ABSTRACT
The paper focuses on a certain aspect of interwar soccer history – the making of bogeymen out of traditional urban images. Generally, pejorative images were based on the origin of a club. Village residents, their clubs, and their fans were considered Saubauern. If they lived in a suburb, they were blamed as being part of a “mob,” and if they were city clubs, they had to cope with antisemitism. In fact, the images failed to meet the expectations. Even those clubs that were denounced as “Judenklubs” had only a very small minority of Jews among their fans, membership, and officials. In Frankfurt, for example, Eintracht had to face antisemitism only because fans of other prominent local clubs (FSV Frankfurt, Kickers Offenbach) associated Eintracht with the city’s medieval center, where the Jewish Ghetto was located in pre-modern times. The Frankfurt case is anything but unique. Similar “bogeymen” were invented throughout Central Europe. Referred to as “Judenklubs” because of their urban background, these included VfR Mannheim, FC Bayern München, Austria Wien, Slavia Prag, and MTK Budapest. However, the chapter does not only discuss the “Judenklubs.” In addition, the consequences of those urban discourses for the Jewish communities – for Jewish everyday life – in Central European cities are considered.
