soccer field.
4:53
Speaker 1: We have to go into some political context, I think first, Right.
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Speaker 2: I think we do, Ben, It's true. So we're talking
5:01
Speaker 2: about Germany, right, And the second half of the nineteen thirties,
5:06
Speaker 2: the Nazi Party that had taken over Germany was really, really,
5:11
Speaker 2: really becoming quite aggressive, weren't they been. In nineteen thirty five,
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Speaker 2: they publicly announced that they were going to rearm their military,
5:21
Speaker 2: which flew in the face of a little something called
5:23
Speaker 2: the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War One?
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Speaker 4: Isn't that right?
5:27
Speaker 2: Ben?
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Speaker 1: That is correct, nol And we've talked a little bit
5:31
Speaker 1: in the past about the enormous cost Germany bar as
5:35
Speaker 1: a result of World War One, and this had dangerous
5:38
Speaker 1: effects on their economy, and it's one of the factors
5:43
Speaker 1: that allowed the very aggressive, expansionist Nazi regime to come
5:51
Speaker 1: into power. And at the time, other people, other countries
5:56
Speaker 1: and heads of state couldn't agree on what the proper,
6:01
Speaker 1: unified response to this aggressive German government should be. The
6:05
Speaker 1: question was, should we contain the Nazi Party and Germany,
6:11
Speaker 1: Should we openly combat them, or should we attempt to,
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Speaker 1: you know, appease them, make nice.
6:18
Speaker 2: Let's let's run with that word, ben Let's let's make
6:20
Speaker 2: a whole system out of this. Yeah, a policy. We'll
6:23
Speaker 2: call it appeasement. There we go, And now about that
6:26
Speaker 2: burst the creativity. Well, but you can understand why. I mean,
6:29
Speaker 2: people were shell shocked from the havoc that was reached
6:33
Speaker 2: by World War One all across Europe. I mean, that
6:37
Speaker 2: was no fun. It was utter devastation in many parts
6:41
Speaker 2: of the country. And the Treaty of Versailles, even the
6:44
Speaker 2: Allies kind of realized people on the ground, at least
6:46
Speaker 2: from what I've read that the Treaty of Versailles wasn't
6:50
Speaker 2: particularly fair to a lot of the countries that involved,
6:53
Speaker 2: specially Germany, because under the treaty they were limited to
6:57
Speaker 2: having one hundred thousand strong military. But again in thirty five,
7:03
Speaker 2: after they've been kind of a massing weaponry all these years,
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Speaker 2: they got the confidence under Hitler to come out and say, Yo,
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Speaker 2: we are building up our military again.
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Speaker 4: Boo on your treaty.
7:15
Speaker 2: We could care less, and they escalated that thirty six
7:19
Speaker 2: they occupied the Rhineland, which is an area, a region,
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Speaker 2: a small region in the middle of the country, also
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Speaker 2: totally against the Treaty of Versailles.
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Speaker 1: Yes, and this appeasement policy sound may sound strange to
7:34
Speaker 1: us today because we have the benefit of knowing what
7:37
Speaker 1: happened after this policy was in place. But the appeasement
7:42
Speaker 1: policy is often pointed out as the worst decision the
7:46
Speaker 1: Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain ever made, But there were other
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Speaker 1: British prime ministers who followed the same policy, including Ramsey
7:53
Speaker 1: MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin. This wasn't just made for Germany.
7:58
Speaker 1: It also was applied to Italy, which was under the
8:02
Speaker 1: control of a fascist regime at the trend, and it
8:04
Speaker 1: lasted from nineteen thirty five to nineteen thirty nine. Our
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Speaker 1: story today takes place during that time. It takes place
8:15
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty eight at a soccer game.
8:18
Speaker 2: It's true, and just to backtrack ever so slightly, to
8:21
Speaker 2: go back into appeasement every time the Nazis did these
8:24
Speaker 2: kind of brash moves like occupying the Rhineland. In the
8:27
Speaker 2: year of our story, they annexed Austria and they actually
8:32
Speaker 2: like did a coup data within their naz already pretty
8:35
Speaker 2: strong Nazi party within Austria and Austria being Hitler's boyhood home.
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Speaker 1: Right, We're going to spend a lot of time in
8:42
Speaker 1: this episode going from the specific events to the larger context.
8:48
Speaker 1: So before we get to the famous event that occurred
8:53
Speaker 1: in May May fourteenth, nineteen thirty eight, let's go back
8:57
Speaker 1: earlier in the year to April, where we saw another
9:03
Speaker 1: precedent set an example of protests through sport.
9:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, the one we kind of alluded to at the
9:08
Speaker 2: top of the show, because, like I said a minute ago,
9:10
Speaker 2: it was in nineteen thirty eight that Germany really went
9:15
Speaker 2: hard in the paint and totally annexed.
9:17
Speaker 4: Austria, as I said, over through the.
9:19
Speaker 2: Government in an effort to combine the two countries in
9:24
Speaker 2: an event they referred to as the Anschluss, and Austria
9:30
Speaker 2: had a pretty ballin pun totally intended soccer team football
9:37
Speaker 2: team headed up by a guy by the name of
9:40
Speaker 2: Matteus Sindler or Schindler I've heard, I'm gonna I think
9:44
Speaker 2: it's similar. There's no sc h s i n d
9:47
Speaker 2: e l a R and Ben. He had a really
9:49
Speaker 2: cool nickname, didn't he.
9:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was the Paperman or der paper Sindlar s
9:56
Speaker 1: i n d e l a R was known as
9:59
Speaker 1: the Mozart to football as well. Saw that one. He
10:02
Speaker 1: played as the center forward for the Austria national team
10:06
Speaker 1: that was known as the Wonder Team, and he captained
10:10
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirty four World Cup. This guy is a
10:13
Speaker 1: football superstar and this game that occurs on April third
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Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty eight was meant to celebrate what Germany
10:22
Speaker 1: was calling. Get this, Austria's coming home to the Reich.
10:26
Speaker 2: Come on home to the Reich, Come on home to
10:28
Speaker 2: the Reich. Yeah yeah, but here's a problem. Sindler hated
10:33
Speaker 2: the Nazis predictably. Predictably, Yeah, I mean they totally came
10:38
Speaker 2: into his country, took it over, tried to change everything
10:43
Speaker 2: about his way of life, including trying to smash his
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Speaker 2: football club in with the German football club that sucked
10:51
Speaker 2: by the way Germany was not good.
10:54
Speaker 4: Can I call it soccer? I'm just going to call
10:56
Speaker 4: it soccer.
10:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, just call it soccer. As a matter of fact,
10:58
Speaker 1: we have a fun firebomb to throw for you ridiculous historians.
11:03
Speaker 1: If you were football or soccer fan, factual Molotov cocktail,
11:08
Speaker 1: it might be a bit in in injury for some people.
11:11
Speaker 1: I found this article in The Atlantic called why Americans
11:13
Speaker 1: call soccer soccer? By Uri Friedman. It's a British term,
11:18
Speaker 1: It got a US term, and we here in the
11:20
Speaker 1: States picked it up from England. The word soccer originated
11:25
Speaker 1: in England, fell into disuse there, and became dominant in
11:29
Speaker 1: the States. And there's some people who have studied this
11:33
Speaker 1: who found. What they did is they looked at the
11:36
Speaker 1: frequency with which the words football and soccer appeared in
11:39
Speaker 1: American and British news outlets dating back to nineteen hundred.
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Speaker 1: Soccer was a recognized term for the game we're describing
11:49
Speaker 1: for the first half of the twentieth century, but it
11:52
Speaker 1: wasn't widely used until after World War Two, when it
11:56
Speaker 1: became interchangeable with the phrase football and sometimes used together soccer.
12:01
Speaker 4: Football Okay, but I'm an American. I'm an American. I'm
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Speaker 4: proud of it.
12:05
Speaker 2: So I call hitting that that ball with you hit
12:08
Speaker 2: your foot with the ball game, I'm gonna call it soccer,
12:11
Speaker 2: so just as not to confuse, you know, because I
12:14
Speaker 2: don't want to say American football.
12:15
Speaker 4: That sounds ridiculous, so you should to say it.
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Speaker 1: In a British accent, exactly say American football, although the.
12:21
Speaker 2: Fact the Brits have been dominant in the sport since
12:25
Speaker 2: the very beginning.
12:26
Speaker 1: And I want to sew this up real quick, because
12:27
Speaker 1: I'm sure this is going to interest several of you
12:31
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians, especially if you've had an argument with one
12:34
Speaker 1: of your friends across the pond about this. It traces
12:38
Speaker 1: back to World War Two. Most likely American troops stationed
12:42
Speaker 1: in the UK during the war came back and started
12:46
Speaker 1: using that phrase and that led to a backlash against
12:50
Speaker 1: the word in Britain. And now this word has completely
12:55
Speaker 1: immigrated to the US.
12:56
Speaker 4: Isn't that funny?
12:57
Speaker 2: If you still haven't given me the etymology, It's just
12:58
Speaker 2: like it said about the socks, the knee socks, the
13:00
Speaker 2: fact that you're socking the ball around with your foots.
13:03
Speaker 1: It's a shortening of association footballer.
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Speaker 4: That's stupid. So soccer. That's the worst possible answer.
13:13
Speaker 1: But you can't. You can't go in and expect a
13:16
Speaker 1: language to conform to what you as an individual.
13:19
Speaker 2: I'm not mad at you, then, I didn't mean that
13:21
Speaker 2: to come off like I was your fault. The origin
13:24
Speaker 2: of soccer is so dull, but I'm disappointed.
13:27
Speaker 1: I think it's fascinating.
13:27
Speaker 4: It is fascinating, Ben, you know what else is fascinating.
13:30
Speaker 2: Back to Sindler, let's do it so again, super salty
13:34
Speaker 2: about the Nazis coming in and invading his home turf
13:38
Speaker 2: and trying to, you know, jam up his soccer club.
13:43
Speaker 2: And so they this this game in question in what
13:46
Speaker 2: do we say, April of nineteen thirty.
13:49
Speaker 1: April third, nineteen thirty eight.
13:51
Speaker 2: That's right, it's meant to be, on paper, at least,
13:55
Speaker 2: a celebration of the historical legacy of the Austrian Soccer Club.
14:00
Speaker 1: And the last match that the team would have as
14:04
Speaker 1: an independent Austrian team before it.
