January 11, 2025 • 40 mins
As global tensions grew to a breaking point in the lead-up to World War II, European nations used every available avenue to pursue their goals, including the propagandistic power of sporting events. Join Ben and Noel as they explore the strange geopolitical policy of appeasement -- and how it led British soccer players to salute Nazi officials -- in this week's Classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hot take. You guys, I think Nazis are bad. I
don't think.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Ah, yeah, I think you're probably right. Nazis Nazi scum.
Die No, die Nazi scum. What's the what's the old adage?
I agree with both versions of it with you. They
have never been great and they've always historically kind of
insisted on themselves.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
And recently we recorded a series about the World's Fair
just as a concept. It's called the World Expo these days,
but we talked a bit about the soft diplomatic power
that nations nations sought for when they hosted a World's Fair.
(00:39):
And this is the same thing we see in sporting
events in history and in the modern day. There's a
propaganda power to it.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh, absolutely, there's a certain fervor and zealotry that goes
along with being a super fan of any sport that
can be weaponized.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Absolutely check out our episode on sports. They're in stuff
they don't want you to know. And while you're at it,
join us for today's classic episode, why British soccer players
saluted the Nazis and the lead up to World War Two.
Inquiring minds would like to know.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Let's throw it ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to
start today's episode with a look at something that happened
very recently in American history, and that is the controversy
taking place in American football. Not with the rest of
the world calls football, that's the controversy taking place in
American football regarding players taking a knee in protest during
(02:07):
the national anthem.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I refuse, wait, are you supposed to take any You know,
you're not supposed to take a knee. It's disrespectful to
take a mee. In fact, the NFL, I believe, just
came out with new rules that require players contractually to
stand for the national anthem. But as you say, Ben, yes,
it was an act of defiance, a way of standing
(02:30):
up or taking a knee, rather for their particular cause.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Is that okay, Casey, that's great.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Oh and that's our super producer, Casey.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Pegram, who is in fact on the case.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
And I'm Ben and you are oh and that makes
this ridiculous history. Yeah, we are not the It's no
secret that you and I are not die hard INFL fans,
But like many people in this country, and in other countries.
We were fast needed by this story, by this process
(03:03):
of protest and counter protest, and Noel, as you pointed
out just a second ago, the NFL did in May
of twenty eighteen ban the practice of taking a knee.
Although this is a tremendously controversial ban.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, I think it's being appealed or picketed or you know,
protested in some way by.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
The union, the players union, I believe.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Because come on, man, like, if you can't protest as
a multimillionaire overpaid sports figure, you know, what does that
say for the rest of us?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
And what does it say about free speech as well?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Exactly, But we're talking about I'm not this exactly kind
of it's weird, it's part of the story. But we're
talking about kind of the opposite of this, which is
using sports as propaganda.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Right, I would say that we were talking about a
larger context because this specific event in modern history provides
an excellent point of comparison to the earlier events that
I think surprised both of us when we began digging
into this, and sporting events on an international scale have
(04:15):
long functioned as acts of propaganda, you know, iconic moments
in history occurred at the Olympics, for instance.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Right, absolutely, And what is the Olympics if not a
chance for various countries to achieve perhaps not global dominance
and hegemony, but at least dominance on the field of.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Sport, right, faux battle?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, yeah, And we see it in the World Cup,
we see it in the World Series, we see it
in the Super Bowl. And today's episode involves a tremendously
important political event that took place on a soccer field.
We have to go into some political context, I think first, Right.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I think we do, Ben, It's true. So we're talking
about Germany, right, And the second half of the nineteen thirties,
the Nazi Party that had taken over Germany was really, really,
really becoming quite aggressive, weren't they been. In nineteen thirty five,
they publicly announced that they were going to rearm their military,
(05:21):
which flew in the face of a little something called
the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War One?
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Isn't that right?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Ben?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
That is correct, nol And we've talked a little bit
in the past about the enormous cost Germany bar as
a result of World War One, and this had dangerous
effects on their economy, and it's one of the factors
that allowed the very aggressive, expansionist Nazi regime to come
(05:51):
into power. And at the time, other people, other countries
and heads of state couldn't agree on what the proper,
unified response to this aggressive German government should be. The
question was, should we contain the Nazi Party and Germany,
(06:11):
Should we openly combat them, or should we attempt to,
you know, appease them, make nice.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Let's let's run with that word, ben Let's let's make
a whole system out of this. Yeah, a policy. We'll
call it appeasement. There we go, And now about that
burst the creativity. Well, but you can understand why. I mean,
people were shell shocked from the havoc that was reached
by World War One all across Europe. I mean, that
was no fun. It was utter devastation in many parts
(06:41):
of the country. And the Treaty of Versailles, even the
Allies kind of realized people on the ground, at least
from what I've read that the Treaty of Versailles wasn't
particularly fair to a lot of the countries that involved,
specially Germany, because under the treaty they were limited to
having one hundred thousand strong military. But again in thirty five,
(07:03):
after they've been kind of a massing weaponry all these years,
they got the confidence under Hitler to come out and say, Yo,
we are building up our military again.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Boo on your treaty.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
We could care less, and they escalated that thirty six
they occupied the Rhineland, which is an area, a region,
a small region in the middle of the country, also
totally against the Treaty of Versailles.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yes, and this appeasement policy sound may sound strange to
us today because we have the benefit of knowing what
happened after this policy was in place. But the appeasement
policy is often pointed out as the worst decision the
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain ever made, But there were other
(07:50):
British prime ministers who followed the same policy, including Ramsey
MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin. This wasn't just made for Germany.
It also was applied to Italy, which was under the
control of a fascist regime at the trend, and it
lasted from nineteen thirty five to nineteen thirty nine. Our
(08:10):
story today takes place during that time. It takes place
in nineteen thirty eight at a soccer game.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It's true, and just to backtrack ever so slightly, to
go back into appeasement every time the Nazis did these
kind of brash moves like occupying the Rhineland. In the
year of our story, they annexed Austria and they actually
like did a coup data within their naz already pretty
strong Nazi party within Austria and Austria being Hitler's boyhood home.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Right, We're going to spend a lot of time in
this episode going from the specific events to the larger context.
So before we get to the famous event that occurred
in May May fourteenth, nineteen thirty eight, let's go back
earlier in the year to April, where we saw another
(09:03):
precedent set an example of protests through sport.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, the one we kind of alluded to at the
top of the show, because, like I said a minute ago,
it was in nineteen thirty eight that Germany really went
hard in the paint and totally annexed.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Austria, as I said, over through the.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Government in an effort to combine the two countries in
an event they referred to as the Anschluss, and Austria
had a pretty ballin pun totally intended soccer team football
team headed up by a guy by the name of
(09:40):
Matteus Sindler or Schindler I've heard, I'm gonna I think
it's similar. There's no sc h s i n d
e l a R and Ben. He had a really
cool nickname, didn't he.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah, it was the Paperman or der paper Sindlar s
i n d e l a R was known as
the Mozart to football as well. Saw that one. He
played as the center forward for the Austria national team
that was known as the Wonder Team, and he captained
the nineteen thirty four World Cup. This guy is a
(10:13):
football superstar and this game that occurs on April third
in nineteen thirty eight was meant to celebrate what Germany
was calling. Get this, Austria's coming home to the Reich.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Come on home to the Reich, Come on home to
the Reich. Yeah yeah, but here's a problem. Sindler hated
the Nazis predictably. Predictably, Yeah, I mean they totally came
into his country, took it over, tried to change everything
about his way of life, including trying to smash his
(10:47):
football club in with the German football club that sucked
by the way Germany was not good.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Can I call it soccer? I'm just going to call
it soccer.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, just call it soccer. As a matter of fact,
we have a fun firebomb to throw for you ridiculous historians.
