The history of Jewish sport during the First World War

The main source of Jewish sporting history, introduced in this article, was the central organ of the Jewish Gymnastics Association, also for the period of the First World War. This newspaper, which was called Jüdische Monatshefte für Turnen und Sport. Organ der jüdischnationalen Jugendbewegung (Jewish Monthly for Gymnastics and Sport. Organ of the Jewish National Youth Movement) from 1913 to 1918, had already undergone a generational shift since 1911, as had the association itself. Henry Unna, who was born in 1888 and would go on to be a dentist, had taken over responsibility for the management of the gymnastics association and the newspaper. Under him, the separation between  gymnastics

Gymnastics

and sport was finally done away with1, a shift that had already unofficially taken place before the war. People who were active in either gymnastics or sport tended to be interested in both, regardless of the ideological divide between them, and so the clubs – followed quickly by the gymnastics association as a whole – took a pragmatic approach and adapted their practices to the needs of their members.

The Zionist character of the magazine also became clearer. Unna propagated a gymnastics trip to Palestine, which was implemented in 1913 and written about in the Jüdische Monatshefte für Turnen und Sport. And finally, the "new" editor also reported "From the Field" as a soldier during the First World War, which was not an unusual practice in the eyes of German-speaking Jewish athletes.
The war initially caused a wave of national patriotic euphoria that swept through all strata of society, including the Jewish middles classes. The Jewish gymnastics and sports clubs, which, in keeping with German gymnastic tradition, wanted to train young people to be resilient, saw a lot of their young male members recruited for military service. This was a source of great pride for some of the older functionaries. The fact that there was a large number of Jewish soldiers contradicted anti-Semitic propaganda, according to which many Jews had avoided front-line military service. This assumption was not dispelled by the German Army’s so-called “Jewish census” in 1916, but rather reinforced.2
 
The different perception of those who felt part of the German nation and the Zionist-minded gymnasts can be seen above all in the description of the effects of the war. Before long, people on the so-called “home front” began experiencing the consequences of shortages of manpower, food, and transportation. These crises also made life in the Jewish gymnastics and sports clubs more difficult. Many members were away “in the field”. During these years, it was mainly women who took on the task of running the clubs. However, women were particularly affected by the various supply crises, since they had to provide for their families on their own and, under difficult conditions, perform numerous tasks that would normally be taken care of by two adults. Going out to work, but also taking time to do sport, was much more arduous during the war years than in peacetime. Feeding and providing for children was more difficult and heating homes was only possible with great hardship, if it was done at all. 

However, while the interest in gymnastics or sporting activities in the clubs declined, they became increasingly important as places for people to meet and experience a sense of community. The IFFTUS in Berlin, for example, had a heated apartment, at least in the winter of 1917/18, where women and their children were able to gather to celebrate Shabbat and Jewish holidays.

But Jewish gymnastics and sports clubs also did a great deal to unite Jewish athletes at the front. Reports from Jewish soldiers who became prisoners of war show that the news from their sports clubs reached them and gave them a much-needed sense of belonging and encouragement as they faced mounting crises in captivity. The club newspapers also published  field post addresses

Field address

Field addresses were used to maintain the connection between home and the front in the form of letters, cards and gifts, the so-called “Feldpost” (field post). Over 28 billion letters were sent by the Reich’s postal service during the First World War. The soldiers assigned the field addresses to their respective military unit. For reasons of military strategy, these addresses were not allowed to be mentioned in connection with the locations where the units were stationed. to facilitate contact between the athletes. But the clubs also tried to advertise contact points for Jewish soldiers in the so-called “ Etappe

communications zone

In military terms, the area behind the front line. This was mainly where the administration and military hospitals were located. Transport and supplies were also organized in the staging area. During the First World War, front-line soldiers developed a negative attitude towards the forces in the staging area, which was due to the different conditions under which they were deployed. ”3, where they could meet up with like-minded individuals. Meeting places for Jewish gymnasts were set up on the Western Front, in Belgium and France, as well as on the Eastern Front, in Poland, Latvia, Turkey, and Romania. The range of places where they met shows clearly how transnational the (violent) experience of war was for the young men of Europe. The functionaries of the Jewish gymnastics movement not only acted on the “suggestion”, made by one Jewish soldier, that regular meetings like this be organized, but they also allied themselves with other national Jewish institutions, such as the Jewish Cartel Association, who they normally competed against. The political and ideological rifts between national Jewish and Zionist activists remained. However, in view of the war and, above all, growing anti-Semitism, a number of unification processes were initiated between the various national Jewish associations and organizations. A key example of this is the "Ausschuss für die nationaljüdische Jugendarbeit” (Committee for National Jewish Youth Employment), which was founded in Berlin in March 1917 with the aim of bringing together the various activities of the numerous associations and organizations under one umbrella.4
 
Even though the Jewish gymnastics and sports movement was relatively widespread in Eastern Europe prior to 1914, especially in the Polish-Ukrainian territories of the Habsburg Empire, i.e. in Galicia, this was not the case in the Prussian and even less so in the Russian partitions. Political repression made it difficult for Jews to found clubs, especially gymnastics clubs, which were perceived as political and militaristic. However, there were a few exceptions, for example in Posen and Stettin in Prussia and in Bedzin in the Russian partition area. From 1916 onwards, a large number of Jewish gymnastics clubs were permitted in these areas under German occupation, many of which had previously existed in secret, for example, under the auspices of cultural associations. In December 1916, the first Congress of Jewish Sports Clubs in occupied Poland took place in , and the Zentralverband der Jüdischen Turn- und Sportvereine (Central Association of Jewish Gymnastics and Sports Clubs) was founded there.5 Surprisingly, Jewish sport in Eastern Europe flourished during the First World War and became institutionalized and networked. Questions and discussions that would continue to occupy sports associations and enthusiasts in the interwar period were already emerging. One important question concerned the language spoken by Jewish gymnasts, which was also discussed in Lodz in 1916: “Some delegates demanded that Hebrew should be the everyday language of the gymnasts, while others tried to impose Yiddish (Chargon) as the main language.” In the end, the gymnasts came to accept both languages as equally important. “However, the Hebrew language should only be introduced if it is used in such a way that does not cause difficulties in the operation and practice of gymnastics.” Accepting this, the gymnasts conceded that there were difficulties with Hebrew and that Yiddish should be the predominant language. In addition, a sum of 1,000 Rubles was provided for the publication of a sports newspaper in Yiddish.

Thus, during the First World War, a significant course was set for Jewish sport, which would go on to flourish in the interwar period to an extent that had never been achieved before and would not be known again.

English translation: William Connor