Kultur Kontor
Klosterwall 4
20095 Hamburg
Free admission and wheelchair accessible. Texts and audio are available in German and English.
Monday 10 am–5 pm
Tuesday closed
Wednesday 10 am–5 pm
Thursday 10 am–5 pm
Friday 10 am–5 pm
Saturday 10 am–6 pm
Sunday 10 am–6 pm
Public guided tours: every Sunday, 3 pm
Further guided tours are available here: Museumsdienst Hamburg
The traveling exhibition “Sports. Crowds. Power. Football under the Nazis” examines the significance of sport for National Socialists and how they attempted to consolidate power through football. The exhibition also explores football matches in concentration camps and commemorates Jewish and non-Jewish athletes who were persecuted under National Socialism. Above all stands the question of the extent to which the power of football can lead to cohesion or to exclusion – then and now.
Sports. Crowds. Power. is a project of the what matters gGmbH and the Sportmuseum Berlin, in cooperation with the World Jewish Congress. The travelling exhibition is funded by the Alfred Landecker Foundation.
Sport was important to the Nazis, who believed that organized physical activity would make the population fit and ready for war. The Nazis wanted a new society which they called the ‹Volksgemeinschaft›, the Aryan national community. They would decide who belonged, and who did not. Sport was one way to show who was fit for this community. At sporting events, the Nazis could present their vision. This is what they did at the 1936 Olympic Games.
There are eleven football shirts in the exhibition. They belong to clubs that the Nazis banned. Most the originals have been lost to time. After the Nazis came to power, many clubs no longer allowed Jews to belong as members. Those members of these clubs who were part of the new ‹Volksgemeinschaft› helped the Nazis put their ideas into action. In 1938, the Nazi government would go on to ban all Jews from participating in sports. They would proceed to destroy Jewish clubs across occupied Europe – sending millions to their death during the WWII and the Holocaust.
Upon assuming power in 1933, the Nazis began to use concentration camps to imprison those with opposing political views. Later, more camps were built where Jews and Sinti and Roma were sent. Prisoners were met with extremely punishing conditions, but some could still experience the joy of playing football. It helped them to feel human again, and made daily life in the camps more bearable.
Through five short-videos, women from today’s sporting world present the biographies of historical figures: four footballers and one track and field athlete whose lives were forever altered by the Nazis rise to power. Some were murdered, while others’ careers were destroyed. The histories of Lilli Henoch, Heinz Kerz, Béla Guttmann, Eddy Hamel, and Julius Hirsch represent a small fraction of the millions of others who suffered under the Nazis and show that even star athletes were unable to escape persecution.
When the war ended in 1945, so too did the Nazi’s way of life. But racism and antisemitism did not simply disappear from society, or football. During the 1980s and 1990s, these forms of hatred could be found in stadiums across the country. Eventually, fans began to organize and fight. Sadly, discrimination is still a part of daily life both in and outside of stadiums that we must work to confront.
1. FC Magdeburg, Akademie der Künste, Alte Synagoge Essen, Amtsgericht Charlottenburg, Amtsgericht Dortmund, Amtsgericht München, Archiv des Jugendhauses Düsseldorf, Archiv Pamatnik Terezín, Augusto Jone Munjunga, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Biblioteca National de España, Bundesarchiv Lichterfelde, Christine Garbade, Christof Wolf, Der Kicker, Deutscher Fußball-Bund, Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin, Dokumentations- und Kulturzentrum Deutscher Sinti und Roma, Eike Stiller, Familie Kubaşık, Familie Specht, FC St. Pauli-Museum, FIFA Archives, First Vienna Football Club, Football Supporters Europe, Fußballmuseum Dortmund, Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen, Getty Images, Stadtarchiv Groningen, IMAGO, Institut für Jüdische Zeitgeschichte der ETH Zürich, Israelitisches Familienblatt, Jüdischer Verlag bei Suhrkamp, Jüdisches Museum Dorsten, Jüdisches Museum Wien, Kick It Out, KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau, KZ-Gedenkstätte Mauthausen, KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Landesarchiv Berlin, Leo Baeck Institute, Magischer FC, Makkabi Weltverband in Ramat-Gan, Národní filmový archiv, Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe, Nie Wieder!, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Picture Alliance, Prenzlauer Berg Museum Berlin, Privatarchiv Krabbe, Project Roma, Sports Illustrated, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Staatsarchiv Freiburg, Stadt- und Kreisarchiv Paderborn, Stadtarchiv Gunzenhausen, Stadtarchiv Karlsruhe, Stadtarchiv Nieder-Olm, Stefan Schenck, Südwestrundfunnk, The Heartfield Community of Heirs, The National Archives London, Thessaloniki Jewish Museum, Torkel Wächter, Ullsteinbild, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Verein für Geschichte der ArbeiterInnenbewegung, Vereinarchiv Eintracht Frankfurt, Vereinsarchiv Sparta Lichtenberg, Wallleitner- Archiv/Leihgeber, Walter Frentz, Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv, World Jewish Congress, Yad Vashem Foto Archives, Yad Vashem Art Museum, Zusammen1
