Figure 1.--Sports clubs in the 19th and early-20th century were mostly for men and to aesser extent boys. During the 1930s, the NAZI emphasis of physical fitness peomoted sports and physical exercise. The sports club here seems to have an extensive program for both boys abd girls. It appears to be a church-sponsored sports club.

We believe German sports clubs began to organize in the late-19th century. We see German sports clubs un the early-20th century. They vseem to be proimarily involved with gymnastics. Here we have a boy's group which was almost surely part of a German sports club (figure 1). The shirt logo suggests a Berlin group. It seems to date from the 1920s. A German reader tells us, "I'm not sure but I believe that before World War II this involved primarily youths and young men and not boys." We do not cluns with boys involved both before and after World War I. We continue to see Clubs in the 1930s during the NAZI era. During this period there was a significant expansion od sports activities for boys and atlrtics in general. The NAZIs wanted to improve the general pgydical fitness of German children. I am not ebtirely sure what hapaned to sports clubs. Some may have been incorporated into the HJ organization. But we continue to see clubs with uniform jerseys rather than HJ jerseys. The HJ wanted to control youth activities, but these clubs had both youth abd adult members. There may have been other NAZI organizations which incorporated the clubs, but allowed them to retain a degree of autonomy. We continue to see sports clubs after World War II. We believe that mzany boys plsyed soccer as part of club rather than school reams. Sports clubs seem to have have played a very important role in athlectics and sports. We have, however, very little informstion at this time. The importance of sports clubs seemed to have declined during the NAZI era, first because the Hitler Youth became the focus of youth activities and then because of the War. Since World War II these clubs have again become important for sports including gymnastics, riflery, footbal, and others.

Created: 12:39 AM 5/28/2010
Last updated: 12:39 AM 5/28/2010