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Fabricated Stories About World War II Still Known by Many

Khalid Elhassan November 15, 2019 35 min

Ukrainian and German players before the ‘Death Match’. Bundesarchiv Bild

37. The Soccer Death Match

One of the war’s most dramatic sporting stories revolves around a soccer match that took place in German-occupied Kiev on August 6^th, 1942. Pitting Ukrainian side Start FC, composed mainly of Dynamo Kyiv and Lokomotyv Kyiv professional players, vs German team Flakelf, the match ended with the locals winning 5 – 1.

The sides met again three days later, and the Ukrainians beat the Germans once more, 5 – 3. The Germans proved to be sore losers: upset at Aryan ubermenschen getting defeated by Slavic untermenschen, they had the Ukrainian players liquidated. The story was gripping, but untrue.

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.