If you were football or soccer fan, factual Molotov cocktail,
it might be a bit in in injury for some people.
I found this article in The Atlantic called why Americans
call soccer soccer? By Uri Friedman. It's a British term,
(11:18):
It got a US term, and we here in the
States picked it up from England. The word soccer originated
in England, fell into disuse there, and became dominant in
the States. And there's some people who have studied this
who found. What they did is they looked at the
frequency with which the words football and soccer appeared in
(11:39):
American and British news outlets dating back to nineteen hundred.
Soccer was a recognized term for the game we're describing
for the first half of the twentieth century, but it
wasn't widely used until after World War Two, when it
became interchangeable with the phrase football and sometimes used together soccer.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Football Okay, but I'm an American. I'm an American. I'm
proud of it.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
So I call hitting that that ball with you hit
your foot with the ball game, I'm gonna call it soccer,
so just as not to confuse, you know, because I
don't want to say American football.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
That sounds ridiculous, so you should to say it.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
In a British accent, exactly say American football, although the.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Fact the Brits have been dominant in the sport since
the very beginning.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
And I want to sew this up real quick, because
I'm sure this is going to interest several of you
ridiculous historians, especially if you've had an argument with one
of your friends across the pond about this. It traces
back to World War Two. Most likely American troops stationed
in the UK during the war came back and started
(12:46):
using that phrase and that led to a backlash against
the word in Britain. And now this word has completely
immigrated to the US.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Isn't that funny?
Speaker 2 (12:57):
If you still haven't given me the etymology, It's just
like it said about the socks, the knee socks, the
fact that you're socking the ball around with your foots.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
It's a shortening of association footballer.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
That's stupid. So soccer. That's the worst possible answer.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
But you can't. You can't go in and expect a
language to conform to what you as an individual.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I'm not mad at you, then, I didn't mean that
to come off like I was your fault. The origin
of soccer is so dull, but I'm disappointed.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I think it's fascinating.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
It is fascinating, Ben, you know what else is fascinating.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Back to Sindler, let's do it so again, super salty
about the Nazis coming in and invading his home turf
and trying to, you know, jam up his soccer club.
And so they this this game in question in what
do we say, April of nineteen thirty.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
April third, nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
That's right, it's meant to be, on paper, at least,
a celebration of the historical legacy of the Austrian Soccer Club.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And the last match that the team would have as
an independent Austrian team before it.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Gets smushed in with the far inferior German club.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
So they begin protesting the moment they hit the field.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Kind of yeah, well, what I had seen in an
amazing documentary from the BBC called Fascism and Football was
that it was very clear that the Austrians had been
told to.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Lose, Yeah, to throw the game, throw the match, to
show the symbolic or propagandistic importance of aligning with Germany.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And just one quick aside, one quote that I think
is so amazing from this documentary Fascism in Football.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Rather you can find the whole thing on YouTube and
it's just great.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Is the idea that sports were such a powerful tool
for propaganda because when you win, you win, and you
can't like, no one can accuse you of lying. Because
if you win and are dominant in a sport, then
that's just before everyone's very eyes. You are the clear,
you are the winner, you won, and you played by
the rules.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
It's what we today would refer to as optics.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Optics in that are.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
And so the star player of Austria's team, Sindolar.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
That's right, refuses to.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Go along with this plan. He says, I am not
going to pay obedience to this invading power, and furthermore,
I'm not going to cheapen the most important thing in
my life.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Well, and the funny thing is too, like, yes, you're
absolutely right, he definitely did not go along with it,
and that he did not look like he was trying
very hard. He made it very clear that he was
just kind of farting along, very lacklusterly.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Right. I think he was like shaking his head and
disdain kind of.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
And refuse to wear the uniforms. They were supposed to
wear their traditional white and black. They replaced it with
Uncindolar's orders. More or less, the Austrians played in red
white red outfits the national flag's colors. Yikes, And yeah,
like you're saying, the audience knew something was up because
(16:11):
it seemed like they just weren't trying. They were just
farting around until what the last twenty minutes.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, and then Simla the Paperman scored one of two.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Goals and Carl Cesta got the second one, who.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
I think was his bestie.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I think I think they were like really really close,
And yeah, they totally totally humiliated. The Nazis apparently kind
of did one of those like end zone kind of
cocky yeah, cock of the walk kind of dances right
in front of like can you imagine the scene Ben.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
The stands full of Nazi officials.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
High senior Nazi dignitaries, and they celebrated extravagantly. They owned
the moment because they really had publicly humiliated these officials.
And it's we don't have solid historical proof of this,
so this is entirely speculation on my part. But I
(17:08):
would not be surprised if some of those pro Nazi forces,
knowing in theory the outcome of the game, had decided
to gamble on it a bit.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
So they were out money, but more importantly, they were
out public credibility.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Oh absolutely. And here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
As you might imagine, Sindler was made persona non grata
at that point. He was declared in their internal Gestapo
memos on him that declared him pro Jewish, among other
death sentence worthy distinctions.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Like a social democrat.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
That's it. That's right.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
About within the year or within a year after these events,
he was dead at the age.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Of thirty five under the most suspicious circumstances. I think
he had been out partying that night and gambling in.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
A coffee shop that he was a part owner of,
or the guy that talks about his buddy in the
documentary referred to it as his coffee shop. I'm not
sure if that was just a translation thing or if
it was just like the place where they would all
hang out. They were gambling, playing cards, a lot of
money was on the table, and a lot of drinking,
and then he went back with his girlfriend to her apartment,
(18:19):
and you know, YadA, YadA, YadA, one thing led to another.
They go to sleep and they never wake up because
they died of carbon Actually, she ended up in a
coma that she never recovered from, and he died in
his sleep of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Which was recorded as an accident. Why because yeah, because
according to Egon Olbrich, a lifelong friend of Sindelar, he's the.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
Guy I was talking about that, I was talking about
the gambling night.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah, yeah, he says in the documentary, And then also
in an article called football Fascism in England's Nazi Salute
on the BBC by Jonathan Duffy, he says that the
truth of the story was that a local official was
bribed to record Sendelar's death as an accident, ensuring that
(19:06):
he would receive a state funeral. Because we have a
great quote from Oldbric about this. Because Nazis have particular
rules about.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
This, that's right, This is the quote. According to the
Nazi rules, a person who had been murdered or who
has committed suicide cannot be given a grave of honor.
So we had to do something to ensure that the
criminal element involved in his death was removed. That's wild man.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
And it continued escalating. Yeah, the Germans were very very
serious about the value of propaganda, and from their perspective,
this sort of insolence could not stand. So it's pretty
obvious that he was murdered, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And did we mention the fact that for a while,
as the Nazis rose to power. Maybe this is obvious
to everybody but me, they kind of masked their awful
racist ways totally.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
They didn't reveal the full.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Nature of their final solution, or their idea of you know.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Pulling up the Jews and the Roma people, or any
of the just horrible, horrible racist leanings until a good
bit later.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
And this was still during that time where obviously they
meant business, but the true nature of their evil was
not on full display yet.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Well, it was also in that time. This is an
unfortunate and ugly truth in that time, anti Semitism was widespread,
we know, just in the GM pop Yeah, just like
throughout Europe. Definitely, also clearly in the US, and the
same prejudices applied to Roma as well and other quote
(20:42):
unquote you know, subversive elements or what they would call deviance.