14:07
Speaker 2: Gets smushed in with the far inferior German club.
14:11
Speaker 1: So they begin protesting the moment they hit the field.
14:15
Speaker 2: Kind of yeah, well, what I had seen in an
14:19
Speaker 2: amazing documentary from the BBC called Fascism and Football was
14:23
Speaker 2: that it was very clear that the Austrians had been
14:29
Speaker 2: told to.
14:31
Speaker 1: Lose, Yeah, to throw the game, throw the match, to
14:34
Speaker 1: show the symbolic or propagandistic importance of aligning with Germany.
14:41
Speaker 4: That's right.
14:41
Speaker 2: And just one quick aside, one quote that I think
14:44
Speaker 2: is so amazing from this documentary Fascism in Football.
14:47
Speaker 4: Rather you can find the whole thing on YouTube and
14:49
Speaker 4: it's just great.
14:50
Speaker 2: Is the idea that sports were such a powerful tool
14:54
Speaker 2: for propaganda because when you win, you win, and you
14:58
Speaker 2: can't like, no one can accuse you of lying. Because
15:01
Speaker 2: if you win and are dominant in a sport, then
15:03
Speaker 2: that's just before everyone's very eyes. You are the clear,
15:07
Speaker 2: you are the winner, you won, and you played by
15:09
Speaker 2: the rules.
15:09
Speaker 1: It's what we today would refer to as optics.
15:13
Speaker 4: Optics in that are.
15:14
Speaker 1: And so the star player of Austria's team, Sindolar.
15:19
Speaker 4: That's right, refuses to.
15:21
Speaker 1: Go along with this plan. He says, I am not
15:23
Speaker 1: going to pay obedience to this invading power, and furthermore,
15:30
Speaker 1: I'm not going to cheapen the most important thing in
15:33
Speaker 1: my life.
15:34
Speaker 2: Well, and the funny thing is too, like, yes, you're
15:35
Speaker 2: absolutely right, he definitely did not go along with it,
15:37
Speaker 2: and that he did not look like he was trying
15:39
Speaker 2: very hard. He made it very clear that he was
15:42
Speaker 2: just kind of farting along, very lacklusterly.
15:44
Speaker 4: Right. I think he was like shaking his head and
15:47
Speaker 4: disdain kind of.
15:48
Speaker 1: And refuse to wear the uniforms. They were supposed to
15:52
Speaker 1: wear their traditional white and black. They replaced it with
15:55
Speaker 1: Uncindolar's orders. More or less, the Austrians played in red
16:00
Speaker 1: white red outfits the national flag's colors. Yikes, And yeah,
16:06
Speaker 1: like you're saying, the audience knew something was up because
16:11
Speaker 1: it seemed like they just weren't trying. They were just
16:13
Speaker 1: farting around until what the last twenty minutes.
16:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then Simla the Paperman scored one of two.
16:23
Speaker 1: Goals and Carl Cesta got the second one, who.
16:25
Speaker 4: I think was his bestie.
16:27
Speaker 2: I think I think they were like really really close,
16:29
Speaker 2: And yeah, they totally totally humiliated. The Nazis apparently kind
16:36
Speaker 2: of did one of those like end zone kind of
16:39
Speaker 2: cocky yeah, cock of the walk kind of dances right
16:42
Speaker 2: in front of like can you imagine the scene Ben.
16:44
Speaker 4: The stands full of Nazi officials.
16:47
Speaker 1: High senior Nazi dignitaries, and they celebrated extravagantly. They owned
16:54
Speaker 1: the moment because they really had publicly humiliated these officials.
17:01
Speaker 1: And it's we don't have solid historical proof of this,
17:05
Speaker 1: so this is entirely speculation on my part. But I
17:08
Speaker 1: would not be surprised if some of those pro Nazi forces,
17:12
Speaker 1: knowing in theory the outcome of the game, had decided
17:15
Speaker 1: to gamble on it a bit.
17:16
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely.
17:17
Speaker 1: So they were out money, but more importantly, they were
17:19
Speaker 1: out public credibility.
17:20
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely. And here's the thing.
17:24
Speaker 2: As you might imagine, Sindler was made persona non grata
17:28
Speaker 2: at that point. He was declared in their internal Gestapo
17:32
Speaker 2: memos on him that declared him pro Jewish, among other
17:38
Speaker 2: death sentence worthy distinctions.
17:41
Speaker 1: Like a social democrat.
17:42
Speaker 4: That's it. That's right.
17:45
Speaker 1: About within the year or within a year after these events,
17:50
Speaker 1: he was dead at the age.
17:51
Speaker 4: Of thirty five under the most suspicious circumstances. I think
17:56
Speaker 4: he had been out partying that night and gambling in.
17:59
Speaker 2: A coffee shop that he was a part owner of,
18:01
Speaker 2: or the guy that talks about his buddy in the
18:03
Speaker 2: documentary referred to it as his coffee shop. I'm not
18:06
Speaker 2: sure if that was just a translation thing or if
18:08
Speaker 2: it was just like the place where they would all
18:09
Speaker 2: hang out. They were gambling, playing cards, a lot of
18:12
Speaker 2: money was on the table, and a lot of drinking,
18:15
Speaker 2: and then he went back with his girlfriend to her apartment,
18:19
Speaker 2: and you know, YadA, YadA, YadA, one thing led to another.
