When

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

was declared in 1939, it had a negative effect on

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

; competitions were suspended and players signed up to fight, resulting in the deaths of many players.

League football

Austria

The Republic of

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

had ceased to exist with the ''

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

'' in 1938 and the Austrian league had become a part of the

German football league system The German football league system, or league pyramid, refers to the hierarchically interconnected league system for Football in Germany, association football in Germany that in the 2016–17 Season (sports), season consisted of 2,235 Sports_leag ...

, under the name of

Gauliga Ostmark The Gauliga Ostmark, renamed Gauliga Donau-Alpenland in 1941, was the highest football league in Austria after its annexation by Germany in 1938. Shortly after the occupation, the Nazis reorganised the administrative regions in Austria, and the se ...

. League football resumed in a now independent Austria again in 1945.

England

The 1939–1940 season was the 65th season of competitive football in England. In September 1939, shortly after

was declared, most football competitions were abandoned as the country's attention turned to the war effort. Regional league competitions were set up instead as there was a 50 mile limit for travelling implemented by the government during this time. Appearances in these tournaments do not count in players' official records. A few leagues, such as the Northern League, did manage to complete a season, but more than half of the teams were unable to fulfil all their fixtures and resigned. Many footballers signed up to fight in the warFootball and the Second World War

Spartacus Educational Spartacus Educational is a free online encyclopedia with essays and other educational material on a wide variety of historical subjects principally British history from 1700 and the history of the United States. Based in the United Kingdom, Spart ...

, September 1997 and as a result many teams were depleted, and fielded guest players instead –

Crystal Palace Crystal Palace may refer to: Places Canada * Crystal Palace Complex (Dieppe), a former amusement park now a shopping complex in Dieppe, New Brunswick * Crystal Palace Barracks, London, Ontario * Crystal Palace (Montreal), an exhibition building ...

fielded 186 different players during the seven wartime seasons. The FA Cup was resumed for the 1945–46 season and

The Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

for the 1946-47 season.

Germany

The 1939–40 season started in August 1939, but with the outbreak of the Second World War shortly after, league football was suspended. It only resumed at the end of October, with a number of local city-championships having been played to bridge the gap. As the war progressed, top-division football became more regionalised. It also expanded into occupied territories, some of them annexed into Greater Germany, increasing the number of tier-one ''Gauligas'' considerably from the original 16 in 1933. The last German championship was played in 1944 and won by

Dresdner SC Dresdner Sportclub 1898 e.V., known simply as Dresdner SC, is a German multisport club playing in Dresden, Saxony. Founded on 30 April 1898, the club was a founding member of the German Football Association (Deutscher Fussball Bund) in 1900. Th ...

, but the last official league game was played as late as 23 April 1945, being the

FC Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), also known as FC Bayern (), Bayern Munich, or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional men's football team, which play ...

versus

TSV 1860 Munich , commonly known as TSV 1860 München (; lettered as ) or 1860 Munich, is a sports club based in Munich. The club's football team currently plays in the 3. Liga, the third tier of German football. 1860 Munich was one of the founding members o ...

derby in the Gauliga Oberbayern, ending 3–2. The final years of league football saw the rise of military teams, like

LSV Hamburg Luftwaffen-SV Hamburg (literally: Airforce sports club Hamburg) was a short-lived military German association football club active during World War II and is notable as the most successful of the wartime military sides. History Military spor ...

, who reached the 1944 German championship final, since most top-players were drafted into the

German armed forces The ''Bundeswehr'' (, meaning literally: ''Federal Defence'') is the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. The ''Bundeswehr'' is divided into a military part (armed forces or ''Streitkräfte'') and a civil part, the military part con ...

and played for these sides. Representative teams like the

Rote Jäger The ''Rote Jäger'' (''Red Hunters'') were a short-lived German military football club active during World War II (August 1943 – November 1944). The team was assembled by Hermann Graf, a fighter ace and commander of German fighter pilots. B ...

also had a number of German internationals playing for them. With the end of the war, ethnic German football clubs in the parts of Germany that were awarded to

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

disappeared. Clubs like

VfB Königsberg VfB Königsberg was a German association football club from the city of Königsberg, East Prussia. The team played its home games at the Sportplatz des Vereins für Bewegungs Spiele near the Maraunenhof Stadtgärtnerei, aside from 1940 to 1941 w ...

and

Vorwärts-Rasensport Gleiwitz Vorwärts-Rasensport Gleiwitz was a German association football club from the city of Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, today Gliwice, Poland. __TOC__ History The team had its origins within the gymnastics club ''Turnverein Vorwärts Gleiwitz'' estab ...

, who had successfully competed in the German championship on many occasions disappeared for good. In

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, where the ethnic German minority in the ''

Sudetenland The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and sk, Sudety) is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the ...

'' was forced to leave the country, clubs experienced the same fate. A few, like

BSK Neugablonz The BSK Olympia Neugablonz is a Football in Germany, German association football club from the Neugablonz suburb of the city of Kaufbeuren, Bavaria. The suburb of Neugablonz in Kaufbeuren was formed after the Second World War, when Expulsion of ...