So these people, this group had existed throughout various countries
in Europe for centuries, right, And the shocking racism, the
anti semitism, the iron clad and puritanical attitudes about sex
(21:07):
were normal. If you read a German textbook about the
concept of living space for the German people, it's not
that different from many other textbooks of the time that
also argued the innate superiority of certain ethnic groups and
it might change during the country. So people didn't know.
(21:27):
I think the point you're making this really important is
people did not know that there was genocide on the horizon. Privately,
members of the Nazi regime were already thinking of ways
to forcibly deport elements of the population they didn't improve up,
and they were trying to figure out where to put them,
(21:49):
like would it be Madagascar, would it be some other country?
And then eventually, as we know, this led to one
of the most horrific occurrences in human history.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
God, and I hate to get political about it, but
it feels like when you start reading about the early
stages of the Nazi takeover and the kind of rhetoric,
the kind of this nationalistic rhetoric, while not overtly racist,
very dog whistle racist in a very similar way that.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
We're experiencing in our country right now.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
And it scares the crap out of me reading this
and thinking about history repeating in multiple countries.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Right. Absolutely, So we've got this, We've got.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
This context with Sindelar, who now we know was murdered,
but originally.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
We don't really know. I mean, yeah, but you can't
it couldn't.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Come on, You're right, we don't know for sure.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Dosier those those classifications. I mean, he was everyone says
that was a death sentence.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Somebody had their eye on him, and not in a
good way. So in this in this context, we have
the precedent for protests, and then we have the precedent
for sport events overall, especially football, soccer, football, soccer, whatever
you want to call it. We see this as a
(23:06):
medium for propagandistic communication. Let's get back to this concept
of appeasement. Now, let's talk a little bit about Neville Chamberlain.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yeah, and how far this idea of appeasement went in
the way it played out on what the Brits referred
to as the soccer pitch.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Yeah. We talk a lot about media manipulation in the
modern day, but it was a known, tried and true
technique here in the nineteen thirties as well, So much
so that going back to May nineteen thirty eight, the
(23:50):
fourteenth of May, English soccer players traveled to Germany to
play the German team in a soccer match.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
That's right, minus yeah, minus. There were Ace and the
whole Sindler who was still living at this time, but
he refused, probably another reason he was blacklist in the
way he was had to add insult to injury. He
refused to play for the new combined Austrian Germany team,
which obviously was just called the German team. He said
(24:22):
he cited old age, but he was like thirty five,
I think, yeah, and also simultaneously injury, so it was
just a bit of a f you to old you know, fear.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
So let's set the scene, casey, could we have maybe
the sound of a of a crowd at a at
a soccer match, more than one hundred thousand soccer fans
file into Berlin's Olympic Stadium and the countries. At this point,
everybody knows war is escalating. Things are ratcheting up right
(24:52):
big time. And these countries, Britain and Germany are still
playing nice. They don't trust the each other, but they're
still going through the motions and the gestures of diplomacy
and swastikas and British flags or flying side by side.
The German national anthem is being played over the speakers,
but on the field below. If you can imagine this
(25:15):
in your mind, fellow historians, something very strange occurs. The
German and the British players raise their arms in the
infamous Nazi salute.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
The hile right here the Cliff.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
Cup final enthusiasm prevails in Berlin when England beat Germany
on the soccer field. All the curtaincies are observed before
the stop God.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Save the King is paid.
Speaker 5 (25:43):
And the English team in white shirts give the Nazi
salute during the German national anthem. One hundred and fifteen
thousand spectator's pack.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
So that was newsreel footage from the Associated Press on
the day of this infamous event, and it's purported eerily
in a matter of fact kind of way, but there
was a lot of controversies around in this game because
by this point, if not their full final solution, level,
complete and utter evilness was on display. People knew that
(26:14):
the Nazis were fascists oh yeah, and big time yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
And the British press, despite efforts at media manipulation to
make the population pro appeasement, the British press had had enough,
absolutely outrage and there was even more insult to injury
because it turned out, despite this gesture on the part
of the English team, Adolf Hitler wasn't even at the game.
It wasn't present. They were just saluting the idea of Nazis.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
No, it's true.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
In fact, I think the very first game he ever attended,
or earlier in this story, the Germans lost to I
think it was the Netherlands or a smaller team that
was seen as being less skilled than the German team.
So and he was really irritated about that. He didn't
always make appearances, but no, he was not at this game.
(27:04):
And the thing is, the Germans did lose this game.
They got They're brought worst handed to them by the Brits, who, again,
as we said, were pretty damn dominant in the sport.
There's an interview in this documentary with the guys like, yeah,
it wasn't really that big of a surprise because pretty
much everyone lost to the UK.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Oh yeah, can we play that guy's clip? I just
love his voice.
Speaker 6 (27:29):
To lose to England at that time was nothing unusual
because basically everybody lost to the British team at the time.
So I think for Hitler, the propaganda effect of that
game was a lot more important than everything else.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Right, they were known to be one of the best
teams on the planet. They won the game six to three,
six England three Germany. And the weird thing about the
scor is it was somewhat of a footnote because the
thing everybody was focusing on was this bizarre attempt at diplomacy.
(28:07):
It wasn't spontaneous on the part of the English team.
Neville Chamberlain had in advance told them to do it,
and from what we understand, the intent of this was
to make nice and show that Germany was not considered
to be a quote, pariah state, despite the fact that
(28:28):
they pacmanned up Austria.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
And that was also kind of part of Germany's propagandistic
way of looking at this was to show that hey,
we're just like you. We like to play sport, and
we like to goose step around in our strange Nazi uniforms,
and I all, wait, something's wrong here?
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Surecase our superior.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Because I want to go back a little way, just
because I think this is a really important point. The
real stage set for Hitler's use of sport in this
way was the nineteen thirty six Olympics, the Berlin Olympics,
which is super interesting because that was like a world stage.
(29:12):
Everyone's watching, it's in Berlin. Hitler's there. He used it
as an opportunity to showcase, like you said, the efficiency,
the militaristic might of the Nazi state. But there was
a little kink in Hitler's idea here of showcasing the
you know, might and prowess of the Aryan supremacy or
(29:34):
what have you. This mythos he was trying to create.
When Jesse Owens, an African American competitor, won four gold medals,
that's right.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Then, four gold medals.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
It was in the one hundred meter two hundred meters
long jump in for by one hundred meter relay race,
just completely in front of God and everyone crushing that idea.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
And Hitler was none too pleased, right, which is which.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Is weird because this is such an iconic moment, and
you know we're going to brag a little bit. Jesse
Owens is American, So take that, Nazis and do you
like how I bragging is if we had anything to
do with it. Yeah, But there's an interesting tidbit here
because so this occurs in August of nineteen thirty six.
(30:21):
August first, I think is the first day of competition.
There was a newspaper editor named Robert L. Van, himself
African American, who was at the scene, and in an
article dated to August fourth, nineteen thirty six, he says,
wonder of wonders, I saw harr Adolph Hitler salute the lad.
