Autor/Autorin
Major sporting events such as the Football World Cup are probably the biggest possible stage on which heads of state can show off the apparent superiority of their system to their own countrymen and the entire world public in a supposedly innocuous, almost playful setting. With a few exceptions, however, historical research in the context of dictatorship and propaganda research has so far hardly dealt with this topic.[1] Yet it is precisely the study of sport as the largest global mass culture of the 20th century that promises to uncover new and previously unfamiliar perspectives in these contexts.
These will be analysed here using the example of the 1978 World Cup in Argentina. This tournament plays a special role in the context of the issues relevant here in several respects: on the one hand, no major sporting event since the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin has been exploited so directly, bluntly and comprehensively for propaganda purposes. On the other hand, this was also the first time that a new counter-movement emerged from the ranks of civil society, which now also discovered and began to exploit the stage of the World Championships for its own purposes.
In the following, the 1978 World Cup will be analysed from the following three perspectives:
1) In what ways did the military regime in Argentina exploit the tournament for its own purposes and what success did it have in doing so?
2) How did the German public react to the planned organisation of the tournament and which groups can be distinguished?
3) How did the German Football Association behave in this matter and was it able to make its own mark?
Against the particular backdrop of the Helmstedt University Days, which, in addition to a purely historical-scientific perspective, always also make reference to contemporary socio-political discourse, a concluding look at current debates surrounding the staging of major sporting events will also be expanded at this point. In doing so, it will at least cross-sectionally outline what insights can be gained from the events of 45 years ago for today’s approach to dictatorships in international sport.
The 1978 FIFA World Cup had already been awarded to Argentina a full 12 years earlier. At the 35th Congress of FIFA on 6 July 1966 in London, immediately before the start of the World Cup in England, FIFA had reached a fundamental agreement to rotate the tournament between the European and Latin American continents in future editions.
Argentina, which had surprisingly failed to win the 1962 tournament by a clear 32-10 margin against Chile, was now seen by the association as the „almost logical venue“. It was the last remaining major football power on the continent that had not yet been awarded the Games[2].
Just a few weeks after this decision, the democratically elected president Arturo Umberto Illa was ousted from power in a military coup by General Juan Carlos Onganía. In the years that followed, Argentina was plunged into a maelstrom of ever-increasing political and economic crises. Domestic political trench warfare and escalating terrorism from left-wing and right-wing extremist organisations led to strong social tensions and great economic uncertainty.[3] Against this backdrop, no targeted efforts were initially made in the country itself for a long time to comprehensively organise the tournament.
It was not until 1973, after Juan Peron, who had recently returned from exile and been democratically elected, came to power, that an initial committee was set up to prepare for the games. However, when the country drifted back into deep domestic political crises just a few months later after Peron’s death, the World Cup preparations allegedly stagnated[4] and FIFA began to consider postponing the tournament. A combined Dutch-Belgian bid had already been launched within the European football association UEFA to replace Argentina at short notice[5].
It was the renewed coup by three military generals on 24 March 1976 that brought about the fundamental change: under their leader, the new president Jorge Videla, football was immediately accorded immense importance. This was already evident on the day of the takeover, when the regime occupied the public radio stations and had the entire previous programme stopped – with one exception: the Argentinian national team’s international match in Poland was broadcast live as originally planned[6].
In this context, the organisation of the World Cup was also given the greatest attention from then on and enormous political significance was attached to it: The tournament was intended to pacify Argentina internally and give the country new recognition throughout the world.[7] To this end, a new organising committee, the Ente Autárquico Mundial`78, was formed under the leadership of the military. In the following years, this committee pumped an estimated 700 million dollars – an incredible 10% (!) of the entire national budget and three times as much money as the next World Cup host, Spain, spent – into the expansion of the stadiums and infrastructure[8].