18:22
Speaker 2: They go to sleep and they never wake up because
18:25
Speaker 2: they died of carbon Actually, she ended up in a
18:28
Speaker 2: coma that she never recovered from, and he died in
18:31
Speaker 2: his sleep of carbon monoxide poisoning.
18:33
Speaker 1: Which was recorded as an accident. Why because yeah, because
18:39
Speaker 1: according to Egon Olbrich, a lifelong friend of Sindelar, he's the.
18:44
Speaker 4: Guy I was talking about that, I was talking about
18:45
Speaker 4: the gambling night.
18:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he says in the documentary, And then also
18:50
Speaker 1: in an article called football Fascism in England's Nazi Salute
18:54
Speaker 1: on the BBC by Jonathan Duffy, he says that the
18:57
Speaker 1: truth of the story was that a local official was
19:01
Speaker 1: bribed to record Sendelar's death as an accident, ensuring that
19:06
Speaker 1: he would receive a state funeral. Because we have a
19:11
Speaker 1: great quote from Oldbric about this. Because Nazis have particular
19:15
Speaker 1: rules about.
19:15
Speaker 2: This, that's right, This is the quote. According to the
19:17
Speaker 2: Nazi rules, a person who had been murdered or who
19:20
Speaker 2: has committed suicide cannot be given a grave of honor.
19:24
Speaker 2: So we had to do something to ensure that the
19:25
Speaker 2: criminal element involved in his death was removed. That's wild man.
19:31
Speaker 1: And it continued escalating. Yeah, the Germans were very very
19:35
Speaker 1: serious about the value of propaganda, and from their perspective,
19:41
Speaker 1: this sort of insolence could not stand. So it's pretty
19:46
Speaker 1: obvious that he was murdered, no doubt.
19:48
Speaker 2: And did we mention the fact that for a while,
19:51
Speaker 2: as the Nazis rose to power. Maybe this is obvious
19:53
Speaker 2: to everybody but me, they kind of masked their awful
19:57
Speaker 2: racist ways totally.
20:00
Speaker 4: They didn't reveal the full.
20:01
Speaker 2: Nature of their final solution, or their idea of you know.
20:05
Speaker 4: Pulling up the Jews and the Roma people, or any
20:09
Speaker 4: of the just horrible, horrible racist leanings until a good
20:13
Speaker 4: bit later.
20:13
Speaker 2: And this was still during that time where obviously they
20:16
Speaker 2: meant business, but the true nature of their evil was
20:19
Speaker 2: not on full display yet.
20:21
Speaker 1: Well, it was also in that time. This is an
20:24
Speaker 1: unfortunate and ugly truth in that time, anti Semitism was widespread,
20:30
Speaker 1: we know, just in the GM pop Yeah, just like
20:33
Speaker 1: throughout Europe. Definitely, also clearly in the US, and the
20:38
Speaker 1: same prejudices applied to Roma as well and other quote
20:42
Speaker 1: unquote you know, subversive elements or what they would call deviance.
20:47
Speaker 1: So these people, this group had existed throughout various countries
20:52
Speaker 1: in Europe for centuries, right, And the shocking racism, the
20:58
Speaker 1: anti semitism, the iron clad and puritanical attitudes about sex
21:07
Speaker 1: were normal. If you read a German textbook about the
21:11
Speaker 1: concept of living space for the German people, it's not
21:15
Speaker 1: that different from many other textbooks of the time that
21:20
Speaker 1: also argued the innate superiority of certain ethnic groups and
21:24
Speaker 1: it might change during the country. So people didn't know.
21:27
Speaker 1: I think the point you're making this really important is
21:30
Speaker 1: people did not know that there was genocide on the horizon. Privately,
21:36
Speaker 1: members of the Nazi regime were already thinking of ways
21:41
Speaker 1: to forcibly deport elements of the population they didn't improve up,
21:47
Speaker 1: and they were trying to figure out where to put them,
21:49
Speaker 1: like would it be Madagascar, would it be some other country?
21:52
Speaker 1: And then eventually, as we know, this led to one
21:55
Speaker 1: of the most horrific occurrences in human history.
21:59
Speaker 2: God, and I hate to get political about it, but
22:02
Speaker 2: it feels like when you start reading about the early
22:04
Speaker 2: stages of the Nazi takeover and the kind of rhetoric,
22:08
Speaker 2: the kind of this nationalistic rhetoric, while not overtly racist,
22:13
Speaker 2: very dog whistle racist in a very similar way that.
22:16
Speaker 4: We're experiencing in our country right now.
22:18
Speaker 2: And it scares the crap out of me reading this
22:21
Speaker 2: and thinking about history repeating in multiple countries.
22:24
Speaker 4: Right. Absolutely, So we've got this, We've got.
22:26
Speaker 1: This context with Sindelar, who now we know was murdered,
22:31
Speaker 1: but originally.
22:32
Speaker 4: We don't really know. I mean, yeah, but you can't
22:35
Speaker 4: it couldn't.
22:36
Speaker 1: Come on, You're right, we don't know for sure.
22:38
Speaker 4: Dosier those those classifications. I mean, he was everyone says
22:42
Speaker 4: that was a death sentence.
