Area soccer fans have plenty to look forward to this spring. First-ever international matches at Razorback Stadium are set for March 28. In June, FIFA World Cup matches are within driving distance in Kansas City and Dallas. And Monday on the U of A campus, Oliver Knabe, assistant professor in German studies at the University of Dayton, will discuss FIFA World Cups and national images, among other topics. He'll discuss how major global sporting events can inform how nations see themselves and how other nations see them. Take, for example, he says, the 1966 World Cup in England.
"That's the infamous Wembley goal from a German perspective. It's my duty, as a German, to show that in Arkansas. But it wasn't the game itself that was interesting — I'm going to point out all the injustices of what happened that day — but what was actually really crucial was the way England viewed Germany. And you can see that in the press coverage of the time.
"To make a long story short: at the beginning of the tournament, Germans were viewed as really great players. There were a couple clichés here and there, but they were described as majestic — from 'Your Majesty.' That word was used to describe the game. They were described as entertaining, overall really positive. But the closer we got to the final, the clearer it became that Germany was going to play England — and that whole thing shifted. All of a sudden, the Germans basically could not have played in a fourth-division game in England. That's how bad they supposedly were.
"Their semifinal against the Soviet Union was described with terms about the spirit of Stalingrad. It was a naval battle all of a sudden — two war metaphors came in. And by the time the World Cup final happened, when England played Germany, the coverage was highly militaristic — basically a reenactment of World War II, both on the ground and in the air. There were references to players acting like pilots, whereas others were ground troops. But I think the most telling moment was when Germany scored to go up 1-0 — they were in the lead for a brief period of time. The crowd cheering was compared to a Nuremberg rally. Not one of those infamous Nazi events that happened in the 1920s. And all of a sudden, England were the conquerors.
"So what does that do? What are the impacts of that? When you read that reporting, there are these war metaphors — and in the same newspaper, if you flip to the political section, you actually saw them side by side. Here is war on the soccer pitch. And on the front page they were talking about how the Brits wanted out — they wanted to withdraw their military troops from West German territory. They were allies at that point. West Germany had been in NATO since 1955, and for budget reasons, Britain did not want to invest in the Rhine Army anymore. So the exact opposite — a demilitarization — whereas in the sports section they were still fighting World War II.
"That was one takeaway: these images are not necessarily reflecting the political realities of that time. The other thing that I thought was really interesting is, when you get images projected onto you — when the Germans are being told, we view you as Nazi soldiers — how do you respond to that? I found an article in Der Spiegel where, the day after the final, still peeved — probably also because they lost — the journalist was pointing out that exact language and saying, this is how they view us, and look at all the other countries that don't see us like this. You could feel there was a hurt in there."
So much more from that conversation, including how the 1966 experience helped inform how Munich hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1972. We'll hear more from that conversation on an upcoming Ozarks at Large. Oliver Knabe is an assistant professor in German studies at the University of Dayton. He'll give the talk "FIFA World Cups and National Images" Monday at 5 p.m. in Room 112 in Kimpel Hall on the University of Arkansas campus. He is also an editor of the book Football Nation: The Playing Fields of German Culture, History and Society. We spoke earlier today.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