(30:43):
I looked on with a heart which beat proudly, as
the lad who was crowned king of the one hundred
meters event, got an ovation the like of which I
had never heard before. I saw Jesse Owens greeted by
the Grand Chancellor of this country as a brilliant son
peeped out through the clouds. I saw a vast crowd
of some eighty five thousand or ninety thousand peace people
stand up and cheer him to the echo. And that
(31:03):
is winning hearts and minds, isn't it. I think it's
so easy to underestimate the importance that these sorts of
events can play in human history.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Oh absolutely, yeah, no, because the people.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
I mean, I've seen pieces and whole you know, papers
written about the idea of sports as a religion. People
put as much credence in you know, baseball players and
basketball player as they do and you know.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
God right like King James the name for Lebron.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Because it's a stand in for our hopes and dreams.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
You know, even if it's sort of a false dichotomy,
and it's because you win a soccer game as a
country doesn't really translate in reality to your might or prowess.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
It's sort of a microcosmic view of that, which.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Is why so many countries spend so much money and
time and occasionally so much effort at skullduggery when it
comes to winning international sports competitions. I have a thing
I'd like your take on goal and you as well, folks,
do you think sport, the concept of sports games. Do
(32:12):
you feel like it has taken in the most powerful
parts of religion, the most powerful parts of war, and
the most powerful parts of economy. I feel like it has.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
I think you just answered your own question. Ben, that's
I mean, what do you think though? I think it's
a very no.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
I think that is an astute point, and I think
that's absolutely true. And I think we see that too
with what we open the show with the idea of
the power that these players have, and when it doesn't
jive with the money behind the power, or like the
organizational power behind the scenes, there can be issues. Sometimes
(32:48):
it involves people getting carbon monoxide poisoned to death in
their sleep. Sometimes it involves getting you know, players being
suspended for taking a knee during a national anthem. It's
just interesting the way politics and sports can be so intertwined.
And I think it all goes back to even earlier
than this. This is just probably the biggest, most obvious
(33:10):
political example that we have. But to your point, Ben,
as far back as the Romans and gladiators and bred
and circuses and all that, sport has always been a
powerful tool to manipulate the minds of the people. And
manipulate maybe is the wrong word. I don't know, what
do you think.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I feel like manipulate is a perfect word for this. Also,
we have to point out spoiler alert for World War
two everyone, so I tune out if you don't, if
you don't want to get spoiled for this. We have
to point out that Chamberlain's in Britain's appeasement policy did
not work. No, it was just a little more than
(33:50):
a year before tensions broke a war began, correct, Noal.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Yeah, it was September of nineteen thirty nine. The Nazis
invaded Poland and that was just a bridge too far
for the Allies. They'd finally had enough. The Germans leagued
up with the Soviets to partition Poland into their own
separate spheres of influence. And that, my friend, is the
story of how World War two really began in earnest
(34:20):
and that's the story for another time.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
No, I really enjoyed this episode, Nolan. I hate to
close so soon. Hey, what do you say we do
a little bit of listener mail?
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Huge fan?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
So the first one I want to pull from a
Facebook post that is a really good summary of a
myriad of emails we got Facebook posts. Some few people
slid into our dms on Instagram and facebook them.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
By the way, thanks for writing us folks.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
No doubt, but they very gingerly shredded us on our
pronunciaation of a few Philadelphia, philadelphiasms.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Let's say it together, three to one school kill.
Speaker 7 (35:09):
Only some people that even quibble with that one, which
is why it makes me feel good about it. This
guy says, laughing at Ben Bowling and Noel Brown butchering
school kill River. I believe we said combination of shoy
kill school kill whatever it was wrong.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
This guy, John C.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Says it's pronounced school all caps dash kill.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
And then added you added John a smiling, laughing emoji,
so we knew that we hadn't fatally offend you.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
No, he shredded us with love, and then Ben, as
as we're wont to do on Ridiculous Historians, posted a
delightful response saying we murdered that pronunciation so hard that
this episode counts as true crime.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
Hey, thanks for he says, thanks for listening as well for.
Speaker 8 (35:58):
The valuable correction. Thanks for you just quoted me, did
you to yourself, you did, I love it. That's weird,
but yeah, but check out this thread. This is part
of the reason why we love the Ridiculous Historian's page,
because some of your fellow listeners didn't just point out
(36:19):
the correct or accepted pronunciation of this river.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Some of them also began bantering back and forth, disagreeing
on their own ideas about pronunciation right big time.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
And then we had one Oliver C pop in with
a little Georgia centric thing saying, here in Georgia they
call the Old Muddy River oak mulgi, oak muggy, oak mugi,
and that's spelled o c m u l g e e.
But the funny thing is, I am from Georgia and
I've always said oak mulgi and I've heard it pronounced
it that way. But whatever you say, and then ghee
(36:53):
like clarified butter okmulgi. Okay, no, no, that's right, oak mulgy,
that's right, I've heard of that way. And what you
would think would be Houston County is actually Houston County.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Which I've noticed. Yeah, that happened to me one time.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Yeah. And then we've got a guy Rob s saying
Jersey born and raised here. I always heard it as
school kill. Yes, drop the.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
L and John C comes back in in the thread
and says, I don't know if Philadelphians have much room
to talk about pronunciation, and he shared this fascinating Washington
Post article about the unique Philadelphia accent, which I highly
recommend you check out, like.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Woodter ice, yeah, which is basically like what like a
like a freeze pop or like kind of Italian ice, beach.
Speaker 4 (37:38):
Tolls, beach talls.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yet, and we've got a question that I think will
interest a lot of us in the audience, and it
is this, what are the strangely pronounced places, landmarks or
things in your neck of the woods. Because, for instance,
you know there is Worcester in Massachusetts, right, which is
(38:02):
completely not pronounced how it SAPs spelled.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
There's a there's Peabody in Boston, I believe, or in
Masters as well, where it's apparently Peabody Pitty Pbdy, which
is another county or town in in in Massachusetts. Yeah,
so it takes all kinds.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
Let us know.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
We want to hear We're not exaggerating, we want to
hear the weirdest ones. Who knows you You may save
us from uh you may you may save us from
a future internet post.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
You know what.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Bring it on, babies, I love it. Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
So we want to thank you, of course for journeying
with us through this story of sports and protest and appeasement.
We want to thank Casey Pegram and we want to
thank Christopher hasiotis our research associate who hipped us to
this story.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
Do you have a sound effect yet?
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Now let's see who else do we think? Oh, Alex
Williams track and you Noel Brown, I'd like to thank
you too, man oh boy. So stay tuned for our
next episode where he delve into a strange story about Heineken,
which was actually really inspiring to me.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
Heineken that paps blue ribbon?
Speaker 1 (39:23):
All right, yeah, well, I mean it takes all beers.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Uh you know, I'm a PBR man.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Yeah, you're you are a PBR man.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
But you know what, You can't build a hut out
of PBR cans.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Oh well you could, it just wouldn't be as cool.
Now what the heck are we talking about? You may
be asking yourself. Tune in to find out. In the meantime,
you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
We're about to roll out that Pinterest page.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
I think that's I'm doing a vision board. I'm keeping
an analog bro.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
I really, yeah, you're done. You're off the net.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
No, the vision board at least is it's just it's
a wall in my house and I just paste up
different pictures. I've been going through a laser tag phase.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
That's oh cool, like like like you're gonna go laser
tag fashion from here on out.
Speaker 4 (40:11):
You're gonna come to work looking like Tron and stuff.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
That would be cool. Are you in? You're interested in this?
