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40 Historical Facts Accepted as Real For Many Years

Khalid Elhassan February 14, 2020 34 min

Albrecht Gessler - William Tell — William Tell. Learn Swiss-German

5. WWII’s Most Dramatic Athletic Event

Poster printed by German occupation authorities announcing the match. Wikimedia

One of WWII’s most dramatic stories revolves around a soccer match that took place in German-occupied Kiev on August 6^th, 1942. The game pitted Ukrainian side Start FC, composed mainly of Dynamo Kiev and Lokomotiv Kiev professional players, against a German team named Flakelf. The locals won 5 – 1.

Three days later, the two teams met for a rematch, that once again ended in the Ukrainian side beating the Germans, this time 5 – 3. The Germans turned out to be sore losers: upset that Slavic Untermenschen had trounced Aryan ubermensch, they rounded up and arrested the Ukrainian players, and had them executed. It is a gripping story, but it did not happen.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.