22:43
Speaker 1: Somebody had their eye on him, and not in a
22:46
Speaker 1: good way. So in this in this context, we have
22:53
Speaker 1: the precedent for protests, and then we have the precedent
22:59
Speaker 1: for sport events overall, especially football, soccer, football, soccer, whatever
23:03
Speaker 1: you want to call it. We see this as a
23:06
Speaker 1: medium for propagandistic communication. Let's get back to this concept
23:13
Speaker 1: of appeasement. Now, let's talk a little bit about Neville Chamberlain.
23:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, and how far this idea of appeasement went in
23:23
Speaker 2: the way it played out on what the Brits referred
23:26
Speaker 2: to as the soccer pitch.
23:28
Speaker 4: Yeah.
23:29
Speaker 1: Yeah. We talk a lot about media manipulation in the
23:34
Speaker 1: modern day, but it was a known, tried and true
23:39
Speaker 1: technique here in the nineteen thirties as well, So much
23:45
Speaker 1: so that going back to May nineteen thirty eight, the
23:50
Speaker 1: fourteenth of May, English soccer players traveled to Germany to
23:54
Speaker 1: play the German team in a soccer match.
23:59
Speaker 4: That's right, minus yeah, minus. There were Ace and the
24:03
Speaker 4: whole Sindler who was still living at this time, but
24:07
Speaker 4: he refused, probably another reason he was blacklist in the
24:12
Speaker 4: way he was had to add insult to injury. He
24:14
Speaker 4: refused to play for the new combined Austrian Germany team,
24:18
Speaker 4: which obviously was just called the German team. He said
24:22
Speaker 4: he cited old age, but he was like thirty five,
24:25
Speaker 4: I think, yeah, and also simultaneously injury, so it was
24:28
Speaker 4: just a bit of a f you to old you know, fear.
24:32
Speaker 1: So let's set the scene, casey, could we have maybe
24:35
Speaker 1: the sound of a of a crowd at a at
24:38
Speaker 1: a soccer match, more than one hundred thousand soccer fans
24:43
Speaker 1: file into Berlin's Olympic Stadium and the countries. At this point,
24:49
Speaker 1: everybody knows war is escalating. Things are ratcheting up right
24:52
Speaker 1: big time. And these countries, Britain and Germany are still
24:57
Speaker 1: playing nice. They don't trust the each other, but they're
25:01
Speaker 1: still going through the motions and the gestures of diplomacy
25:05
Speaker 1: and swastikas and British flags or flying side by side.
25:09
Speaker 1: The German national anthem is being played over the speakers,
25:12
Speaker 1: but on the field below. If you can imagine this
25:15
Speaker 1: in your mind, fellow historians, something very strange occurs. The
25:20
Speaker 1: German and the British players raise their arms in the
25:25
Speaker 1: infamous Nazi salute.
25:27
Speaker 4: The hile right here the Cliff.
25:30
Speaker 5: Cup final enthusiasm prevails in Berlin when England beat Germany
25:33
Speaker 5: on the soccer field. All the curtaincies are observed before
25:35
Speaker 5: the stop God.
25:36
Speaker 4: Save the King is paid.
25:43
Speaker 5: And the English team in white shirts give the Nazi
25:45
Speaker 5: salute during the German national anthem. One hundred and fifteen
25:49
Speaker 5: thousand spectator's pack.
25:50
Speaker 2: So that was newsreel footage from the Associated Press on
25:54
Speaker 2: the day of this infamous event, and it's purported eerily
26:00
Speaker 2: in a matter of fact kind of way, but there
26:03
Speaker 2: was a lot of controversies around in this game because
26:04
Speaker 2: by this point, if not their full final solution, level,
26:10
Speaker 2: complete and utter evilness was on display. People knew that
26:14
Speaker 2: the Nazis were fascists oh yeah, and big time yeah.
26:17
Speaker 1: And the British press, despite efforts at media manipulation to
26:22
Speaker 1: make the population pro appeasement, the British press had had enough,
26:26
Speaker 1: absolutely outrage and there was even more insult to injury
26:31
Speaker 1: because it turned out, despite this gesture on the part
26:33
Speaker 1: of the English team, Adolf Hitler wasn't even at the game.
26:37
Speaker 1: It wasn't present. They were just saluting the idea of Nazis.
26:40
Speaker 4: No, it's true.
26:41
Speaker 2: In fact, I think the very first game he ever attended,
26:45
Speaker 2: or earlier in this story, the Germans lost to I
26:51
Speaker 2: think it was the Netherlands or a smaller team that
26:54
Speaker 2: was seen as being less skilled than the German team.
26:58
Speaker 2: So and he was really irritated about that. He didn't
27:00
Speaker 2: always make appearances, but no, he was not at this game.
27:04
Speaker 2: And the thing is, the Germans did lose this game.
27:07
Speaker 2: They got They're brought worst handed to them by the Brits, who, again,
27:14
Speaker 2: as we said, were pretty damn dominant in the sport.
27:17
Speaker 2: There's an interview in this documentary with the guys like, yeah,
27:20
Speaker 2: it wasn't really that big of a surprise because pretty
27:22
Speaker 2: much everyone lost to the UK.
27:24
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, can we play that guy's clip? I just
27:27
Speaker 1: love his voice.