Speaker 4 (40:15):
Sure? Man, I'll try anything. You know, a bunch of times.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
In the meantime, if you don't want to do any
of that stuff, which you should, you can also join
the Facebook group Ridiculous Historians, or you can send us
a good old fashion email at ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(40:41):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hot take. You guys, I think Nazis are bad. I
don't think.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Ah, yeah, I think you're probably right. Nazis Nazi scum.
Die No, die Nazi scum. What's the what's the old adage?
I agree with both versions of it with you. They
have never been great and they've always historically kind of
insisted on themselves.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
And recently we recorded a series about the World's Fair
just as a concept. It's called the World Expo these days,
but we talked a bit about the soft diplomatic power
that nations nations sought for when they hosted a World's Fair.
(00:39):
And this is the same thing we see in sporting
events in history and in the modern day. There's a
propaganda power to it.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh, absolutely, there's a certain fervor and zealotry that goes
along with being a super fan of any sport that
can be weaponized.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Absolutely check out our episode on sports. They're in stuff
they don't want you to know. And while you're at it,
join us for today's classic episode, why British soccer players
saluted the Nazis and the lead up to World War Two.
Inquiring minds would like to know.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Let's throw it ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to
start today's episode with a look at something that happened
very recently in American history, and that is the controversy
taking place in American football. Not with the rest of
the world calls football, that's the controversy taking place in
American football regarding players taking a knee in protest during
(02:07):
the national anthem.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I refuse, wait, are you supposed to take any You know,
you're not supposed to take a knee. It's disrespectful to
take a mee. In fact, the NFL, I believe, just
came out with new rules that require players contractually to
stand for the national anthem. But as you say, Ben, yes,
it was an act of defiance, a way of standing
(02:30):
up or taking a knee, rather for their particular cause.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Is that okay, Casey, that's great.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Oh and that's our super producer, Casey.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Pegram, who is in fact on the case.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
And I'm Ben and you are oh and that makes
this ridiculous history. Yeah, we are not the It's no
secret that you and I are not die hard INFL fans,
But like many people in this country, and in other countries.
We were fast needed by this story, by this process
(03:03):
of protest and counter protest, and Noel, as you pointed
out just a second ago, the NFL did in May
of twenty eighteen ban the practice of taking a knee.
Although this is a tremendously controversial ban.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, I think it's being appealed or picketed or you know,
protested in some way by.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
The union, the players union, I believe.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Because come on, man, like, if you can't protest as
a multimillionaire overpaid sports figure, you know, what does that
say for the rest of us?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
And what does it say about free speech as well?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Exactly, But we're talking about I'm not this exactly kind
of it's weird, it's part of the story. But we're
talking about kind of the opposite of this, which is
using sports as propaganda.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Right, I would say that we were talking about a
larger context because this specific event in modern history provides
an excellent point of comparison to the earlier events that
I think surprised both of us when we began digging
into this, and sporting events on an international scale have
(04:15):
long functioned as acts of propaganda, you know, iconic moments
in history occurred at the Olympics, for instance.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Right, absolutely, And what is the Olympics if not a
chance for various countries to achieve perhaps not global dominance
and hegemony, but at least dominance on the field of.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Sport, right, faux battle?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, yeah, And we see it in the World Cup,
we see it in the World Series, we see it
in the Super Bowl. And today's episode involves a tremendously
important political event that took place on a soccer field.
We have to go into some political context, I think first, Right.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I think we do, Ben, It's true. So we're talking
about Germany, right, And the second half of the nineteen thirties,
the Nazi Party that had taken over Germany was really, really,
really becoming quite aggressive, weren't they been. In nineteen thirty five,
they publicly announced that they were going to rearm their military,
(05:21):
which flew in the face of a little something called
the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War One?
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Isn't that right?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Ben?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
That is correct, nol And we've talked a little bit
in the past about the enormous cost Germany bar as
a result of World War One, and this had dangerous
effects on their economy, and it's one of the factors
that allowed the very aggressive, expansionist Nazi regime to come
(05:51):
into power. And at the time, other people, other countries
and heads of state couldn't agree on what the proper,
unified response to this aggressive German government should be. The
question was, should we contain the Nazi Party and Germany,
(06:11):
Should we openly combat them, or should we attempt to,
you know, appease them, make nice.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Let's let's run with that word, ben Let's let's make
a whole system out of this. Yeah, a policy. We'll
call it appeasement. There we go, And now about that
burst the creativity. Well, but you can understand why. I mean,
people were shell shocked from the havoc that was reached
by World War One all across Europe. I mean, that
was no fun. It was utter devastation in many parts
(06:41):
of the country. And the Treaty of Versailles, even the
Allies kind of realized people on the ground, at least
from what I've read that the Treaty of Versailles wasn't
particularly fair to a lot of the countries that involved,
specially Germany, because under the treaty they were limited to
having one hundred thousand strong military. But again in thirty five,
(07:03):
after they've been kind of a massing weaponry all these years,
they got the confidence under Hitler to come out and say, Yo,
we are building up our military again.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Boo on your treaty.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
We could care less, and they escalated that thirty six
they occupied the Rhineland, which is an area, a region,
a small region in the middle of the country, also
totally against the Treaty of Versailles.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yes, and this appeasement policy sound may sound strange to
us today because we have the benefit of knowing what
happened after this policy was in place. But the appeasement
policy is often pointed out as the worst decision the
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain ever made, But there were other
(07:50):
British prime ministers who followed the same policy, including Ramsey
MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin. This wasn't just made for Germany.
It also was applied to Italy, which was under the
control of a fascist regime at the trend, and it
lasted from nineteen thirty five to nineteen thirty nine. Our
(08:10):
story today takes place during that time. It takes place
in nineteen thirty eight at a soccer game.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It's true, and just to backtrack ever so slightly, to
go back into appeasement every time the Nazis did these
kind of brash moves like occupying the Rhineland. In the
year of our story, they annexed Austria and they actually
like did a coup data within their naz already pretty
strong Nazi party within Austria and Austria being Hitler's boyhood home.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Right, We're going to spend a lot of time in
this episode going from the specific events to the larger context.
So before we get to the famous event that occurred
in May May fourteenth, nineteen thirty eight, let's go back
earlier in the year to April, where we saw another
(09:03):
precedent set an example of protests through sport.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, the one we kind of alluded to at the
top of the show, because, like I said a minute ago,
it was in nineteen thirty eight that Germany really went
hard in the paint and totally annexed.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Austria, as I said, over through the.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Government in an effort to combine the two countries in
an event they referred to as the Anschluss, and Austria
had a pretty ballin pun totally intended soccer team football
team headed up by a guy by the name of
(09:40):
Matteus Sindler or Schindler I've heard, I'm gonna I think
it's similar. There's no sc h s i n d
e l a R and Ben. He had a really
cool nickname, didn't he.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah, it was the Paperman or der paper Sindlar s
i n d e l a R was known as
the Mozart to football as well. Saw that one. He
played as the center forward for the Austria national team
that was known as the Wonder Team, and he captained
the nineteen thirty four World Cup. This guy is a
(10:13):
football superstar and this game that occurs on April third
in nineteen thirty eight was meant to celebrate what Germany
was calling. Get this, Austria's coming home to the Reich.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Come on home to the Reich, Come on home to
the Reich. Yeah yeah, but here's a problem. Sindler hated
the Nazis predictably. Predictably, Yeah, I mean they totally came
into his country, took it over, tried to change everything
about his way of life, including trying to smash his
(10:47):
football club in with the German football club that sucked
by the way Germany was not good.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Can I call it soccer? I'm just going to call
it soccer.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, just call it soccer. As a matter of fact,
we have a fun firebomb to throw for you ridiculous historians.