In addition, a New York PR agency was commissioned to provide the regime with good press around the world for many more millions of dollars.[9] At the same time, strict censorship laws were imposed on newspapers in the country in order to silence critical voices.[10] In short, football was supposed to whitewash the regime on both the national and international stage.
What the military government had initially announced as a fight against left-wing terrorist extremists soon turned into a merciless battle against all groups that did not toe the military line: Up to 30,000 people were arrested, tortured and in many cases killed during these years without any basis in the rule of law. They have gone down in Latin American history under the title „Desaparecidos“ (the disappeared), as in many cases their fates can no longer be traced to this day. These people included trade unionists who were fighting for wage increases, journalists who did not sympathise with the dictatorship and priests and nuns who were active in slums. The actual aim was to completely change the polarity of the entire Argentinian society using brutal military means[11].
These repressions initially attracted little or no attention in Germany. Unlike after the coup by General Augusto Pinochet in neighbouring Chile three years earlier, the military takeover in (West) Germany did not initially lead to any major public acts of solidarity, and certainly not to any public resolutions or notes of protest from the German government[12].
At this time, the social-liberal government under Helmut Schmidt was at the centre of its defensive struggle against the Red Army Faction, whose attacks had shaken German society to its core. The government was convinced that this terrorism involved globally active groups that could only be combated with far-reaching international co-operation.[13] It therefore also believed that it had to work with regimes such as Argentina in order to combat terror effectively. To this end, principles of the rule of law and human rights issues were pushed aside and overridden, even by a social-liberal government.
This first came to light in spring 1977 in the case of the German student Elisabeth Käsemann . The daughter of the renowned Tübingen theology professor Ernst Käsemann had been active in Rudi Dutschke’s circle in 1968 and emigrated to Argentina a few years later to become involved in left-wing social projects. After Videla came to power, she also came under general suspicion, was arrested and mistreated. The German government learnt of her imprisonment and torture at an early stage. Nevertheless, they refrained from public or even sustained informal support for their own citizen because they mistakenly believed her to be a terrorist[14].
In this context, Bonn actually had a „special trump card in its hand“, as the then State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior Gerhart Baum openly admitted in an ARD documentary about the Käsemann case in 2014[15]: The reigning world champions Germany had been invited to a test match in Buenos Aires in June 1977 – one year before the start of the World Cup. In the midst of „the hysteria of our constitutional state“, as Gerhart Baum explained in the documentary, not only was no public statement made on Mrs Käsemann’s behalf.
In fact, even the date of the publication of her death in police custody – she had been tortured to death, as we know today – was delayed until the German team had successfully won their match 3:1 and returned to Europe. From today’s perspective, there is a broad consensus that a simple phone call threatening to cancel the match would probably have been enough to free Mrs Käsemann from the clutches of the junta. This match was far too important for the regime as a dress rehearsal for the World Cup and a preview of the upcoming tournament.[16]
In West Germany, the announcement of Elisabeth Käsemann’s murder in the summer of 1977 caused great public consternation and drew attention to the increasingly brutal policies of the regime for the first time. From then on, Amnesty International in Germany also began to campaign for human rights in the World Cup country. The organisation, which was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977, had been primarily active in the English-speaking world up to this point.[17] The World Cup was now to help the organisation gain more attention in football-mad Germany and, for the first time, bring a larger cross-section of German society into contact with the movement’s goals.[18]
In mid-1977, Amnesty launched its large-scale and internationally networked campaign „Football yes, torture no“. The declared aim of this campaign was not a boycott, but rather a comprehensive sensitisation of the Western public surrounding the tournament. Players and journalists travelling to Argentina were encouraged to speak explicitly and publicly about the political abuses in the country[19].
In this campaign, the organisation used the most modern marketing methods of the time: in addition to public letters to the national team players, for example, extensive promotional events were held in all Bundesliga stadiums and even competitions in which Argentinian souvenirs such as tango records or a poncho could be won. Despite the serious political background, the campaigns were always intended to convey the positive message of uniting behind a good cause[20].
