Schwabenakademie Irsee
03.02.2012-05.02.2012, Irsee, Schwabenakademie Irsee, Klosterring 4, 87660 Irsee
Deadline: 31.07.2011
When the games of the 14th UEFA European Championship are kicked off on June 8th, 2012 in Poland and Ukraine, it will be seven decades since war, occupation and genocide ravished these countries. When the Second World War began on September 1st, 1939, the circumstances for football
(soccer) also dramatically changed in many places. Football clubs in occupied areas of Europe (e.g. Luxembourg, Lorraine) were "Germanized"
and incorporated into the existing Gauligen (regional leagues) of the National-Socialist League of the Reich for Physical Exercise (NSRL), while new Gauligen were established (e.g. Alsace, Ostmark, Sudetenland).
Clubs from Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland or France could become German champions (Rapid Vienna in 1941) and national team members from these countries could play in the German Reich team (e.g. Ernst Willimowski, Wilhelm Hahnemann, Stefan Skoumal).
The national-socialist sports authorities aimed to exploit football and all other sports as a means of warfare. In other European countries - both dictatorships as well as democracies - the sports authorities also pursued this strategy of integrating sports into the national demands for military education (e.g. National Fitness Campaign). Football no longer appeared to be a mere game without a political purpose, rather a pure means to an end. Decade-long efforts to view sports training as a way of building fortified and militarized bodies effectively contributed to this process.
On the occasion of the European championships in Poland and Ukraine the international sports history conference of the Swabian Academy looks back seven decades and analyzes European football during the Second World War. The following issues will be dealt with:
- Consequences of the war for the organization of associational football
- Impact of the deployment of athletes to the front on the games
- Professional football and amateur football
- Commemoration of fallen soldiers in the memorial culture of the associations
- Attempts of the team officials to withdraw football players from war deployments
- Function of country-versus-country matches during the war
- International matches in neutral countries (Switzerland, Spain,
Sweden)
- Football as a "world of its own" versus exploitation for non-sport interests
- Changes within the game itself
- International perspective: FIFA conferences, IOC, planned world championships
- War events as a catalyst for nationalism
- Changes in sports reporting on football during the war, war discourses
- Football events as a means of war propaganda, diversion and entertainment
- Comparisons between football in the First and Second World War
- Football on the front, in the back, and in captivity
- War-related football contests and tournaments
Furthers topics, interests and insights on the theme "European Football in the Second World War", which are not listed above, are also welcome.
Participants shall present non-published articles for max. 30 minutes, followed by a 15-minute discussion. Working titles, max. one-page project outlines and short CVs are to be submitted to the Swabian Academy of Irsee by 31 July 2011.
The conference program will be designed and published in late August
2011 based on the proposed topics. The conference will take place from Friday to Sunday, February 3rd to 5th, 2012. The results of the conference will be published.
Concept and organization: Fabian Brändle, Zurich / Markwart Herzog, Irsee.
Contact: Dr. Markwart Herzog, Schwabenakademie Irsee, Klosterring 4, 87660 Irsee, Germany, markwart.herzog@schwabenakademie.de
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Markwart Herzog
Schwabenakademie Irsee
Klosterring 4, 87660 Irsee
0049 8341 906 660
0049 8341 906 669
markwart.herzog@schwabenakademie.de
Akademiewebsite <http://www.schwabenakademie.de>
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