27:29
Speaker 6: To lose to England at that time was nothing unusual
27:33
Speaker 6: because basically everybody lost to the British team at the time.
27:38
Speaker 6: So I think for Hitler, the propaganda effect of that
27:43
Speaker 6: game was a lot more important than everything else.
27:47
Speaker 1: Right, they were known to be one of the best
27:51
Speaker 1: teams on the planet. They won the game six to three,
27:54
Speaker 1: six England three Germany. And the weird thing about the
27:58
Speaker 1: scor is it was somewhat of a footnote because the
28:02
Speaker 1: thing everybody was focusing on was this bizarre attempt at diplomacy.
28:07
Speaker 1: It wasn't spontaneous on the part of the English team.
28:10
Speaker 1: Neville Chamberlain had in advance told them to do it,
28:14
Speaker 1: and from what we understand, the intent of this was
28:20
Speaker 1: to make nice and show that Germany was not considered
28:24
Speaker 1: to be a quote, pariah state, despite the fact that
28:28
Speaker 1: they pacmanned up Austria.
28:31
Speaker 2: And that was also kind of part of Germany's propagandistic
28:35
Speaker 2: way of looking at this was to show that hey,
28:38
Speaker 2: we're just like you. We like to play sport, and
28:41
Speaker 2: we like to goose step around in our strange Nazi uniforms,
28:46
Speaker 2: and I all, wait, something's wrong here?
28:49
Speaker 1: Surecase our superior.
28:52
Speaker 2: Because I want to go back a little way, just
28:55
Speaker 2: because I think this is a really important point. The
28:58
Speaker 2: real stage set for Hitler's use of sport in this
29:03
Speaker 2: way was the nineteen thirty six Olympics, the Berlin Olympics,
29:08
Speaker 2: which is super interesting because that was like a world stage.
29:12
Speaker 2: Everyone's watching, it's in Berlin. Hitler's there. He used it
29:17
Speaker 2: as an opportunity to showcase, like you said, the efficiency,
29:21
Speaker 2: the militaristic might of the Nazi state. But there was
29:26
Speaker 2: a little kink in Hitler's idea here of showcasing the
29:30
Speaker 2: you know, might and prowess of the Aryan supremacy or
29:34
Speaker 2: what have you. This mythos he was trying to create.
29:37
Speaker 2: When Jesse Owens, an African American competitor, won four gold medals,
29:42
Speaker 2: that's right.
29:43
Speaker 4: Then, four gold medals.
29:45
Speaker 2: It was in the one hundred meter two hundred meters
29:47
Speaker 2: long jump in for by one hundred meter relay race,
29:51
Speaker 2: just completely in front of God and everyone crushing that idea.
29:57
Speaker 4: And Hitler was none too pleased, right, which is which.
30:00
Speaker 1: Is weird because this is such an iconic moment, and
30:03
Speaker 1: you know we're going to brag a little bit. Jesse
30:05
Speaker 1: Owens is American, So take that, Nazis and do you
30:11
Speaker 1: like how I bragging is if we had anything to
30:13
Speaker 1: do with it. Yeah, But there's an interesting tidbit here
30:16
Speaker 1: because so this occurs in August of nineteen thirty six.
30:21
Speaker 1: August first, I think is the first day of competition.
30:24
Speaker 1: There was a newspaper editor named Robert L. Van, himself
30:29
Speaker 1: African American, who was at the scene, and in an
30:32
Speaker 1: article dated to August fourth, nineteen thirty six, he says,
30:38
Speaker 1: wonder of wonders, I saw harr Adolph Hitler salute the lad.
30:43
Speaker 1: I looked on with a heart which beat proudly, as
30:45
Speaker 1: the lad who was crowned king of the one hundred
30:47
Speaker 1: meters event, got an ovation the like of which I
30:49
Speaker 1: had never heard before. I saw Jesse Owens greeted by
30:52
Speaker 1: the Grand Chancellor of this country as a brilliant son
30:55
Speaker 1: peeped out through the clouds. I saw a vast crowd
30:57
Speaker 1: of some eighty five thousand or ninety thousand peace people
31:00
Speaker 1: stand up and cheer him to the echo. And that
31:03
Speaker 1: is winning hearts and minds, isn't it. I think it's
31:07
Speaker 1: so easy to underestimate the importance that these sorts of
31:11
Speaker 1: events can play in human history.
31:13
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely, yeah, no, because the people.
31:15
Speaker 2: I mean, I've seen pieces and whole you know, papers
31:18
Speaker 2: written about the idea of sports as a religion. People
31:23
Speaker 2: put as much credence in you know, baseball players and
31:26
Speaker 2: basketball player as they do and you know.
31:28
Speaker 1: God right like King James the name for Lebron.
31:31
Speaker 4: Because it's a stand in for our hopes and dreams.
31:34
Speaker 2: You know, even if it's sort of a false dichotomy,
31:37
Speaker 2: and it's because you win a soccer game as a
31:40
Speaker 2: country doesn't really translate in reality to your might or prowess.
31:45
Speaker 4: It's sort of a microcosmic view of that, which.