In Germany in particular, these methods of civic and grassroots engagement, which were still very new in such a context, met with a very successful response: by the start of the tournament, a good 52,000 people had signed Amnesty’s resolution, including many young people and numerous celebrities such as the then national goalkeeper Sepp Maier[21] and CDU politician Norbert Blüm[22].
This demonstrates that the movement had actually succeeded in using the topic of football to bring the issue of human rights out of the hitherto singularly dominant left-wing alternative sub-milieu and anchor it at least in parts of the middle-class centre of German society.
In the run-up to the World Cup, many German media outlets also took a comprehensive and critical look at the political situation in Argentina, including the „Süddeutsche Zeitung“ and „Stern“.[23] At European level, „Le Monde“ in particular took the lead, with its journalists becoming spokespeople for the entire international movement against the games in Argentina.[24] In France, no fewer than 150,000 people signed the protest resolution. This even exceeded the circulation of L’Equipe, the country’s largest daily sports newspaper, which itself rejected the boycott[25].
Of course, there was also a strong countermovement against Amnesty’s actions in Germany. It was led in the media by the newspapers of the Axel Springer Group. Shortly before the start of the tournament, President Videla himself was given space for several major interviews in the „Bild am Sonntag“ (21 May 1978) and the „Welt“ (19 May 1978), in which he painted the situation in his country in the most florid colours and declared, among other things: „There are no political prisoners [and] no concentration camps in Argentina“.
However, the social-liberal federal government also took a clear and decisive stance against the campaign on several occasions. Hildegard Hamm-Brücher, State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry, emphasised in the Bundestag that the government recommended all players and fans not to sign the Amnesty resolution, as it constituted interference in Argentina’s internal affairs.[27] In view of the increasing economic difficulties caused by the oil crisis, it was obviously also crucial for the German government not to alienate any other economic partners. In fact, Germany’s import and export balance with Argentina increased significantly during the years of military rule, partly due to the establishment of the first Volkswagen plants[28].
How did the German Football Association react to these developments? First of all, it is important to emphasise that FIFA, as the tournament organiser, actively supported the generals‘ seizure of power in Buenos Aires from the outset. President Joao Havelange from Brazil also appeared in many other cases as a sympathiser of right-wing military leaders and was personal friends with some military leaders from the Videla government.[29] The DFB leadership around President Hermann Neuberger was closely integrated into this FIFA cosmos: Neuberger, for example, who was also vice president of the world association, also acted as head of the association’s own organising committee in Argentina[30].
Such a position would undoubtedly have given Neuberger special opportunities to influence the military. However, the Saarlander opted for the exact opposite: after initial cautious contact with Amnesty International and the first general statements that the DFB would also support the fate of detainees in the country under certain circumstances, the DFB rowed back massively in its statements and referred exclusively to the attitude of the German government.[31] In addition to a general commitment to human rights „in all parts of the world“, the DFB from now on only referred to the fact that it would – if asked to do so – participate in quiet diplomatic measures by the German government in Argentina. However, the Käsemann case had proven early on that no such involvement was to be expected.
Neuberger was extremely thin-skinned in the face of public criticism: with angry personal petitions to the director of Saarländischer Rundfunk, he ensured that Pastor Helmut Frenz, who had spoken out against the organisation of the World Cup in Argentina in a Word on Sunday in June 1977, was never allowed to appear on the programme again because of his „pseudo-Christian, one-eyed hypocrisy“.[32] This same Frenz later became the first Secretary General of Amnesty International Germany.
