Football and the Buchenwald concentration camp

In the summer of 2024, the European Men's Football Championship, the UEFA EURO 2024, will take place in Germany. The Buchenwald Memorial is taking this as an opportunity to highlight the links between football and the history of the Buchenwald concentration camp for the first time. The specially created blog Football and Buchenwald Concentration Camp and an outdoor exhibition shed selected light on the topic.

The seizure of power by the National Socialists in 1933 and the so-called Anschluss of Austria to the German Reich five years later meant the end of the careers of many, especially Jewish footballers and club officials, and the beginning of marginalisation and persecution. Other footballers and football enthusiasts fell into the clutches of the persecutors for various reasons, for example because they resisted the National Socialists in German-occupied Europe.

The SS allowed some prisoners to play football in the concentration camp from time to time. For them, sport offered the opportunity to escape the daily camp routine and its dangers - even if only briefly.

Last but not least, the exhibition sheds light on the importance of sport and football for the Buchenwald SS. From 1939, it took part in the sporting life of the city of Weimar with its own football team.