CRISPIN ANDREWS THE NIGHTWATCHMAN of fair play, but at least the grand old Bodyline tactics. Facing Larwood’s game might show them the necessity of 90mph thunderbolts might make a playing by the rules. good training exercise for soldiers – if, of course, the bowler used a bigger, harder There had been some – but not much – ball, and the batsman had his pads – cricket in Germany since the mid-19th “artificial bolsters”, according to Hitler – century. Like football, it was introduced taken away. by British students and businessmen. However, unlike football, only a few Once in power, the Nazis used sport, as Germans took it up. Fry quipped that they did most other things, as a way of Germany’s athletic javelin throwers and indoctrinating people into being good hand-grenade slingers might make National Socialists and good fighters. decent fast bowlers. Ribbentrop said that Hitler wanted speed and violence from his cricket was “too complicated for us.” sport, not subtle nuances. When he heard “COMPLICATED, ILLOGICAL, that a cricket match had gone on for a Ribbentrop’s Führer had stronger whole week and still ended in a draw, he EffEMINATE” opinions. During the First World War, supposedly said that Germans had better Lance Corporal Hitler, recovering from things to do with their time. Crispin Andrews on the history of cricket in Germany injury in a Berlin hospital, organised a cricket match between a German team, Thankfully, there are a lot of things about including himself, and some British ofcers modern Germany that Hitler wouldn’t have who were prisoners of war. According to liked: Jerome Boateng, Sami Khedira and They gathered, wearing pullovers, by the Fry had lived through the First World War, Conservative MP Oliver Locker Lampson, Mesut Ozil – brilliant footballers of African, concrete steps under the red clifs, on the and in the preceding decades saw Kaiser who’d subsequently met some of the Tunisian and Turkish descent – lighting island where no one gets hayfever. On Wilhelm II and a succession of pushy ofcers and written about it in the Daily up the German national team with flair, the plastic football pitch below, men and Prussian aristocrats on the German Army’s Mirror in 1930, Hitler wanted to learn the physical presence and athleticism. Or The boys wearing white clothes and coloured general staf throw their weight around in intricacies and mysteries of the English Scorpions, German heavy rock musicians, hats played a strange game with a bat Europe and the African colonies. This, he national game. performing shows to sold out crowds all and a ball. and many other Brits believed, plunged over the world and writing hit songs about Europe into a terrible war during which The ofcers duly obliged. However, by the Germany’s friendship with Russia. Germans playing cricket – with Englishmen millions died. time Hitler took the field a few days later, – on Heligoland, the tiny German island he wanted some of the rules changed. And now, it seems, there are Germans where there are no cars and definitely no By 1934, Germany’s new National Socialist Cricket, he apparently believed, was who play cricket. Proper rules: pads, cricket pitches. CB Fry would have been leader was making some decidedly too complicated, illogical and also too gloves and sometimes even helmets. suitably impressed. inflammatory public statements about efeminate. “The Laws of cricket were Germany’s post-war position in Europe good enough for the pleasure loving- Last May, 34 of them jumped out of small Fry – a diplomat and navy superintendent being a long way from what he, Adolf English,” wrote Locker Lampson, quoting open boats, onto the beach at Heligoland. long after he’d finished playing for England Hitler, considered was its rightful place. Hitler. “But Hitler proposed changing There was no mooring place for the and somersaulting onto mantelpieces them for the serious-minded Teuton.” Cuxhaven Ferry on this famous little – once told Hitler’s foreign minister, von Fry was one of those English gentlemen island, which used to be a British colony Ribbentrop, that the Germans should take of the 1930s not averse to a strong On 3 January 1933 when Hitler was made before the Brits traded it for Zanzibar in up cricket to teach them some manners. Germany pursuing its legitimate interests Reich Chancellor of Germany, England 1890. THCC Rot-Gelb Cricket Hamburg in Europe. Playing cricket, he believed, were 2-1 up against Australia and on their were to play Heligoland Pilgrims, a team Fry met Ribbentrop in 1934. He was would teach them to do so in the right way to regaining the Ashes. Judging made up of Hamburg players and friends in Germany trying to forge closer ties and proper