Editorial
Stadion, Bd. 47, 2/2023, S. 143–145, DOI: 10.5771/0172-4029-2023-2-143

Abstracts

Peter Tauber, Das Deutsche Turnfest in München und die Politik Hitlers im Krisenjahr 1923
Stadion, Bd. 47, 2/2023, S. 146–213, DOI: 10.5771/0172-4029-2023-2-146
The German Turnfest 1923 in Munich in July was the largest mass event of the year. And in Munich, the NSDAP under the leadership of Adolf Hitler had gained enormously in popularity since January. It constantly gained new members and increasingly influenced politics. Consequently, Hitler wondered how he could use the Turnfest to generate even more attention for his party throughout the Reich. After originally having planned to disrupt the event, the party decided, following Hitler’s instructions, to use the Turnfest for its own propaganda. The aim was to present the NSDAP as a strong national political power. But police largely blocked this plan. Hitler did not allow the conflict to escalate and refrained from further provocation, which proves that his legal course to power was already in action then and not just after the failed so called Beer Hall Putsch in November of the same year. The clashes between the police and Hitler’s followers did not go unnoticed by the public. Hitler received nationwide attention, but not in the way he had hoped. He nevertheless continued to mobilize his supporters knowing that his movement was still not strong enough to stand up to state power. He knew that he needed the support of the Landespolizei and the Reichswehr in order to succeed and in the following months tried to convince these armed forces of the Republic to support him. – Keywords: Beer Hall Putsch; Turnfest; Adolf Hitler; Legal Course; Tactic of Legality; Munich; NSDAP.

Philipp Didion, Viel Kontinuität, wenig Neuanfang? Akteure und Diskurse im französischen und westdeutschen Autorennsport der frühen Nachkriegszeit 1945–1955
Stadion, Bd. 47, 2/2023, S. 214–238, DOI: 10.5771/0172-4029-2023-2-214
Franco-German relations in car racing in the period after World War II have so far been in academic obscurity. Little is known about the resumption of sporting contacts in that field. This article therefore aims to explore some of the routes of the history of French-West German relations in this sport for the first post-war decade (1945–55). The focus is on – in chronological order – the resumption of car racings in both countries, the first appearance of German drivers and brands at racing events in France, personal continuities, and cross-border contacts in this discipline as well as the 1955 Le Mans disaster. Like football, car racing can also be described as a symbol for diplomatic relations between France and the Federal Republic of Germany. The political and social conditions of the time were clearly reflected in this context. For example, the resumption of sporting contacts after 1945 also took place more quickly here than after the First World War. However, motorsport in general and car racing in particular had a somewhat exceptional status – especially regarding its systematic promotion in the French occupation zone as well as their very present international character. – Keywords: Car Racing; Post-War Period; Le Mans; Reims; Mercedes; Silver Arrows; Alfred Neubauer; Charles Faroux.

Christian Tagsold, Football and Faith: A Critical Perspective on Interpreting Sport as Religion
Stadion, Bd. 47, 2/2023, S. 239–254, DOI: 10.5771/0172-4029-2023-2-239
Comparing football and its fan culture to religion has become a common trope in the last decades in newspapers, sports magazines, and scientific papers. The colorful stagings of fans, their often unruly behavior, and their display of passion resemble religious rituals and creeds. Thus, the analogy seems to explain actions that otherwise might appear strange if not irrational from the outside.
However, as I will argue, attempts to analyze football as a religion tend to overlook that the concept of religion itself has undergone many permutations in the last centuries. Once, religion was a category reserved for Christianity. However, with colonialism, sociologists, scholars of religion, and cultural anthropologists began to subsume many creeds and rituals outside Europe under the category of religion. In a similar fashion, religion has helped social scientists come to terms with football fans as untypical modern subjects. Fans are loud and unruly, but when social scientists analyze their actions and social codes through the prism of religion, they suddenly appear less puzzling.
However, with that in mind, I will ask whether analyzing football as religion might signify further changes in understanding the latter instead of offering an apt tool for understanding the former. In postmodern fashion, even football can be interpreted as religion, which may tell us more about religion’s broadening semantics than football’s sacralization. – Keywords: Religion; Football (Soccer); Ritual; Olympic Games; Football Fans; Émile Durkheim; Pierre de Coubertin.

Jean-Michel Faidit, La méthode du plancher d’Hippolyte Triat: Genèse ettransmission
Stadion, Bd. 47, 2/2023, S. 255–287, DOI: 10.5771/0172-4029-2023-2-255
Hippolyte Triat’s floor method has remained famous in the history of gymnastics. We see it appear in the title of the booklet written by Nicolas Dally to present the Parisian Gymnasium launched with Triat in 1847: Milonian Society for the exploitation of gymnastics “according to the method of Mr. Triat of Nîmes”. But what is the genesis of this method, the shaping of which probably began when Triat settled down with the opening of its first gymnasium in Liège in 1838? And what was its diffusion before falling into oblivion? It seems to be linked to the progress of its author from his performances of acrobatic gymnastics with Paul Mathevet during the 1830s. Starting from documentary material from the press of the time and helped by recent historiography relating to the sport and physical activity from a social perspective, the spectacle of acrobatic gymnastics played a driving role in the creation of the first civilian gymnasiums. The practice of gymnastics then responds to new objectives of health, educational value and bodily beauty. This study shows how the Triat method was disseminated by several articles by the writer Paul Féval and partially illustrated by Dr. Jules Massé in La Santé universelle: Guide médical des familles in 1853–54, then transmitted after his death by his students like A. Personne who still practised it in 1917 and had it stenographed by Victrix of the sports newspaper L’Auto, and by his disciples like Edmond Desbonnet who often referred to in his journal La Culture physique or in his works. This stenography not having been published, from the descriptions contained in L’Education Introduite dans les Masses par la Régénération de l’Homme by A. Personne, published by Dubreuil in Paris in 1905, and the Traité de gymnastique d’application by Pierre Schmitz, published in Liège in 1871, compared to the articles of Jules Massé, our problem is to reconstruct in theory the chronology of the exercises of this forgotten Triat floor method, in the hope that gymnastics instructors put it into practice with a tutorial recording promoting its dissemination. – Keywords: Hippolyte Triat; Gymnasium; Gymnastics; Acrobatic Gymnastics; Bodily Beauty; Sports History; Physical Education.

Reviews
Hans Joachim Teichler, Internationale Sportpolitik im Dritten Reich, Baden-Baden: Academia, 2. aktualisierte und erweiterte Auflage, 2022 (Andreas Höfer)
Daniel Lange, Turnschuhdiplomatie: Die internationalen sportpolitischen Beziehungen der DDR nach Afrika als besonderer Bestandteil ihrer Außenpolitik (1955–1990), Berlin: Deutsche Hochschule für Gesundheit und Sport (DHGS), 2022 (Volker Kluge)
Stadion, Bd. 47, 2/2023, S. 288–297, DOI: 10.5771/0172-4029-2023-2-288