The DFB’s restraint in political matters did not, however, prevent it from once again publishing an official World Cup song sung by the team in 1978. The song „Buenos Dias, Argentina“ by Udo Jürgens – incidentally one of the most successful titles in the singer’s career and honoured with a platinum record – should not be omitted from this review because, despite (or perhaps because of) its absolute simplicity in describing the country of Argentina, this song is probably the most enduring memory of the 1978 World Cup in the collective memory of many Germans to this day: Lyrics such as „Buenos Dias Argentina, when the red sun glows, the La Plata rushes from afar and it sings a song with me“ most probably still dominate the image of Argentina in the minds of many German citizens in those years more than the discussions about the political developments in the country at the time.
As in the decades before, the association hid in its public announcements during these months, almost like a prayer wheel, behind its self-proclamation that politics and sport had always been strictly separated and that this would have to be maintained in the future. The DFB leadership undoubtedly argued here out of self-protection: even at the end of the 1970s, the association was still characterised by strong personnel continuities from the Nazi era. There was probably no other area of society where denazification had been as patchy – or better still, none at all – as in German sport[33].
In addition, however, another important point has received little or no attention: In addition to its traditionally conservative-reactionary orientation, the DFB simply did not yet have the structures in place at that time to be able to confront the huge media tidal wave that swept over it in the run-up to the 1978 World Cup – fuelled by the Amnesty campaign. Before the great commercialisation of sport, the DFB only had a few permanent employees at its headquarters in Frankfurt and not even a full-time press officer[34].
The resulting massive mistakes in the team’s own communication were particularly evident in another affair that reached the DFB during the tournament: After their first group game, the eleven were visited in their team quarters by former Luftwaffe colonel Hans-Ulrich Rudel. He was not only a highly decorated military officer from the Second World War and a member of the „Friends of Adolf Hitler“, but also a staunch Nazi at the time who had remained true to his beliefs even after 1945 and, among other things, had stood as a top candidate for the radical right-wing German Reich Party in 1953. He had now been living in Argentina for several years and socialised with old Nazi circles there[35].
The circumstances surrounding Rudel’s invitation to the actually strictly shielded training centre – fittingly a recreation home for the Argentinian military – were immediately widely reported in the German media, as this once again seemed to prove the worst fears: While the DFB on the one hand refused to make any statement on the human rights situation in Argentina, at the same time an avowed National Socialist was invited to its own quarters and courted at the association’s expense.
More recent research, however, points at least partially in a different direction: author Bernd Beyer, who published a biography of the then national coach Helmut Schön, recently found a previously lost TV recording of Schön in the archives of broadcaster Freies Berlin, in which he presented his view of things quite credibly shortly after the end of the tournament. According to the recording, Rudel, who was largely unknown to him until then, had written to him before the start of the tournament asking for tickets for the World Cup, citing his close friendship with former national coach Sepp Herberger, who had died shortly before. During the tournament, Rudel had then gained access to the German team’s headquarters himself due to his special closeness to the Argentinian military and had suddenly turned up, but only for a few minutes, on the sidelines of a training session and exchanged a few words with him.
The justification strategies used by the DFB management to subsequently justify Rudel’s visit were characteristic of the DFB’s highly unprofessional public image in those days: National coach Schön explained that Rudel had „done an outstanding job in the war after all“ and had „certainly saved the lives of many thousands of German soldiers“. And President Neuberger was indignant that Rudel would hopefully not be „blamed for his fighter pilot activities during the Second World War“[37].
There was a complete lack of sensitivity to the public mood in ever larger sections of German society. It should not be seen as an excuse or a whitewash to point out at this point that this extremely embarrassing affair for the association also reflects the rudimentary organisational and communication structures that were of essential importance for the entire history of the DFB in those years.
From today’s perspective, this affair was another building block that brought additional unrest to the German team – and was therefore at least partly responsible for the early exit of the defending champions. An embarrassing 3:2 defeat against arch-rivals Austria, which to this day has found its way into transnational football history under the catchphrase „The Disgrace of Cordoba“ or „The Miracle of Cordoba“, meant the team was eliminated in the intermediate round of the tournament.[38]Hosts Argentina, on the other hand, achieved their major goal and – albeit under partly mysterious circumstances[39] – crowned themselves world champions for the first time with a 3:1 victory over the Netherlands in the final on 25 June 1978.
