Racist German Hooligans Pollute European Soccer Championships
Current soccer hooliganism seems to be a function of combining nationalism with fandom. Add alcohol and the childish urge to shock that is part of all of us and German fans are going to produce Nazi slogans, not Bolshevik or Bonapartist ones. In America fandom is usually a cultural device that unites diverse groups in an polyglot immigrant country. Given Europe’s history it is not surprising that national soccer teams sometimes inflame old nationalisms in Europe. I personally felt the combination of American nationalism and fandom at the second Patterson Johanson fight in the Polo Grounds which I attended with my father. Sweden was not a threat to the US but the crowd, including me, roared for Ingemar’s blood, but my father recalled the even stronger outbreak of national feeling at the Lewis Schmelling fight in the 30s when Germany was indeed a threat. Ironically, Schmelling who only died in the last few years was not at all a Nazi.