31:48
Speaker 1: Is why so many countries spend so much money and
31:53
Speaker 1: time and occasionally so much effort at skullduggery when it
31:58
Speaker 1: comes to winning international sports competitions. I have a thing
32:04
Speaker 1: I'd like your take on goal and you as well, folks,
32:07
Speaker 1: do you think sport, the concept of sports games. Do
32:12
Speaker 1: you feel like it has taken in the most powerful
32:16
Speaker 1: parts of religion, the most powerful parts of war, and
32:19
Speaker 1: the most powerful parts of economy. I feel like it has.
32:23
Speaker 4: I think you just answered your own question. Ben, that's
32:25
Speaker 4: I mean, what do you think though? I think it's
32:26
Speaker 4: a very no.
32:27
Speaker 2: I think that is an astute point, and I think
32:29
Speaker 2: that's absolutely true. And I think we see that too
32:31
Speaker 2: with what we open the show with the idea of
32:34
Speaker 2: the power that these players have, and when it doesn't
32:37
Speaker 2: jive with the money behind the power, or like the
32:43
Speaker 2: organizational power behind the scenes, there can be issues. Sometimes
32:48
Speaker 2: it involves people getting carbon monoxide poisoned to death in
32:51
Speaker 2: their sleep. Sometimes it involves getting you know, players being
32:54
Speaker 2: suspended for taking a knee during a national anthem. It's
32:59
Speaker 2: just interesting the way politics and sports can be so intertwined.
33:04
Speaker 2: And I think it all goes back to even earlier
33:07
Speaker 2: than this. This is just probably the biggest, most obvious
33:10
Speaker 2: political example that we have. But to your point, Ben,
33:13
Speaker 2: as far back as the Romans and gladiators and bred
33:16
Speaker 2: and circuses and all that, sport has always been a
33:19
Speaker 2: powerful tool to manipulate the minds of the people. And
33:25
Speaker 2: manipulate maybe is the wrong word. I don't know, what
33:27
Speaker 2: do you think.
33:27
Speaker 1: I feel like manipulate is a perfect word for this. Also,
33:32
Speaker 1: we have to point out spoiler alert for World War
33:35
Speaker 1: two everyone, so I tune out if you don't, if
33:38
Speaker 1: you don't want to get spoiled for this. We have
33:41
Speaker 1: to point out that Chamberlain's in Britain's appeasement policy did
33:46
Speaker 1: not work. No, it was just a little more than
33:50
Speaker 1: a year before tensions broke a war began, correct, Noal.
33:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was September of nineteen thirty nine. The Nazis
33:59
Speaker 2: invaded Poland and that was just a bridge too far
34:02
Speaker 2: for the Allies. They'd finally had enough. The Germans leagued
34:06
Speaker 2: up with the Soviets to partition Poland into their own
34:10
Speaker 2: separate spheres of influence. And that, my friend, is the
34:15
Speaker 2: story of how World War two really began in earnest
34:20
Speaker 2: and that's the story for another time.
34:26
Speaker 1: No, I really enjoyed this episode, Nolan. I hate to
34:31
Speaker 1: close so soon. Hey, what do you say we do
34:33
Speaker 1: a little bit of listener mail?
34:34
Speaker 4: Huge fan?
34:39
Speaker 2: So the first one I want to pull from a
34:41
Speaker 2: Facebook post that is a really good summary of a
34:45
Speaker 2: myriad of emails we got Facebook posts. Some few people
34:49
Speaker 2: slid into our dms on Instagram and facebook them.
34:52
Speaker 1: By the way, thanks for writing us folks.
34:54
Speaker 2: No doubt, but they very gingerly shredded us on our
34:59
Speaker 2: pronunciaation of a few Philadelphia, philadelphiasms.
35:04
Speaker 1: Let's say it together, three to one school kill.
35:09
Speaker 7: Only some people that even quibble with that one, which
35:13
Speaker 7: is why it makes me feel good about it. This
35:15
Speaker 7: guy says, laughing at Ben Bowling and Noel Brown butchering
35:18
Speaker 7: school kill River. I believe we said combination of shoy
35:22
Speaker 7: kill school kill whatever it was wrong.
35:27
Speaker 4: This guy, John C.
35:28
Speaker 2: Says it's pronounced school all caps dash kill.
35:33
Speaker 1: And then added you added John a smiling, laughing emoji,
35:37
Speaker 1: so we knew that we hadn't fatally offend you.
35:41
Speaker 2: No, he shredded us with love, and then Ben, as
35:45
Speaker 2: as we're wont to do on Ridiculous Historians, posted a
35:48
Speaker 2: delightful response saying we murdered that pronunciation so hard that
35:52
Speaker 2: this episode counts as true crime.
35:55
Speaker 4: Hey, thanks for he says, thanks for listening as well for.
35:58
Speaker 8: The valuable correction. Thanks for you just quoted me, did
36:02
Speaker 8: you to yourself, you did, I love it. That's weird,
36:06
Speaker 8: but yeah, but check out this thread. This is part
36:10
Speaker 8: of the reason why we love the Ridiculous Historian's page,
36:14
Speaker 8: because some of your fellow listeners didn't just point out
36:19
Speaker 8: the correct or accepted pronunciation of this river.
36:23
Speaker 1: Some of them also began bantering back and forth, disagreeing
36:27
Speaker 1: on their own ideas about pronunciation right big time.