From the point of view of the military regime, the 1978 World Cup was undoubtedly a win at first. On the one hand, the entire tournament had remained without any incidents and the organisation was ostensibly successful. The fact that the players involved spoke in retrospect of a „graveyard atmosphere“ in the Argentinian World Cup cities was of secondary importance.
Above all, the Argentinian team’s World Cup victory led to a phase of incredible national enthusiasm in the country. Historians suspect that the days following the final victory were probably the only ones in which the generals ever won free elections in their country[40].
Nonetheless, these were only short-lived stages: Just a few months later, complaints about the increasingly poor economic situation in the country dominated again. As can be seen in other cases, the national upsurge of sentiment resulting from sporting events obviously only works in the short term and should not be overestimated in terms of its historical impact[41].
Although the World Cup was a win for the military junta, curiously enough, the same judgement can be made for the other side: Amnesty International and other organisations experienced an enormous increase in popularity as a result of the World Cup protests, especially in Germany. They used the popular topic of football to learn how to successfully launch public protest campaigns and appeal for more civic engagement at the grassroots level of society.
The brief later emergence of the Green Party in Germany can also be placed in this context. In this context, the 1978 World Cup can therefore be seen as a socio-political turning point far beyond the purely sporting-historical framework, in which non-state actors were able to use football as a „door opener“ to win over and concretely involve broad sections of German society for their civil society and grassroots democratic actions for the first time.[42].
The first big loser of the events at the time was the German government. Caught up in its fear of terrorism, it was prepared at this point to throw fundamental questions of the rule of law, which was actually so important to it, overboard and no longer differentiate between left-wing activists and radical left-wing terrorists. This can be seen above all in the great diplomatic restraint shown during the German national team’s friendly match in Buenos Aires a year before the start of the tournament and the lack of a statement in favour of the imprisoned Elisabeth Käsemann. Here, too, a general and fundamental change of course in German post-war history is reflected in a single football match, as if under a burning glass.
The second big loser of these days was the DFB: trapped in their strongly conservative-reactionary worldviews, its decision-makers were simply not capable of fulfilling the role that civil society groups were now asking them to play. At the time, the DFB had neither the political foresight nor the necessary organisational and communication structures to do so. It is precisely the commercialisation of football, which has been so often criticised in other respects, that has professionalised the association’s structures over the past decades and thus brought about a change for the better.
How can we look at the developments of that time from today’s perspective? What can we learn from 1978 and how should we deal with dictatorships today that want to exploit football for their own purposes?
At this point, it must first be emphasised with a look at the current developments in the world association FIFA that we are now in a new and probably unprecedented peak phase of political exploitation of football by authoritarian regimes. The last two World Cups in Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022) both took place in politically highly controversial host countries.
The methods used by the regimes are becoming increasingly perfidious: in what is known as „sportswashing“, dictatorships use football to give themselves a new, modern image and tap into new markets. At this point, we can only point to the latest billion-euro investments by the leadership of Saudi Arabia as an example of how they are using the signing of numerous world football stars and the planned organisation of the World Cup in 2034 to distract attention from the immense human rights violations in their own country and secure new economic and tourism markets in the West.
It is high time to remind the international sports federations of their conscience, but also quite simply of their own statutes: In 2017, for example, FIFA adopted comprehensive and, in their textual form, thoroughly progressive human rights guidelines, compliance with which has since then also – actually – had to be demonstrated in the course of incoming World Cup bids.[44]
Associations such as the DFB should work much more comprehensively within the world governing body to ensure that these statutes are actually monitored and complied with and loudly denounce why such regulations are still not being applied sufficiently in practice.
