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Sport as a torture method in Nazi concentration camps

Andreas Sten-Ziemons | Alima Hotakie
January 27, 2025

In addition to physical exercises used to torture prisoners, football was played in Nazi concentration camps. Boxing matches were literally a matter of life and death for some inmates.

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Fence and watchtower of the concentration camp memorial site at Dachau
After 1940, there were around 1,000 German concentration and subcamps, plus seven extermination campsImage: Sven Hoppe/dpa/picture alliance

Were there really regular sports activities in concentration camps?

The Nazi concentration camps were places of horror and death, of torture and humiliation. The guards used sporting activities on a regular basis to achieve this end.

"The guards ordered prisoners to do push-ups or leapfrogs, or to run until they collapsed from exhaustion," sports historian Veronika Springmann, the author of the book "Gunst und Gewalt – Sport in nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern" (Favor and Violence – Sport in National Socialist Concentration Camps) told DW.

Those who were lying on the ground were usually kicked and insulted by the guards, she says.

"This was repeated day after day. It really was like an everyday ritual."

In addition to this forcibly enforced sport, there were also sporting activities that some of the prisoners carried out more or less independently.

Which prisoners took part in these self-determined sports activities?

Due to the inhumane conditions, most of the prisoners were unable to engage in sport as a leisure activity. The daily camp routine would have allowed no time for this. The inmates were generally malnourished and often afflicted by fleas, lice and scabies or more serious diseases such as tuberculosis or typhus due to a lack of hygiene.

The camps were organized hierarchically and the prisoners divided into different groups. Membership of a particular group also largely determined the conditions of imprisonment and the chances of survival. As a general rule, political prisoners or professional criminals were better off than Jewish inmates, homosexuals or so-called "antisocials."

Inmates' clothing in the concentration camp memorial at Buchenwald
The triangle on the prisoners' clothing indicated which group they belonged to: the red corner was for political prisoners, the "P" stood for PolesImage: Martin Schutt/ZB/picture alliance

Membership was immediately recognizable to everyone by means of colored cloth markings (triangles) on their clothing. Those who were higher up in the hierarchy were less often harassed by the guards, got better work, better accommodation, warmer clothes, access to more food and were therefore in better physical condition and able to exercise. Overall, however, the proportion of prisoners to whom this applied was small.

The better-off inmates also included what became known as "functionary prisoners." They were used by the guards to supervise their fellow prisoners and keep order. Many of them became accomplices in their privileged role, but some also took advantage of it to protect other prisoners.

Which sports were practiced in the concentration camps?

Football and boxing matches were regularly held within the camp walls. As World War II dragged on, the number of football matches increased because conditions changed for some prisoners after 1942.

"The labor of the prisoners in the concentration camps was needed for the arms industry," Springmann explains.

"All the arms companies had production carried out in concentration camps or in the satellite camps. Incentives and offers were then created there. Prisoners who worked particularly well or were deployed as functionary prisoners were allowed to organize football matches."

The teams were usually formed by nation, but generally had fewer than the standard 11 players. The prisoners even tried to organize football jerseys for such matches. A wooden cup has been preserved in the Dachau concentration camp near Munich and is on display at the concentration camp memorial. For the prisoners, organizing the games also represented a measure of hope.

"Planning is always directed towards the future. That means I hope that I'll still be alive tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, next Sunday," Springmann says. "This strengthens and gives hope. And hope is an important resource for survival."

However, it should not be forgotten that only a very small proportion of the inmates were able or allowed to take part in the games. They also took place in an environment in which torture, murder and death were taking place.

Did female inmates organize and participate in sports activities?

While there are numerous sources from male concentration camp prisoners and survivors on sport, this is not the case for female inmates. Possibly because sport did not play such a big role in their lives at the time or because other things were more important to them in everyday camp life.

"Back then, women had far fewer opportunities to do sport than men," Springmann explains.

"Sport was not an everyday practice for women at that time. However, I would assume that female prisoners in the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp, for example, may have done gymnastics from time to time, but they didn't write about it."

Did famous athletes have advantages in concentration camps?

As media coverage of sports was not as widespread as it is now, athletes were not even recognized as famous athletes by concentration camp guards. Julius Hirsch was one of Germany's best footballers at the beginning of the 20th century, twice German champion and a member of the national team between 1911 and 1913. Because he was Jewish, he was deported to Auschwitzin March 1943 and died there. No one knows whether he was identified as a former football star or even played in the camp.

Boxing was an important and popular sport to the Nazis. It is known that some boxers were recognized in the camp or came forward when the guards were looking for talented fighters. Polish prisoner Antoni Czortek and Victor Perez of Tunisia had competed at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Perez was world flyweight champion from 1931 to 1932.

Both were interred at Auschwitz in 1943 as Jewish prisoners and had to repeatedly compete in boxing matches against other prisoners. Sometimes it was literally a matter of life and death. While the winner received a loaf of bread or a piece of clothing as a prize, the loser was either shot on the spot or sent to the gas chamber.

A collage of photos of Johann Trollmann
Johann “Rukeli” Trollmann was German middleweight champion in 1933, 11 years later he was murdered in a concentration campImage: DW

In a macabre way, boxing saved the lives of Czortek, Perez and several others in the camp. Czortek died in 2003 at the age of 89. Perez survived Auschwitz, but not the Holocaust. He was shot in January 1945 on one of the death marches on which concentration camp prisoners were driven from camps close to the approaching front to other camps in the final months of the war.

This article was originally published in German.

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