If you were football or soccer fan, factual Molotov cocktail,
it might be a bit in in injury for some people.
I found this article in The Atlantic called why Americans
call soccer soccer? By Uri Friedman. It's a British term,
(11:18):
It got a US term, and we here in the
States picked it up from England. The word soccer originated
in England, fell into disuse there, and became dominant in
the States. And there's some people who have studied this
who found. What they did is they looked at the
frequency with which the words football and soccer appeared in
(11:39):
American and British news outlets dating back to nineteen hundred.
Soccer was a recognized term for the game we're describing
for the first half of the twentieth century, but it
wasn't widely used until after World War Two, when it
became interchangeable with the phrase football and sometimes used together soccer.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Football Okay, but I'm an American. I'm an American. I'm
proud of it.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
So I call hitting that that ball with you hit
your foot with the ball game, I'm gonna call it soccer,
so just as not to confuse, you know, because I
don't want to say American football.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
That sounds ridiculous, so you should to say it.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
In a British accent, exactly say American football, although the.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Fact the Brits have been dominant in the sport since
the very beginning.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
And I want to sew this up real quick, because
I'm sure this is going to interest several of you
ridiculous historians, especially if you've had an argument with one
of your friends across the pond about this. It traces
back to World War Two. Most likely American troops stationed
in the UK during the war came back and started
(12:46):
using that phrase and that led to a backlash against
the word in Britain. And now this word has completely
immigrated to the US.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Isn't that funny?
Speaker 2 (12:57):
If you still haven't given me the etymology, It's just
like it said about the socks, the knee socks, the
fact that you're socking the ball around with your foots.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
It's a shortening of association footballer.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
That's stupid. So soccer. That's the worst possible answer.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
But you can't. You can't go in and expect a
language to conform to what you as an individual.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I'm not mad at you, then, I didn't mean that
to come off like I was your fault. The origin
of soccer is so dull, but I'm disappointed.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I think it's fascinating.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
It is fascinating, Ben, you know what else is fascinating.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Back to Sindler, let's do it so again, super salty
about the Nazis coming in and invading his home turf
and trying to, you know, jam up his soccer club.
And so they this this game in question in what
do we say, April of nineteen thirty.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
April third, nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
That's right, it's meant to be, on paper, at least,
a celebration of the historical legacy of the Austrian Soccer Club.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And the last match that the team would have as
an independent Austrian team before it.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Gets smushed in with the far inferior German club.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
So they begin protesting the moment they hit the field.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Kind of yeah, well, what I had seen in an
amazing documentary from the BBC called Fascism and Football was
that it was very clear that the Austrians had been
told to.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Lose, Yeah, to throw the game, throw the match, to
show the symbolic or propagandistic importance of aligning with Germany.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And just one quick aside, one quote that I think
is so amazing from this documentary Fascism in Football.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Rather you can find the whole thing on YouTube and
it's just great.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Is the idea that sports were such a powerful tool
for propaganda because when you win, you win, and you
can't like, no one can accuse you of lying. Because
if you win and are dominant in a sport, then
that's just before everyone's very eyes. You are the clear,
you are the winner, you won, and you played by
the rules.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
It's what we today would refer to as optics.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Optics in that are.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
And so the star player of Austria's team, Sindolar.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
That's right, refuses to.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Go along with this plan. He says, I am not
going to pay obedience to this invading power, and furthermore,
I'm not going to cheapen the most important thing in
my life.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Well, and the funny thing is too, like, yes, you're
absolutely right, he definitely did not go along with it,
and that he did not look like he was trying
very hard. He made it very clear that he was
just kind of farting along, very lacklusterly.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Right. I think he was like shaking his head and
disdain kind of.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
And refuse to wear the uniforms. They were supposed to
wear their traditional white and black. They replaced it with
Uncindolar's orders. More or less, the Austrians played in red
white red outfits the national flag's colors. Yikes, And yeah,
like you're saying, the audience knew something was up because
(16:11):
it seemed like they just weren't trying. They were just
farting around until what the last twenty minutes.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, and then Simla the Paperman scored one of two.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Goals and Carl Cesta got the second one, who.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
I think was his bestie.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I think I think they were like really really close,
And yeah, they totally totally humiliated. The Nazis apparently kind
of did one of those like end zone kind of
cocky yeah, cock of the walk kind of dances right
in front of like can you imagine the scene Ben.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
The stands full of Nazi officials.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
High senior Nazi dignitaries, and they celebrated extravagantly. They owned
the moment because they really had publicly humiliated these officials.
And it's we don't have solid historical proof of this,
so this is entirely speculation on my part. But I
(17:08):
would not be surprised if some of those pro Nazi forces,
knowing in theory the outcome of the game, had decided
to gamble on it a bit.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
So they were out money, but more importantly, they were
out public credibility.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Oh absolutely. And here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
As you might imagine, Sindler was made persona non grata
at that point. He was declared in their internal Gestapo
memos on him that declared him pro Jewish, among other
death sentence worthy distinctions.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Like a social democrat.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
That's it. That's right.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
About within the year or within a year after these events,
he was dead at the age.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Of thirty five under the most suspicious circumstances. I think
he had been out partying that night and gambling in.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
A coffee shop that he was a part owner of,
or the guy that talks about his buddy in the
documentary referred to it as his coffee shop. I'm not
sure if that was just a translation thing or if
it was just like the place where they would all
hang out. They were gambling, playing cards, a lot of
money was on the table, and a lot of drinking,
and then he went back with his girlfriend to her apartment,
(18:19):
and you know, YadA, YadA, YadA, one thing led to another.
They go to sleep and they never wake up because
they died of carbon Actually, she ended up in a
coma that she never recovered from, and he died in
his sleep of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Which was recorded as an accident. Why because yeah, because
according to Egon Olbrich, a lifelong friend of Sindelar, he's the.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
Guy I was talking about that, I was talking about
the gambling night.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah, yeah, he says in the documentary, And then also
in an article called football Fascism in England's Nazi Salute
on the BBC by Jonathan Duffy, he says that the
truth of the story was that a local official was
bribed to record Sendelar's death as an accident, ensuring that
(19:06):
he would receive a state funeral. Because we have a
great quote from Oldbric about this. Because Nazis have particular
rules about.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
This, that's right, This is the quote. According to the
Nazi rules, a person who had been murdered or who
has committed suicide cannot be given a grave of honor.
So we had to do something to ensure that the
criminal element involved in his death was removed. That's wild man.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
And it continued escalating. Yeah, the Germans were very very
serious about the value of propaganda, and from their perspective,
this sort of insolence could not stand. So it's pretty
obvious that he was murdered, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And did we mention the fact that for a while,
as the Nazis rose to power. Maybe this is obvious
to everybody but me, they kind of masked their awful
racist ways totally.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
They didn't reveal the full.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Nature of their final solution, or their idea of you know.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Pulling up the Jews and the Roma people, or any
of the just horrible, horrible racist leanings until a good
bit later.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
And this was still during that time where obviously they
meant business, but the true nature of their evil was
not on full display yet.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Well, it was also in that time. This is an
unfortunate and ugly truth in that time, anti Semitism was widespread,
we know, just in the GM pop Yeah, just like
throughout Europe. Definitely, also clearly in the US, and the
same prejudices applied to Roma as well and other quote
(20:42):
unquote you know, subversive elements or what they would call deviance.