Alongside the ever-increasing exploitation of football by dictatorships and the associations themselves, however, the opposite progressive effect of football is all the more demonstrable today, as was already recognisable in its tender beginnings in 1978: in stark contrast to 45 years ago, football in Germany today has developed into a firm and important player in civil society issues: More and more clubs are having their history during the National Socialist era researched and initiating their own projects against right-wing extremism.[45] Hundreds of thousands of fans protested creatively and peacefully in their corners last year against the organisation of the World Cup in Qatar. This created a public resonance chamber that put pressure on the leadership in Qatar to actually improve the working conditions for migrants, at least temporarily[46].
These are just a few examples of how football, with its 7.3 million members and millions of fans, has long since established itself as an important player in civil society that can set important accents for society as a whole and reach people who are otherwise not very receptive to topics of political and historical education. Football serves here as an emotional door opener that can also be used to win over people from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds to political and social issues.
This gives organised football a special responsibility, which it must face up to more clearly and unequivocally in the future despite its increasing economisation, especially when dealing with dictatorial regimes.
Dr Henry Wahlig, born in 1980 in London/Canada, studied Modern and Contemporary History in Düsseldorf, Vancouver and Lausanne. In 2014, he completed his doctorate with a thesis on the Jewish sports movement in Nazi Germany („Sport im Abseits“) under Prof Lorenz Peiffer at Leibniz Universität Hannover / second examiner Prof Moshe Zimmermann (Hebrew University of Jerusalem). Since 2015, he has been head of the cultural and events programme at the German Football Museum in Dortmund.
[1] The existing studies in German-speaking countries focus primarily on the 1936 Olympic Games (most recently Oliver Hilmes: Berlin 1936. Sechszehn Tage im August. Munich 2016) and the role of sporting competitions in the Cold War (see, for example, Philippe Vonnard, Nicola Sbetti, Gregory Quin (eds.): Beyond Boycotts. Sport during the Cold War in Europe. Berlin 2019). Only a few essays have been published on the history of the 1978 World Cup, which are cited in this essay. It was only less than ten years ago that the first, and to this day only, book was published that specifically categorises the history of all World Cups in their respective historical and political context, see Kai Rinke, Kay Schiller: The FIFA World Cup 1930-2010. Politics, Commerce, Spectacle and Identities. Göttingen 2014.
[2] Cf. Orton: Football and National Identity, 211.
[3] On the history of Argentina during this period, see, among others, Michael Riekenberg: Kleine Geschichte Argentiniens. Munich 2009, 166-173 or Sandra Carreras, Barbara Potthast: Eine kleine Geschichte Argentiniens. Berlin 2010, 206-217.
[4] To this day, historical research almost universally takes the view that systematic preparations for the World Cup only began at the start of General Videla’s rule. A seminar paper written at the University of Zurich, whose author had access to the sources in the FIFA archives, offers a new perspective. He points out that a FIFA delegation that visited Argentina in 1976 at the time of the change of power explicitly praised the great progress made on the World Cup construction sites. DFB President Neuberger, who was also head of the FIFA OC, stated that „the work in Germany in 1972, i.e. two years before the final competition, had not progressed any further“. FIFA’s criticism therefore related exclusively to the political framework conditions and the resulting security concerns. The claim that FIFA had found total chaos was therefore only launched later by the military in order to be able to attribute all the successes surrounding the World Cup to themselves. Cf. Ricardo Cabanas: Reorganización del caos o caos de reorganización? The politicisation of the World Cup ’78 in Argentina. Seminar paper at the Department of History at the University of Zurich 2019, 16f.
[5] Orton: Football and National Identitiy, 212.
[6] Cf. Raanan Rein: Football, Politics and Protests. The International Campaign against the 1978 World Cup in Argentina. In: Rinke, Schiller: World Cup, 240-258, here: 241f.
[7] Cf. Bill L. Smith: The Argentinian Junta and the Press in the Run-Up to the 1978 World Cup, in: Soccer and Society 2002, 69-78, here: 69f.
