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Sport: force for unification

Sports have played an important and honorable role in fostering the friendship between Israel and Germany.

21.04.2016
© picture-alliance­/Sven Simon - Eintracht Frankfurt - Maccabi Tel-Aviv FC

The friendship between Germany and Israel manifests itself in the economic, security and scientific areas. The importance of these areas should not be allowed to detract from the exceptional role played by sports in fostering the growth of ties between the two countries. In the aftermath of the horrible crimes perpetrated by the Nazis, scarcely any Israelis could envision in the years subsequent to the founding of the state of Israel the forging of any cultural or athletic ties with Germany. Case in point: Israel's government forbade its athletes attending 1952's Olympics in Helsinki the participation in any competitions in which they would face exclusively Germans.

This notwithstanding, sports soon became the driver of the reconciliation between Israel and Germany. In 1957, Willi Daume, the president of the German Sports Association, received an invitation – highly unusual in those days – to visit Israel. During his trip to Israel, Daume  set up the initial ties between German athletics and Israel's leading sports stars. Five years after Daume's visit, a delegation comprised of members of the State Athletics Association of North Rhine-Westphalia visited Israel. A year after that, a group of teachers and students from Cologne's Institute of Athletics visited the Wingate Institute. Located in Netanya, the Wingate Institute is Israel's leading institution of higher education in the field of athletics. The sustained strength of these contacts expressed itself in 1971's entering into of the first partnership between institutions of higher education in Germany and Israel.

An increasing number of encounters between athletes

The initiating in 1965 of diplomatic relations between the two countries and the Six Days War a year later changed Israel's opinion of Germany. It was in 1967 that Hapoel, Israel's Athletics Association (and affiliated with the country's trade unions), and Germany's Athletics Association of Young People set up links with each other. On  January, 1974, the governments of the two countries launched a large-scale exchange program. Support for it has been forthcoming from Germany's Federal Youth Plan. The program has enabled tens of thousands of young  athletes to get to know the respective other country. The success  of this program is due to the efforts undertaken by the German Sports Association and by Germany's National Olympics Committee (today: German Olympics Sports Association) – the parent organizations – and by specialized associations, state-level athletic leagues and a number of other groups.

The strengthening of ties between Germany and Israel in the area of athletics did, however, experience setbacks. A particularly decisive event was the attack upon Israel's team at the Olympics in  1972 in Munich. While the media was still pondering the question of culpability for it, Hapoel very deliberately sent the world a message. In 1972, it invited 150 German athletes – including Heidi Schüller, who had pronounced the Olympic oath in Munich – to its large-scale festival of athletics. The bridge formed by sports and extending between the two countries proved its resiliency. A decade later – in 1983 – a survivor of the Holocaust – Ralph Klein – returned to Germany. Klein had been appointed coach of Germany's national basketball team.

Football's special role

In the early years of the two countries' relationship, Israelis had kept their distance to Germany. This did not, however, apply to German football. It was as early as 1957 that Israel's Football Association began sending its best coaches to Germany, which had won the World Cup in 1954. The trainers' destination was C0logne, the home of the school for coaches maintained by Germany's DFB Football Association. The trainers were there to earn a diploma in coaching. One of the first “graduates”  from the school was  Emanuel Schaffer, who became a close friend of Hennes Weisweiler, his teacher. Schaffer managed what has remained a singular feat. He is the only coach to have qualified the Israeli national team for a World Cup. Israel played in the 1970 event in Mexico.

In July 1968, Weisweiler staged a widely-followed course for coaches. Venue was the Wingate Institute. At the end of 1968, Germany's young national team came to Israel for a training sojourn. It played two games against Israeli teams. No spectators were allowed to attend them – for “reasons of security”. The Israeli government's lifting of the ban led in mid-1969's “sweet summer”.  This summer featured the German team of FC Bayern Hof's – headed by Sammy Drechsel, a sports reporter and cabaret performer -  becoming the first German team to play in Israel. This led to several football teams playing in Israel's major league's heading to Germany. The next step was Israel's national team's going to Hennef, Germany. The team used the institute of athletics in the city as the venue for its preparations for the World Cup in Mexico. It was during this that the national football teams of Germany and Israel played their first match. It was staged in Frechen, a suburb of Cologne. This match has largely been forgotten. This is due to the German team's “only” being comprised of the amateurs selected to play at the Olympics. A representative of Germany's Ministry of the Interior declared at the match, which was attended by politicians and diplomats from the two countries, that relationships between Germany and Israel in the area of athletics had officially been commenced.