So these people, this group had existed throughout various countries
in Europe for centuries, right, And the shocking racism, the
anti semitism, the iron clad and puritanical attitudes about sex
(21:07):
were normal. If you read a German textbook about the
concept of living space for the German people, it's not
that different from many other textbooks of the time that
also argued the innate superiority of certain ethnic groups and
it might change during the country. So people didn't know.
(21:27):
I think the point you're making this really important is
people did not know that there was genocide on the horizon. Privately,
members of the Nazi regime were already thinking of ways
to forcibly deport elements of the population they didn't improve up,
and they were trying to figure out where to put them,
(21:49):
like would it be Madagascar, would it be some other country?
And then eventually, as we know, this led to one
of the most horrific occurrences in human history.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
God, and I hate to get political about it, but
it feels like when you start reading about the early
stages of the Nazi takeover and the kind of rhetoric,
the kind of this nationalistic rhetoric, while not overtly racist,
very dog whistle racist in a very similar way that.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
We're experiencing in our country right now.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
And it scares the crap out of me reading this
and thinking about history repeating in multiple countries.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Right. Absolutely, So we've got this, We've got.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
This context with Sindelar, who now we know was murdered,
but originally.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
We don't really know. I mean, yeah, but you can't
it couldn't.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Come on, You're right, we don't know for sure.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Dosier those those classifications. I mean, he was everyone says
that was a death sentence.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Somebody had their eye on him, and not in a
good way. So in this in this context, we have
the precedent for protests, and then we have the precedent
for sport events overall, especially football, soccer, football, soccer, whatever
you want to call it. We see this as a
(23:06):
medium for propagandistic communication. Let's get back to this concept
of appeasement. Now, let's talk a little bit about Neville Chamberlain.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yeah, and how far this idea of appeasement went in
the way it played out on what the Brits referred
to as the soccer pitch.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Yeah. We talk a lot about media manipulation in the
modern day, but it was a known, tried and true
technique here in the nineteen thirties as well, So much
so that going back to May nineteen thirty eight, the
(23:50):
fourteenth of May, English soccer players traveled to Germany to
play the German team in a soccer match.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
That's right, minus yeah, minus. There were Ace and the
whole Sindler who was still living at this time, but
he refused, probably another reason he was blacklist in the
way he was had to add insult to injury. He
refused to play for the new combined Austrian Germany team,
which obviously was just called the German team. He said
(24:22):
he cited old age, but he was like thirty five,
I think, yeah, and also simultaneously injury, so it was
just a bit of a f you to old you know, fear.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
So let's set the scene, casey, could we have maybe
the sound of a of a crowd at a at
a soccer match, more than one hundred thousand soccer fans
file into Berlin's Olympic Stadium and the countries. At this point,
everybody knows war is escalating. Things are ratcheting up right
(24:52):
big time. And these countries, Britain and Germany are still
playing nice. They don't trust the each other, but they're
still going through the motions and the gestures of diplomacy
and swastikas and British flags or flying side by side.
The German national anthem is being played over the speakers,
but on the field below. If you can imagine this
(25:15):
in your mind, fellow historians, something very strange occurs. The
German and the British players raise their arms in the
infamous Nazi salute.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
The hile right here the Cliff.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
Cup final enthusiasm prevails in Berlin when England beat Germany
on the soccer field. All the curtaincies are observed before
the stop God.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Save the King is paid.
Speaker 5 (25:43):
And the English team in white shirts give the Nazi
salute during the German national anthem. One hundred and fifteen
thousand spectator's pack.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
So that was newsreel footage from the Associated Press on
the day of this infamous event, and it's purported eerily
in a matter of fact kind of way, but there
was a lot of controversies around in this game because
by this point, if not their full final solution, level,
complete and utter evilness was on display. People knew that
(26:14):
the Nazis were fascists oh yeah, and big time yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
And the British press, despite efforts at media manipulation to
make the population pro appeasement, the British press had had enough,
absolutely outrage and there was even more insult to injury
because it turned out, despite this gesture on the part
of the English team, Adolf Hitler wasn't even at the game.
It wasn't present. They were just saluting the idea of Nazis.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
No, it's true.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
In fact, I think the very first game he ever attended,
or earlier in this story, the Germans lost to I
think it was the Netherlands or a smaller team that
was seen as being less skilled than the German team.
So and he was really irritated about that. He didn't
always make appearances, but no, he was not at this game.
(27:04):
And the thing is, the Germans did lose this game.
They got They're brought worst handed to them by the Brits, who, again,
as we said, were pretty damn dominant in the sport.
There's an interview in this documentary with the guys like, yeah,
it wasn't really that big of a surprise because pretty
much everyone lost to the UK.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Oh yeah, can we play that guy's clip? I just
love his voice.
Speaker 6 (27:29):
To lose to England at that time was nothing unusual
because basically everybody lost to the British team at the time.
So I think for Hitler, the propaganda effect of that
game was a lot more important than everything else.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Right, they were known to be one of the best
teams on the planet. They won the game six to three,
six England three Germany. And the weird thing about the
scor is it was somewhat of a footnote because the
thing everybody was focusing on was this bizarre attempt at diplomacy.
(28:07):
It wasn't spontaneous on the part of the English team.
Neville Chamberlain had in advance told them to do it,
and from what we understand, the intent of this was
to make nice and show that Germany was not considered
to be a quote, pariah state, despite the fact that
(28:28):
they pacmanned up Austria.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
And that was also kind of part of Germany's propagandistic
way of looking at this was to show that hey,
we're just like you. We like to play sport, and
we like to goose step around in our strange Nazi uniforms,
and I all, wait, something's wrong here?
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Surecase our superior.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Because I want to go back a little way, just
because I think this is a really important point. The
real stage set for Hitler's use of sport in this
way was the nineteen thirty six Olympics, the Berlin Olympics,
which is super interesting because that was like a world stage.
(29:12):
Everyone's watching, it's in Berlin. Hitler's there. He used it
as an opportunity to showcase, like you said, the efficiency,
the militaristic might of the Nazi state. But there was
a little kink in Hitler's idea here of showcasing the
you know, might and prowess of the Aryan supremacy or
(29:34):
what have you. This mythos he was trying to create.
When Jesse Owens, an African American competitor, won four gold medals,
that's right.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Then, four gold medals.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
It was in the one hundred meter two hundred meters
long jump in for by one hundred meter relay race,
just completely in front of God and everyone crushing that idea.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
And Hitler was none too pleased, right, which is which.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Is weird because this is such an iconic moment, and
you know we're going to brag a little bit. Jesse
Owens is American, So take that, Nazis and do you
like how I bragging is if we had anything to
do with it. Yeah, But there's an interesting tidbit here
because so this occurs in August of nineteen thirty six.
(30:21):
August first, I think is the first day of competition.
There was a newspaper editor named Robert L. Van, himself
African American, who was at the scene, and in an
article dated to August fourth, nineteen thirty six, he says,
wonder of wonders, I saw harr Adolph Hitler salute the lad.