[8] Cf. Christian Koller: 40 years ago: Junta generals become football world champions. URL: https://www.sozialarchiv.ch/2018/05/09/vor-40-jahren-junta-generaele-werden-fussball-weltmeister
[9] Cf. Dorothee Weitbrecht: Die Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft 1978 in Argentinien: ein Sündenfall, in: Zeitschrift für Menschenrechte 2/2016, 110-128, here: 112.
[10] On the comprehensive press censorship in Argentina, which was installed in numerous ways in the run-up to the 1978 World Cup, see Smith, Press.
[11] Cf. among others Christian Dürr: „Verschwunden“. Persecution and Torture under the Argentine Military Dictatorship (1976-1983). Berlin 2016.
[12] Cf. Felix Jimenez Botta: „Yes to football! No to torture!“ The Politics of the 1978 Football World Cup in West Germany, in: Sport in Society 2017, 1440-1456, here: 1443.
[13] Cf. for example Petra Terhoeven: Die Rote Armee Fraktion. A History of Terrorist Violence. Göttingen 2017.
[14] The life story of Elisabeth Käsemann has been analysed repeatedly. For a current summarising account, see Elisabeth-Käsemann-Stiftung (ed.): Verschwunden und ermordet. European victims of the secret detention and torture camp El Vesubio in Argentina. Bochum 2023, 19-36.
[15] In 2014, documentary filmmaker Eric Friedler made the television film „Das Mädchen – Was geschah mit Elisabeth K.“ on behalf of NDR and SWR. In this context, he interviewed high-ranking politicians from the federal government at the time for the first time and asked them about their current assessment of their actions at the time. In addition to Gerhart Baum, his interviewees included Hildegard Hamm-Brücher and Klaus von Dohnanyi, the two State Secretaries in the Foreign Ministry at the time. Both expressly regretted their silence at the time. Former Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher was still unwilling to comment.
[16] Cf. Weitbrecht, Menschenrechte, 121.
[17] Cf. Egon Larsen: In the name of human rights. The history of Amnesty International. Munich 1983.
[18] Cf. Botta, Sport in Society, 1443f.
[19] The extent to which these demands were actually implemented by the international media would be worth a separate investigation. However, footage of the abandoned mothers in the Plaza de Mayo taken by a Dutch TV crew at the start of the 1978 World Cup was what first made this protest movement known worldwide. The footage can be seen at URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GfL-kSnrrY.
[20] Cf. Botta, 1447.
[21] Sepp Maier remained the only active player from the World Cup squad to openly show solidarity with the Amnesty campaign. Professional footballer Paul Breitner was also one of the movement’s spokesmen, although he was not a member of the national team at the time due to various other disputes with the DFB.
[22] Cf. Botta, 1448.
[23] Cf. Antje Krüger: Die argentinische Diktatur im Spiegel der ost- und westdeutschen Presse, dargestellt an der Berichterstattung über die Fußballweltmeisterschaft 1978, Norderstedt 2011.
[24] Cf. Amanda Gibson: Journalists‘ Dilemma: Human Rights Coverage During the Argentinian 1978 World Cup, in: Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications, 1/2021, 18-32.
[25] Cf. Raan, 243-245.
[26] Quoted from: Weitbrecht, Menschenrechte, 113.
[27] Cf. Botta, 1447.
[28] Andrés Musacchio: Die deutsch-argentinischen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen vom 19. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, in: Peter Birle (ed.): Die Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und Argentinien, 129-161.
[29] Cf. Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling: World Cup 1978: Football yes, torture no, in: Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling: Die Geschichte der Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft. Göttingen 2014, 241-260.
[30] Cf. Martin Küper: Sport und Mord, in: DIE ZEIT 21/2012.