manner. Fry thought that the by what Locker Lampson wrote, the from other local clubs. The same two sides between the Boy Scouts and Hitler Youth. Germans might struggle with the concept Führer would have approved of Jardine’s met at the same place last year for the ISSUE 7 AUTUMN 2014 97 CRISPIN ANDREWS THE NIGHTWATCHMAN island’s first cricket match. Some players wooden planks and some matting. “It’s a team was made entirely of expat Asians would win four World Cups and three wore their whites on the ferry. Time was struggle, but the bounce is good enough,” except for one expat Australian. European Championships and produce short. A two-day, two-innings, 30-a-side says youth team organiser Michael Daub. some of the world’s greatest players. But, match to get through. A return ferry to Most of Göttingen’s players are overseas ICC rules say that a cricketer who lives in a while football gained a distinct German catch the following evening. university students from cricket-playing country for four years is eligible to play for identity, cricket remained the epitome of countries. The club recently set up a youth the national team. Germany, like any other Englishness and, as such, stuttered on as The game went to a nail-biting finish. The section, all Germans. “The University team, picks on merit, hence all the expats. a minority sport with only a few Germans Hamburg captain was caught at long on wouldn’t let the kids use the sports field, But Brian Mantle, the DCB’s General taking part. with nine to win. “An unnecessary bold which they said is for University students Manager, says that with more German shot,” Hamburg player Tim Tigges called only,” says Daub, “so our youth team now players of a high standard coming through It was popular after the First World War it. Tigges, who first played cricket at plays matches on the Göttingen All-Stars the DCB’s youth development schemes, and again after the Second, with interest Green Point Cricket Club in Cape Town, baseball pitch.” the national team could be up to 50 per kick-started both times by the British wasn’t complaining though. The shot, cent German within ten years. Bächstädt soldiers stationed there. There was also the tension, as the ball flew towards the Phillip Bächstädt, a German TV presenter, believes that better opportunities to play a brief spike in popularity during the boundary fielder, just added to the drama. plays for Tegernsee Cricket Club, 60 for the national team will encourage more interwar period, again mainly in Berlin. miles south of Munich. Here, 75 per cent German youngsters to take up the game. This time, more Germans took up the John Snow and Ken Higgs may have been of the players are German. The team game. A Berlin XI, consisting mainly of pictured on The Oval balcony in 1966 was founded 20 years ago by a group Germany played its first international Germans, toured southern England in celebrating their match-winning last- of school friends who’d been introduced against Denmark in 1989 and took part in the 1930. A few years later, Dartford Cricket wicket partnership of 128 against West to cricket by a teacher, Wolfgang Albert. European Cricket Championship from 1996 Club and Somerset Wanderers made the Indies with a cup of tea, but tea was far too Albert had previously spent a year at through to 2010. In the 1997 final they lost return trip to Berlin. So did a team called English for Hamburg and the Heligoland Michael Atherton’s old school, Manchester to France by one run, a match Wisden later the Gentlemen of Worcestershire. Pilgrims. Instead they celebrated their Grammar, and returned to Germany with said was the 20th century’s 96th greatest special game with a few cans of non- a coaching manual. cricket match – one below England and Sometime in 1936 or early 1937, Nazi alcoholic beer, donated by the match David Lloyd’s “flippin’ murdered ’em” draw Sports Minister Hans von Tschammer sponsors Erdinger, a Bavarian brewery. “After we left school, the team joined the with Zimbabwe in 1996–97 and just above und Osten was in London by invite and local club league and then became a club England’s three-wicket win at Port of Spain drinking in the Lord’s Pavilion, when he Cricket is a minority sport in Germany, in 2000,” Bächstädt says. The German the following year. Former Derbyshire suggested the Worcester Gents should but it is growing. There are clubs in Berlin, national league is divided into six regional stars Harold Rhodes and Ole Mortensen come to Berlin. Cologne, Hamburg, Bremen, Hannover, Kiel, leagues. The winner of each plays in the both coached Germany during the team’s Dresden, Stuttgart, Freiburg and several in league finals. Current champions are SKG formative years.