STADION

‘He refused to return to his country.’ The escape of soccer players from the People’s Republic of Poland to the Federal Republic of Germany – The migration of Polish athletes before 1945 and after 1989 has already been discussed extensively...

This article deals with a topic in German-French sports and military history that has been neglected by historians to date: On 5 August 1942, members of the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans – Main d’Œuvre Immigrée, FTP-MOI), a subgroup of the...

Postcards of football stadiums go back more than a hundred years. In France, the stadium owned by the newspaper Le Matin was the subject of cards as early as 1910, when it was flooded by the Seine. In Germany, the inauguration of Deutsches Stadion...

One of the first lasting official acts of the Reich Sports Leader, Hans von Tschammer und Osten, was the establishment of the Hilfsfonds für den Deutschen Sport in October 1933. This institution, which was renamed Stiftung Deutsche Sporthilfe...

The German Zionist and sports physician Emanuel Simon was one of the central figures for sport in British Mandate Palestine and Israel from the 1920s to the 1950s. In this article, we provide a sketch of his biography and discuss his significance in...

Winter of War 1942: The World Ski Championships in Cortina d’Ampezzo and the Winter Sports Week in Garmisch-Partenkirchen – In February 1941, despite Italy’s critical military situation in the Balkans, official Alpine and Nordic World Ski...

In over 130 years of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) existence, it has had only ten presidents. It was led in unbroken succession by nine men until Kristy Coventry was elected as the first woman in 2025. ‘Founding father’ Pierre de...

This article addresses a topic of sports history that has received little attention from researchers: the sport within the Catholic Church in Germany. The study begins with the beginnings of physical education in the Catholic Enlightenment of the...

How did gymnasiums and stadiums emerge in the 19th century? These two issues, both societal and architectural, were studied, firstly from the perspective of an expansion of military and school gymnastics into the civilian world and, secondly in...

Following the example of the Soviet Union, East Germany tried to show the superiority of its system through its sporting successes. The sporting ‘apprentice’ of the 1950s became the model student and by the 1970s a serious sporting competitor....

To this day, doping in the Cold War is the subject of both scientific research and public controversy. The authors consider the methods and consequences of pushing the boundaries of competitive sport in East and West Germany. Firstly, the material...

With the exception of Brazil’s football star Pelé, probably no nation has been more identified with an athlete than little Finland, which produced the “Flying Finn” Paavo Nurmi. 100 years ago, he won five gold medals at the 1924 Olympic Games...

The three “Workers’ Olympiads” of the interwar period were not primarily about “sport”. Rather, the ideas and ideals of socialism were to be transferred to the world of sport and, at the same time, the culture of movement was to be...

After its premiere at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Handball was no longer part of the Olympic Program after the Second World War. This was due to the handball’s image as a “Nazisport” and its lack of popularity outside of Europe. The...

The idea of peace in sport dates back to Pierre de Coubertin and the founding of the Olympic Games in modern times. It has been reaffirmed ever since and can be found in the current version of the Olympic Charter. According to the charter, Olympic...

The German Turnfest 1923 in Munich in July was the largest mass event of the year. And in Munich, the NSDAP under the leadership of Adolf Hitler had gained enormously in popularity since January. It constantly gained new members and increasingly...