[31] Havemann attempts to prove that Neuberger initially offered to stand up for political prisoners on the ground and was only then turned down by the Foreign Office (see Nils Havemann: The Federal Republic of Germany and the 1978 Football World Cup in Argentina. Genesis and Deconstruction of a Public Myth, in: The International Journal of the History of Sport 2014, 1509-1518, here: 1512). However, Botta has already clearly demonstrated that such an account is not historically tenable, see Botta, 1447.
[32] Frank Junghähnel: Four minutes of God, in: Berliner Zeitung, 28 May 2003.
[33] The lack of denazification in German sport has not yet been comprehensively and coherently analysed. For a current and very good analysis from the field of sports journalism, see Thorben Pieper, Christopher Kirchberg, Marcel Schmeer: Wacklige Verteidigung? The denazification of football journalists after the Second World War. In: Lorenz Peiffer, Henry Wahlig (eds.): „Einig. Fearless. Loyal.“ The footballer under National Socialism. A reappraisal. Göttingen 2022, 388-406.
[34] The press officer at the time, Wilfried Gerhardt, was still primarily working for the association during tournaments and not on a full-time basis. Personal information from Jean-Conrad Tyrichter, current archivist of the German Football Association.
[35] Cf. Sönke Neitzel: Hans-Ulrich Rudel, in: NDB. Volume 22. Berlin 2005, 160f.
[36] Cf. Bernd M. Beyer: Helmut Schön. A biography. Contrary to these sources, Havemann presents the events of the time in a completely unnecessary party-politically coloured exaggeration in such a way that the German press would have exclusively made the „right-wing“ Hermann Neuberger the culprit of this affair, while the „left-wing“ Helmut Schön would have been protected. Cf. Havemann 1978, 1514f.
[37] Cf. Beyer, Schön.
[38] The victory against the seemingly overpowering German team is of paramount importance in the history of collective Austrian self-esteem to this day. The Austrian star striker at the time, Hans Krankl, commented on his winning goal with the words: „The main thing is that we have beaten the Germans. […] This is our world championship title!“. Quoted from: Michael Wassermair, Lukas Wieselberg: 20 Jahre Cordoba. Vienna 1998, 173.
[39] Argentina surprisingly won the decisive final group match against Peru 6:0 and thus secured their place in the final. Today there is a confession by a Peruvian national player at the time, according to which six of his team-mates were paid 20,000 dollars each shortly before the start of the match to lose the game by a large margin. See Tom Mustroph: Six goals, six bribes. Manipulation at the 1978 World Cup. in: taz, 17.03.2018.
[40] Ronny Blaschke: Buenos Dias Argentina. World Cup between triumph and torture. URL: https://www.bpb.de/themen/europa/russland/270667/buenos-dias-argentina-wm-zwischen-triumph-und-folter
[41] It is worth recalling the controversial viewpoints in historical research on the significance of the 1954 World Cup success for West German society in those years. In fact, judging by the publicised echo, there was only a very short-lived public enthusiasm.
[42] Cf. Botta, 1452.
[43] Maximilian Rieger: FIFA opens the door to Saudi Arabia. URL: https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/kommentar-wm-vergabe-fifa-oeffnet-saudi-arabien-tuer-100.html
[44] URL: https://www.fifa.com/de/about-fifa/organisation/news/fifa-veroffentlicht-neue-leitprinzipien-zu-menschenrechtsfragen-2893550
[45] Countless projects have been carried out in this area in recent years. For an overview of all the resulting historical publications, see Lorenz Peiffer, Henry Wahlig: Jüdischer Sport und Sport der Juden in Deutschland. 2nd edition. Göttingen 2020.
[46] URL: https://www.amnesty.de/allgemein/pressemitteilung/katar-wm-2022-lueckenhafte-arbeitsrechtsreform-fehlende-entschaedigungszahlungen. In its statements, Amnesty International clearly points out that public pressure has significantly improved working conditions in Qatar, but that there are still significant problems and it remains to be seen how sustainable these processes will be after the end of the World Cup.