, were reformed by these refugees in

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

. Some of the events of the war continued to affect German football. Within the first two weeks of the re-development of the Mercedes-Benz Arena in 2009, home of the

VfB Stuttgart Verein für Bewegungsspiele Stuttgart 1893 e. V., commonly known as VfB Stuttgart (), is a German sports club based in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg. The club's football team is currently part of Germany's first division, the Bundesliga. VfB Stu ...

, 18 undetonated bombs left over from air raids on

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

were found on the construction site. The stadium was originally built, like so many others in Germany, on rubble left over from the war.

Italy

The Italian

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

continued to operate during the war, up until

1943 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 – WWII: The Soviet Union announces that 22 German divisions have been encircled at Stalingrad, with 175,000 killed and 137,650 captured. * January 4 – ...

. A regional championship was played in 1944, before resumption of the league in a limited form in

1945 1945 marked the end of World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. It is also the only year in which nuclear weapons have been used in combat. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. Januar ...

Scotland

The

Scottish Football League The Scottish Football League (SFL) was a league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4 km south ...

and

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Rangers, who won the 1939–40 Scottish War Emergency League and all of the six Southern League tournaments played, plus four of six Southern League Cups, the one-off

Scottish War Emergency Cup The Scottish War Emergency Cup was a temporary competition held at the start of the Second World War, due to the suspension of the Scottish Cup by the SFA. It was held between February and May in 1940, the competition involved all sixteen League cl ...

in 1940, one of five Summer Cups and the one-off

Victory Cup The Rugby League Victory Cup is a rugby league tournament held in Russia between its national team and those of France, the USA, and a British amateur side. Officially it is organized and funded by the Russian Rugby Football League (RRFL); unoffic ...

in 1946.

Switzerland

Football was affected less in World War II than it was during World War I.

International football

England

England played 29 unofficial wartime internationals between 11 November 1939 and 5 May 1945, 14 against Wales and 15 against Scotland.

Germany

With the outbreak of the Second World War,

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

did not cease to play internationals but was limited to neutral, axis and puppet states. Its first war international was held on 24 September 1939, a loss to

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

. Altogether, the country played 35 international games during the war, its last on 22 November 1942, against

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

Scotland

Scotland played 19 unofficial wartime internationals between 2 December 1939 and 24 August 1946, 17 against England and one each against Wales and Northern Ireland.

Wales

Wales played seventeen wartime unofficial matches for which the players were not awarded caps, and a further six matches in aid of war charities.

Football for morale

Football was seen as a morale booster during the horrors of

, for both soldiers and civilians.

Tom Finney Sir Thomas Finney (5 April 1922 – 14 February 2014) was an English international footballer who played from 1946 to 1960 as a winger or centre forward for Preston North End and England. He is widely acknowledged to have been one of the s ...

captained Army football teams, and organised friendly matches in Austria and Egypt.

Effects on footballers

Soldiers

Some players, such as Norman Corbett, have expressed the opinion that the War ruined their careers. Many German players, drafted into the ''Wehrmacht'', saw their careers shortened or interrupted.

Fritz Walter Friedrich "Fritz" Walter (, ; 31 October 1920 – 17 June 2002) was a German footballer who spent his entire senior career at 1. FC Kaiserslautern. He usually played as an attacking midfielder or inside forward. In his time with the Germany a ...

, captain of the 1954 World Cup-winning team of Germany who made his debut for the country during the war in 1940, missed many years of his career due to serving in the military from 1942 and spending time as a

POW A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war ...

after the war. Fritz Walter served as a

paratrooper A paratrooper is a military parachutist—someone trained to parachute into a military operation, and usually functioning as part of an airborne force. Military parachutists (troops) and parachutes were first used on a large scale during World ...

and also spent time in a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

labour camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...

. Many German football clubs suffered heavy casualties from

Hitler's Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

war. An amateur club like SVO Germaringen saw ten of its eleven players that had won a local youth championship in 1940 not return from the battle fields.

TSV 1860 Rosenheim TSV 1860 Rosenheim is a German association sport club from the town of Rosenheim, Bavaria. The origins of the club are in the establishment of the gymnastics club and community fire brigade ''Freiwillige Turnerfeuerwehr Rosenheim'' on 20 Octobe ...

had 170 of its club members drafted into military service, of those, 44 were killed in action and another 15 are missing. Those that did return found the clubs facilities completely destroyed by air raids on the town in October 1944 and April 1945.

Rosenheim Rosenheim is a city in Bavaria, Germany. It is an independent city located in the centre of the district of Rosenheim (Upper Bavaria), and is also the seat of its administration. It is located on the west bank of the Inn at the confluence of the ...

was on an important rail- and road intersection.

