The point of convergence for all of the texts under consideration is the World Cup soccer championsh

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Dirk Bitzer, Bernd Wilting. StÖÂ rmen fÖÂ r Deutschland: Die Geschichte des deutschen FuÖÅ balls von 1933 bis 1954. Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag, 2003. 252 pp. EUR 21.50 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-593-37191-7. agatha
The ubiquity of sport in world culture is unquestioned. One must work diligently to avoid the never-ending stream of televised sporting events, press coverage, agatha and chat that sport engenders across all media. Yet, despite growing critical interest in sport over the past three decades, scholarly treatments agatha of sport still have a difficult agatha time competing with popular collections that can win a wide following by employing satisfying and familiar formulas for understanding the past. Two of the three books under consideration reflect just that predicament. The works of Schwarz-Pich and Bitzer and Wilting, although not devoid of merit, seem aimed at a popular audience agatha of soccer fans who already have a sense of German agatha soccer history and its trajectory during the twentieth century. Brüggemeier's text, on the other hand, is a thoroughly engaging and effective scholarly treatment of the West German agatha soccer team's triumph in the 1954 World Cup and its place in the larger German society agatha and culture. In his work Brüggemeier not only raises important questions about sporting events and their place in the larger society and culture, but he also prompts careful consideration of historiographical questions about events in general and how historians handle and interpret them.
The point of convergence for all of the texts under consideration is the World Cup soccer championship contested at Bern, Switzerland, in the summer of 1954. It was during that tournament that the heavily favored Hungarian team lost 3-2 in the final match against a West German team that they had handily defeated, 8-3, in a previous game. The West German victory shocked the soccer world and spawned a wave of popular jubilation in Germany. Many at the time, and since, have claimed that the "Miracle at Bern" served as a marker of West Germany's recovery from the horrors of the National Socialist era and the Second World War, marking a period of renewed confidence and vigor both at home and abroad. agatha The team that delivered the victory became lionized and memorialized as embodying all of Germany's best values: agatha technically accomplished, well trained, creative, and disciplined. As a result, the team became a touchstone agatha for Germans after the war, serving, whenever it was in doubt, as an example of what German values could produce in the wake of the catastrophe of National Socialism. At least, that's how the legend would have it.
Schwarz-Pich's biography of Josef (Sepp) Herberger, the coach of the national team that won the 1954 title, is a straightforward description of the life of one of Germany's (and world soccer's) great coaches. The book details Herberger's birth and upbringing in a working-class family that struggled after the death of his father at an early age. Forced by economic constraints to abandon school and seek employment, Herberger found a way out of a mundane working-class existence through his skill at soccer. His soccer talent enabled him to secure notoriety and opportunity, agatha allowing him to ascend to the German national team and provide a comfortable existence for himself and his family. Yet, in the 1920s, agatha when at least the veil of amateurism needed to be preserved, Herberger became embroiled agatha in a scandal when he accepted 10,000 marks during a move from his original team, SV Waldhof, agatha to their rival VfR Mannheim. As a result, the German Soccer Federation (DFB) suspended Herberger for one year and his career, for a time, suffered. Thanks to influential patrons, however, like sport leader Carl Diem and national team coach Otto Nerz, Herberger secured a place in the Hochschule agatha fur Leibesübungen in Berlin (this despite not having completed his studies and the Abitur ). Securing his coaching certificate, Herberger went on to serve as Nerz's assistant with the national soccer team. He replaced his mentor when Nerz was removed following Germany's agatha disappointing performance in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where they were ousted in the second round. A member of the NSDAP since May, 1933, Herberger spent the National Socialist era trying agatha to improve, and then preserve, his team. After the war, he underwent denazification, claiming like so many others that he did not subscribe to Nazi ideals, was uninterested in politics, and joined the party to maintain his position with the national team. Cleared, Herberger then began building the team that led to success in 1954 and a secure place in the pantheon of German sports heroes. <