(30:43):
I looked on with a heart which beat proudly, as
the lad who was crowned king of the one hundred
meters event, got an ovation the like of which I
had never heard before. I saw Jesse Owens greeted by
the Grand Chancellor of this country as a brilliant son
peeped out through the clouds. I saw a vast crowd
of some eighty five thousand or ninety thousand peace people
stand up and cheer him to the echo. And that
(31:03):
is winning hearts and minds, isn't it. I think it's
so easy to underestimate the importance that these sorts of
events can play in human history.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Oh absolutely, yeah, no, because the people.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
I mean, I've seen pieces and whole you know, papers
written about the idea of sports as a religion. People
put as much credence in you know, baseball players and
basketball player as they do and you know.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
God right like King James the name for Lebron.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Because it's a stand in for our hopes and dreams.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
You know, even if it's sort of a false dichotomy,
and it's because you win a soccer game as a
country doesn't really translate in reality to your might or prowess.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
It's sort of a microcosmic view of that, which.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Is why so many countries spend so much money and
time and occasionally so much effort at skullduggery when it
comes to winning international sports competitions. I have a thing
I'd like your take on goal and you as well, folks,
do you think sport, the concept of sports games. Do
(32:12):
you feel like it has taken in the most powerful
parts of religion, the most powerful parts of war, and
the most powerful parts of economy. I feel like it has.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
I think you just answered your own question. Ben, that's
I mean, what do you think though? I think it's
a very no.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
I think that is an astute point, and I think
that's absolutely true. And I think we see that too
with what we open the show with the idea of
the power that these players have, and when it doesn't
jive with the money behind the power, or like the
organizational power behind the scenes, there can be issues. Sometimes
(32:48):
it involves people getting carbon monoxide poisoned to death in
their sleep. Sometimes it involves getting you know, players being
suspended for taking a knee during a national anthem. It's
just interesting the way politics and sports can be so intertwined.
And I think it all goes back to even earlier
than this. This is just probably the biggest, most obvious
(33:10):
political example that we have. But to your point, Ben,
as far back as the Romans and gladiators and bred
and circuses and all that, sport has always been a
powerful tool to manipulate the minds of the people. And
manipulate maybe is the wrong word. I don't know, what
do you think.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I feel like manipulate is a perfect word for this. Also,
we have to point out spoiler alert for World War
two everyone, so I tune out if you don't, if
you don't want to get spoiled for this. We have
to point out that Chamberlain's in Britain's appeasement policy did
not work. No, it was just a little more than
(33:50):
a year before tensions broke a war began, correct, Noal.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Yeah, it was September of nineteen thirty nine. The Nazis
invaded Poland and that was just a bridge too far
for the Allies. They'd finally had enough. The Germans leagued
up with the Soviets to partition Poland into their own
separate spheres of influence. And that, my friend, is the
story of how World War two really began in earnest
(34:20):
and that's the story for another time.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
No, I really enjoyed this episode, Nolan. I hate to
close so soon. Hey, what do you say we do
a little bit of listener mail?
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Huge fan?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
So the first one I want to pull from a
Facebook post that is a really good summary of a
myriad of emails we got Facebook posts. Some few people
slid into our dms on Instagram and facebook them.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
By the way, thanks for writing us folks.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
No doubt, but they very gingerly shredded us on our
pronunciaation of a few Philadelphia, philadelphiasms.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Let's say it together, three to one school kill.
Speaker 7 (35:09):
Only some people that even quibble with that one, which
is why it makes me feel good about it. This
guy says, laughing at Ben Bowling and Noel Brown butchering
school kill River. I believe we said combination of shoy
kill school kill whatever it was wrong.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
This guy, John C.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Says it's pronounced school all caps dash kill.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
And then added you added John a smiling, laughing emoji,
so we knew that we hadn't fatally offend you.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
No, he shredded us with love, and then Ben, as
as we're wont to do on Ridiculous Historians, posted a
delightful response saying we murdered that pronunciation so hard that
this episode counts as true crime.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
Hey, thanks for he says, thanks for listening as well for.
Speaker 8 (35:58):
The valuable correction. Thanks for you just quoted me, did
you to yourself, you did, I love it. That's weird,
but yeah, but check out this thread. This is part
of the reason why we love the Ridiculous Historian's page,
because some of your fellow listeners didn't just point out
(36:19):
the correct or accepted pronunciation of this river.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Some of them also began bantering back and forth, disagreeing
on their own ideas about pronunciation right big time.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
And then we had one Oliver C pop in with
a little Georgia centric thing saying, here in Georgia they
call the Old Muddy River oak mulgi, oak muggy, oak mugi,
and that's spelled o c m u l g e e.
But the funny thing is, I am from Georgia and
I've always said oak mulgi and I've heard it pronounced
it that way. But whatever you say, and then ghee
(36:53):
like clarified butter okmulgi. Okay, no, no, that's right, oak mulgy,
that's right, I've heard of that way. And what you
would think would be Houston County is actually Houston County.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Which I've noticed. Yeah, that happened to me one time.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Yeah. And then we've got a guy Rob s saying
Jersey born and raised here. I always heard it as
school kill. Yes, drop the.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
L and John C comes back in in the thread
and says, I don't know if Philadelphians have much room
to talk about pronunciation, and he shared this fascinating Washington
Post article about the unique Philadelphia accent, which I highly
recommend you check out, like.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Woodter ice, yeah, which is basically like what like a
like a freeze pop or like kind of Italian ice, beach.
Speaker 4 (37:38):
Tolls, beach talls.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yet, and we've got a question that I think will
interest a lot of us in the audience, and it
is this, what are the strangely pronounced places, landmarks or
things in your neck of the woods. Because, for instance,
you know there is Worcester in Massachusetts, right, which is
(38:02):
completely not pronounced how it SAPs spelled.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
There's a there's Peabody in Boston, I believe, or in
Masters as well, where it's apparently Peabody Pitty Pbdy, which
is another county or town in in in Massachusetts. Yeah,
so it takes all kinds.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
Let us know.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
We want to hear We're not exaggerating, we want to
hear the weirdest ones. Who knows you You may save
us from uh you may you may save us from
a future internet post.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
You know what.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Bring it on, babies, I love it. Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
So we want to thank you, of course for journeying
with us through this story of sports and protest and appeasement.
We want to thank Casey Pegram and we want to
thank Christopher hasiotis our research associate who hipped us to
this story.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
Do you have a sound effect yet?
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Now let's see who else do we think? Oh, Alex
Williams track and you Noel Brown, I'd like to thank
you too, man oh boy. So stay tuned for our
next episode where he delve into a strange story about Heineken,
which was actually really inspiring to me.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
Heineken that paps blue ribbon?
Speaker 1 (39:23):
All right, yeah, well, I mean it takes all beers.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Uh you know, I'm a PBR man.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Yeah, you're you are a PBR man.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
But you know what, You can't build a hut out
of PBR cans.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Oh well you could, it just wouldn't be as cool.
Now what the heck are we talking about? You may
be asking yourself. Tune in to find out. In the meantime,
you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
We're about to roll out that Pinterest page.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
I think that's I'm doing a vision board. I'm keeping
an analog bro.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
I really, yeah, you're done. You're off the net.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
No, the vision board at least is it's just it's
a wall in my house and I just paste up
different pictures. I've been going through a laser tag phase.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
That's oh cool, like like like you're gonna go laser
tag fashion from here on out.
Speaker 4 (40:11):
You're gonna come to work looking like Tron and stuff.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
That would be cool. Are you in? You're interested in this?
Speaker 4 (40:15):
Sure? Man, I'll try anything. You know, a bunch of times.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
In the meantime, if you don't want to do any
of that stuff, which you should, you can also join
the Facebook group Ridiculous Historians, or you can send us
a good old fashion email at ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(40:41):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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