Fan clubs, young persons, Borussia

A spectacular highlight of German-Israeli football encounters came on February 25, 1970. Venue was Tel Aviv.  Headed by its coach Hennes Weisweiler, Borussia Mönchengladbach beat Israeli's national football team 6:0 – a match remaining in the collective memory of generations of Israeli football fans. Two attacks on airplanes had taken place prior to the match. To get the team from Borussia Mönchengladbach to Israel, Germany's air force – the Luftwaffe – lent an airplane.  Matches played by teams from Germany's Bundesliga in Israel became the norm in the years that followed. Uwe Klimaschefski became the first German to coach an Israeli team – in his case, Hapoel Haifa. Schmuel Rosenthal was the first Israeli to be given a berth on a Bundesliga team. He was recruited by  Borussia Mönchengladbach. The team's many years of dedication to fostering athletic and other ties and reconciliation between Germany and Israel led to its being conferred in 2014 the Future Prize of the Israel Foundation.

The national football associations of Germany and Israel share a thrust: promoting ties among the young. Germany's DFB dispatches youth teams on a regular basis to tournaments staged in Israel. These trips are to foster athletic excellence and remembrance of the past on the part of the young Germans, who visit Yad Vashem, the place of Holocaust remembrance in Jerusalem. Bundesliga matches are broadcast in Israel. Germany's major football teams have fan clubs in Israel.

There is no doubt that football has been a powerful driver of the transformation of Germany's image in Israel. The depth of support for Germany's national team found in Israel was put on display at the last two World Cups, which were held in South Africa and Brazil.

Dr. Manfred Lämmer is a professor of the history of athletics. He teaches at Germany's Institute of Athletics in Cologne. He was a member of the first group of German athletes to have been permitted to visit Israel after the Holocaust.

Dates and facts

1957

Willi Daume, president of the German Sports Association, visits Israel. While there, he confers a donation upon the GSA's counterpart in Israel.

1958/59

Emanuel Schaffer, a former member of Israel's national football team, participates in a  program preparing graduates to be coaches. The program is headed by Hennes Weisweiler. Venue is Cologne's Institute of Athletics.

1962

Helmut Rahn becomes the first German footballer to play against an Israeli team. Rahn's team at the time is the Netherlands' SC Enschede. Its opponent is Hapoel Tel Aviv. The match takes place in Israel. Rahn is famed for having shot the winning goal for the German national team at the World Cup in 1954. Rahn is accorded a friendly reception by the spectators.

1963

A delegation comprised of students at Cologne's Institute of Athletics – in a first - visits the Wingate Institute, its counterpart in Israel.

1967

A delegation comprised of athletics officials from the Hapoel association plays a match in Bonn. Its opponents are MPs from Germany's Bundestag.

July 1969

FC Bayern Hof becomes the first German football team to visit Israel. Its opponents are a team comprised of local players from Nahariya and Hapoel Petach Tikvah.

August 1969

Israel's national team spends three weeks preparing for the World Cup, which is to be held in 1970 in Mexico. Venue for the training program is the Athletics Institute in Hennef, Germany. The team plays test matches against Borussia Mönchengladbach and Germany's Olympics team.

1969–2008

Borussia Mönchengladbach plays a total of 27 friendly matches against Israeli teams.

February 1970

Borussia Mönchengladbach, a member of Germany's Bundesliga, plays against Israel's national team. Venue is Tel Aviv's Bloomfeld Stadium. Borussia Mönchengladbach wins 6:0. Despite this, the Israeli fans hail the German team's playing.

1970

Uwe Klimaschefski becomes the the first German to be named coach of an Israeli football team – Hapoel Haifa.

1970–1997

1. FC Cologne plays 13 friendly matches against Israeli teams.

1972

Borussia Mönchengladbach recruits Schmuel Rosenthal. He is the first Israel to play professional-level football in Germany.

1972

A terrorists' attack during the Olympics in Munich results in eleven members of the Israeli team's being murdered.

1983–1987

Ralph Klein, an Israeli, serves as coach of Germany's national basketball team. Klein was born in Berlin and survived the Holocaust.

March 1987

Tel Aviv is the venue for the first friendly between the A football teams of Israel and Germany.

December 2005

The DFB Golden Award is conferred upon Emanuel Schaffer for his services to German-Israeli relationships.

2008/2009

Lothar Matthäus, a former member of Germany's national football team, serves as coach of Maccabi Netanya.