Football in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
Do you know how Adolf Hitler, Reinhard Heydrich and Joseph Goebbels related to sport?
What did Hans von Tschammer und Osten and Karl Hermann Frank intend for Czech football? What threats and lures did Josef Bican face? Why did Čestmír Vycpálek end up in the Dachau concentration camp? What were the Gestapo looking for at the stadiums of AC Sparta Prague, SK Slavia Prague and SK Židenice?
Why were the chairman of the CSF, Rudolf Pelikán, Karel Pešek-Káďa or the vice-chairman of the Reds, Vlasta Burian, investigated by criminal commissions after the war? The first monograph on Protectorate football presents a picture of the most popular and widespread sport against the backdrop of the darkest times. It goes beyond the sports sections, glossing over political, economic and social contexts. It presents cases of resistance, but also of activism and collaboration, which we encounter in the football environment. It commemorates players and officials who died on execution sites, in concentration camps or on the front lines. The publication is accompanied by many period photographs.