The Holocaust

A number of Jewish footballers were murdered during

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

, and the Jewish association football scene, once very prominent and influential in international football, was destroyed. The Hungarian Jewish international footballer

József Braun József Braun (also known as József Barna; 26 February 1901 – 20 February 1943) was a Hungarian Olympic footballer who played as a half back. Braun began his career in Hungary before finishing it in the American Soccer League. He earned 2 ...

was murdered in a Nazi labor camp in 1943, and the Hungarian football manager

Árpád Weisz Árpád Weisz (; also spelt ''Veisz''; 16 April 1896 – 31 January 1944) was a Hungarian Olympic association football, football player and manager. Weisz was Jewish, and was murdered with his wife and children by the Nazis during the Holocaust i ...

was murdered at

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

in 1944. Henrik Nádler was murdered in

Buchenwald concentration camp Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...

. Julius Hirsch, the first Jewish player to represent the German national team, was murdered at

, being legally declared dead in May 1945. Hirsch had served for four years in the German Army in the First World War, had been decorated with the

Iron Cross The Iron Cross (german: link=no, Eisernes Kreuz, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). King Frederick William III of Prussia est ...

and was a German patriot, unable and unwilling to believe that his life could be at risk. However, some people also survived the concentration camps. Leo Goldstein survived the camps to become a FIFA international referee. Goldstein is also a member of the

National Soccer Hall of Fame The National Soccer Hall of Fame is a private, non-profit institution established in 1979 and currently located in Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The Hall of Fame honors soccer achievements in the United States. Induction ...

. Hungarian coach

Alfréd Schaffer Alfréd Schaffer (13 February 1893 – 30 August 1945) was a Hungarian international footballer. He is recorded as having played for a record number of clubs: 21 in a 15-year career which lasted from 1910 to 1925. Career Born in Budapest, he ...

was interned at Dachau, and was liberated by the Allies. He died naturally in the nearby town of

Prien am Chiemsee Prien am Chiemsee (official: , High German [], Bavarian (local) dialect []) is a municipality in the Upper Bavarian Rosenheim (district), district of Rosenheim in Germany. The town is a certified Luftkurort, air and Sebastian Kneipp, Kneipp spa o ...

a few months later.

Collaborationism

Some footballers also collaborated with the Nazis.

Alexandre Villaplane Alexandre Villaplane (24 December 1904 – 27 December 1944) was a French football player who played as a midfielder. He played for France at the 1928 Summer Olympics and captained the national team at the 1930 FIFA World Cup. Villaplane was ...

, who was captain of the French national side, worked actively with the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

and eventually became a SS lieutenant. He was executed in December 1944. The Estonian international goalkeeper

Evald Mikson Evald Mikson ( is, Eðvald Hinriksson), ( – 27 December 1993) was a goalkeeper in the Estonian national football team, winning seven caps between 1934 and 1938. Mikson played a controversial role as a collaborator during his service in the ...

was accused by the

Simon Wiesenthal Center The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) is a Jewish human rights organization established in 1977 by Rabbi Marvin Hier. The center is known for Holocaust research and remembrance, hunting Nazi war criminals, combating anti-Semitism, tolerance educat ...

(in particular by

Efraim Zuroff Efraim Zuroff ( he, אפרים זורוף; born August 5, 1948) is an American-born Israeli historian and Nazi hunter who has played a key role in bringing indicted Nazi and fascist war criminals to trial. Zuroff, the director of the Simon Wiese ...

) of committing serious war crimes against

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

s during the War, when he was working as Deputy Head of Police in

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ' ...

Decorated footballers

Scottish footballer

Willie Thornton William Thornton MM (3 March 1920 – 26 August 1991) was a Scottish footballer and manager. Thornton's entire senior playing career was spent with Rangers, and Thornton is considered to be one of the greatest players in the club's history. ...

won the

Military Medal The Military Medal (MM) was a military decoration awarded to personnel of the British Army and other arms of the armed forces, and to personnel of other Commonwealth countries, below commissioned rank, for bravery in battle on land. The award ...

, while German goalkeeper

Bert Trautmann Bernhard Carl "Bert" Trautmann EK OBE BVO (22 October 1923 – 19 July 2013) was a German professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper for Manchester City from 1949 to 1964. In August 1933, (aged 9), he joined the Jungvolk, the junior ...

won a total of five medals, including an

. English player

Harry Goslin Henry Goslin MC, (9 November 1909 – 18 December 1943) was an English footballer who played as a defender for Bolton Wanderers for the whole of his professional career. Born in Willington, Durham, he was signed from Nottingham amateur foot ...

, who with the entire

Bolton Wanderers Bolton Wanderers Football Club () is a professional football club based in Horwich, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in . The club played at Burnden Park for 102 years from 1895 after moving from their original home at Pike's ...

team had enlisted as one just before the war, had received the

Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC i ...

before he died of wounds in Italy.

Former players killed in action

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Association Football During World War Ii

Association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

League football

Austria

England

Germany

Italy

Scotland

Switzerland

International football

England

Germany

Scotland

Wales

Football for morale

Effects on footballers

Soldiers

The Holocaust

Collaborationism

Decorated footballers

Former players killed in action

See also

References