Myth
17
The “Death Match” in Kyiv Finished With the Killing of the Soviet Team
Volodymyr Viatrovych
Denis A. A Screen Adaptation of the ‘Match of Death’, 21 June 2011
“The plot of the film Match depicts the real story, when during the Great Patriotic War in occupied Kyiv, there was a football match between the Kyiv Dynamo team and the German Flakelf team. The Germans wanted to show that they were a strong football team and wanted their team to win so much to the extent that the lives of the footballers were at stake…the Kyiv players were ordered to lose…But they won and some of them were shot right on the football field while the rest were sent to concentration camps…”
■ The Essence of the Myth
In the summer of 1942, a football match took place between local Kyiv players and Wehrmacht soldiers. The Germans, after a devastating defeat, shot their rivals.
■ Fast Facts
In June-August 1942, Kyiv hosted several matches of the local Start team (which included the pre-war Dynamo and Locomotive football clubs) against teams of German and Hungarian soldiers. The last game took place on 16 August and although it ended with the defeat of the Germans, this did not lead to the death of the Soviet athletes. Four of them were killed the next year as prisoners in the Syrets concentration camp.
■ Detailed Facts
The myth of the Germans shooting the Soviet athletes after the game became a canonical part of Soviet propaganda after its appearance in 1957 in the Petr Severov and Naum Khalemskym’s story Ostannij Poiedynok (The Last Fight) and the film Tretyj Tajm (The Third Half) which was released five years later.
Soon after, it became an official position. In 1965, during the 20th anniversary of the Victory of the War, the players were awarded state medals for courage and for military merit and in 1971, a monument to the shot players was unveiled at the Kyiv stadium.
At that time, the KGB leadership knew the true fate of the Start players. In a report by KGB detective Major Udin, on behalf of his superior Fedorchuk, they were denounced as collaborators:
“Clearly, the players were left to live in the occupied territories, not trying to move from the retreating Red Army in whose ranks their very presence was greatly required during this difficult time for the country. Subsequently, they supported initiatives of traitors of the Fatherland, the representatives of the city council which was supported by the occupational authorities and created a team, from what was left of the athletes of the sports club in Kyiv, including the local team players which included players from Dynamo and Locomotive. This team repeatedly met in friendly matches against the football team of Wehrmacht and Hungarian units, stationed in Kyiv.
Poster of the revenge match between “Start” and “Flakelf”, the so-called “Death Match” (9 August 1942)
All team members were employed (at Bakery No. 1 and a sausage factory). Over time, mastering the situation, they organized stealing food and later, weaving through the city’s traffic, in order to meet each other to exchange their products.
In this circumstance, perhaps, the occupiers were tired of fun football and took all the players to a war camp. As the inquiry shows, the cause of their death in the camps was not political, but random. Witnesses say that based on the behavior of one prisoner of war (who stoned a service dog to death), the occupiers lined everyone at the camp up and shot every fifth prisoner.”
The Soviet myth about the killing of the team acquired such international significance that it led to the Hamburg Prosecutor’s Office opening a criminal investigation into the alleged killing of the players in 1974.
A careful German investigation lasted more than thirty years.
On 18 February 2005, their opinion, prepared by the senior prosecutor Jochen Kuhlmann on the case, was published. It reads: “The many versions distributed in the former Soviet Union about the reasons for the shooting of four players after their victorous game against the German occupiers on 9 August 1942, are obvious lies. The match, held on 9 August 1942, as with the previous matches like the one held on 16 August 1942, took place in a friendly atmosphere. After the game, a photograph of both sports teams was taken – the German soldiers and Soviet players…No connection can be found between the football game held on 9 August 1942 and the shooting of three players at the Syrets camp.”
Commemorative picture taken after the “Start”– “Flakelf” game (9 August 1942)
This did not dispel the myth, however. In 2011, the Russian film Match was released. The film is described as being based on a “true story,” about the shooting of the Soviet team right after their victory over the Germans.
Poster for the last “Start” game which was held on 16 August 1942