36:30
Speaker 2: And then we had one Oliver C pop in with
36:33
Speaker 2: a little Georgia centric thing saying, here in Georgia they
36:36
Speaker 2: call the Old Muddy River oak mulgi, oak muggy, oak mugi,
36:42
Speaker 2: and that's spelled o c m u l g e e.
36:45
Speaker 2: But the funny thing is, I am from Georgia and
36:47
Speaker 2: I've always said oak mulgi and I've heard it pronounced
36:49
Speaker 2: it that way. But whatever you say, and then ghee
36:53
Speaker 2: like clarified butter okmulgi. Okay, no, no, that's right, oak mulgy,
36:58
Speaker 2: that's right, I've heard of that way. And what you
37:01
Speaker 2: would think would be Houston County is actually Houston County.
37:06
Speaker 1: Which I've noticed. Yeah, that happened to me one time.
37:08
Speaker 4: Yeah. And then we've got a guy Rob s saying
37:11
Speaker 4: Jersey born and raised here. I always heard it as
37:14
Speaker 4: school kill. Yes, drop the.
37:16
Speaker 1: L and John C comes back in in the thread
37:20
Speaker 1: and says, I don't know if Philadelphians have much room
37:23
Speaker 1: to talk about pronunciation, and he shared this fascinating Washington
37:26
Speaker 1: Post article about the unique Philadelphia accent, which I highly
37:30
Speaker 1: recommend you check out, like.
37:32
Speaker 2: Woodter ice, yeah, which is basically like what like a
37:35
Speaker 2: like a freeze pop or like kind of Italian ice, beach.
37:38
Speaker 4: Tolls, beach talls.
37:40
Speaker 1: Yet, and we've got a question that I think will
37:44
Speaker 1: interest a lot of us in the audience, and it
37:47
Speaker 1: is this, what are the strangely pronounced places, landmarks or
37:54
Speaker 1: things in your neck of the woods. Because, for instance,
37:59
Speaker 1: you know there is Worcester in Massachusetts, right, which is
38:02
Speaker 1: completely not pronounced how it SAPs spelled.
38:05
Speaker 2: There's a there's Peabody in Boston, I believe, or in
38:09
Speaker 2: Masters as well, where it's apparently Peabody Pitty Pbdy, which
38:14
Speaker 2: is another county or town in in in Massachusetts. Yeah,
38:20
Speaker 2: so it takes all kinds.
38:21
Speaker 4: Let us know.
38:22
Speaker 1: We want to hear We're not exaggerating, we want to
38:24
Speaker 1: hear the weirdest ones. Who knows you You may save
38:29
Speaker 1: us from uh you may you may save us from
38:33
Speaker 1: a future internet post.
38:34
Speaker 2: You know what.
38:35
Speaker 4: Bring it on, babies, I love it. Uh.
38:37
Speaker 1: So we want to thank you, of course for journeying
38:41
Speaker 1: with us through this story of sports and protest and appeasement.
38:46
Speaker 1: We want to thank Casey Pegram and we want to
38:49
Speaker 1: thank Christopher hasiotis our research associate who hipped us to
38:53
Speaker 1: this story.
38:53
Speaker 4: Do you have a sound effect yet?
38:57
Speaker 1: Now let's see who else do we think? Oh, Alex
39:01
Speaker 1: Williams track and you Noel Brown, I'd like to thank
39:07
Speaker 1: you too, man oh boy. So stay tuned for our
39:11
Speaker 1: next episode where he delve into a strange story about Heineken,
39:16
Speaker 1: which was actually really inspiring to me.
39:19
Speaker 4: Heineken that paps blue ribbon?
39:23
Speaker 1: All right, yeah, well, I mean it takes all beers.
39:26
Speaker 4: Uh you know, I'm a PBR man.
39:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're you are a PBR man.
39:30
Speaker 2: But you know what, You can't build a hut out
39:32
Speaker 2: of PBR cans.
39:33
Speaker 1: Oh well you could, it just wouldn't be as cool.
39:36
Speaker 1: Now what the heck are we talking about? You may
39:38
Speaker 1: be asking yourself. Tune in to find out. In the meantime,
39:42
Speaker 1: you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and.
39:45
Speaker 2: We're about to roll out that Pinterest page.
39:48
Speaker 1: I think that's I'm doing a vision board. I'm keeping
39:51
Speaker 1: an analog bro.
39:52
Speaker 4: I really, yeah, you're done. You're off the net.
39:55
Speaker 1: No, the vision board at least is it's just it's
39:58
Speaker 1: a wall in my house and I just paste up
40:03
Speaker 1: different pictures. I've been going through a laser tag phase.
40:06
Speaker 2: That's oh cool, like like like you're gonna go laser
40:09
Speaker 2: tag fashion from here on out.
40:11
Speaker 4: You're gonna come to work looking like Tron and stuff.
40:14
Speaker 1: That would be cool. Are you in? You're interested in this?
40:15
Speaker 4: Sure? Man, I'll try anything. You know, a bunch of times.
40:20
Speaker 1: Awesome.
40:21
Speaker 2: In the meantime, if you don't want to do any
40:22
Speaker 2: of that stuff, which you should, you can also join
40:24
Speaker 2: the Facebook group Ridiculous Historians, or you can send us
40:26
Speaker 2: a good old fashion email at ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com.
40:37
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
40:41
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.