Contenu du sommaire : Le sport et la Seconde Guerre mondiale

Throughout the interwar period, the most popular sport in Belgium was Association Football. In the course of the Second World War it itself came to serve as a political football. The Flemish nationalist movement, and then from 1943 the General Commissioner of Sports, set out to split up the football federation in order to organise the game on a regional basis. Based on various sources, this article proposes to show how the Belgian Football Federation managed to preserve its unity while at the same time using football as an instrument of normality and continuity.

The Vichy regime's sports policy aimed at taking control of all French sports organisations and turning sport into a means of national recovery. In Paris and Toulouse, sports activity increased from 1940 to 1944. Spectators filled the stadiums, and the youth that was denied dancing gathered instead in sports clubs. On the basis of its official impartiality in politics, the sports community accepted Vichy's authoritarianism and accommodated itself to the German occupation. Those who practised a sport sought mainly pleasure and distraction. If in Paris sport could take a collaborationist form, it could also be a venue for resistance, particularly in the case of the « Sport Libre » organization.

In the interwar period, the Paris stadiums such as Colombes or the Parc des Princes figured among the hotspots of mass spectacle. The Second World War did not interrupt this function, even though Colombes was used for some months as an internment camp and even though the air raids caused damage to the facilities. Up to 1944 Parisians filled the stadiums in their search for entertainment. The Vichy regime tried to use the stadiums for propaganda purposes, while those in the Resistance knew how to melt away in the anonymity of the stands. The Paris municipal authorities wanted also to prepare for the future. In 1942, a project to build a stadium with seats for 100,000 was again discussed but was obviously not carried out.

Between July 1940 and June 1944, the « Chantiers de la Jeunesse » (Youth Workshops) were the emblematic youth organisation of the Vichy regime. Used for the ideological indoctrination of French youth, they were a continuation of the eugenic project of regenerating the French « race ». For this purpose, the Youth Workshops gave pre-eminence to manly training. The aim was to toughen up, to discipline, to control and to straighten the body of the young. But in the end, this project was to prove an educational failure, testifying to the ruin of the « national revolution » sought by Marshal Pétain.

In 1933, the Nazi regime tries with unequal results to take control of German sports organizations. This process is boosted after the Berlin Olympic Games (1936). Sports are used to drill a militarized youth and promote abroad the image of the Third Reich. From September 1939, sport is used in relations with neutral countries, satellite states and Germany's allies. It is then used as proof of the normality of the situation, thanks in particular to the games played by military teams. Despite Allied air raids, spectator sport remains hugely popular among the German population, since it offers an escape from an everyday life that grows constantly harder and more worrisome.

This article makes use of unpublished documents in the Russian archives to analyse the role of Soviet athletes in the immense collective effort that constituted the Great Patriotic War. Champions and lesser athletes all played their part. Some who had shown heroism at the front served as models of Soviet resistance. The demands imposed on athletes, the training that sports require, resulted in a number of athletes being secluded from combat.

Italian football from Mussolini's wars to the civil war
Summary. – Association Football occupied an ambivalent place in Fascist sports policy. It has often been criticised for the violence of its supporters and the mercenary status of its professional players. In September 1940, however, and in spite of the repeated setbacks in Mussolini's war plans, the organisation of Italy's First Division Championship was proof that all was functioning normally. However, professional players who had not been called up for military service were soon accused of shirking in the stadiums to avoid military duty. From 1943, Italian Association Football was split in two by the front line and was inevitably reduced. The Second World War nevertheless served to transform Italian football and to increase its base of spectators.

This article focuses on America's use of sports for diplomatic purposes in the course of the Second World War. From 1941, sport contributed to advancing America's military power by the support given to the war effort on the home front. Drawing on America's experience in past conflicts and military incursions, the US military called on athletes to sign up, not only to serve in national defence but also to promote recruitment. Athletes in the military were showcased in the press as symbols of patriotic virtue. While this domestic media construction was ongoing, the United States also developed the use of basketball in its foreign policy.

The transition of the Paris press between June and November 1940: Dissolution, flight, exile, return
Following the collapse of June 1940, the Paris journals divide into three groups: those that scuttle, those that leave for the Free Zone, and those that leave but then return. A fourth group must be added: those journals that did not earlier exist, together with those that had had no cause to leave and which could now reopen in splendor under the new authority. This authority, in the able hands of Otto Abetz, showed great intelligence in allowing the press a certain diversity of opinion, expressing itself in ideas that ranged from nationalist to socialist, always of course in conformity with Nazi policy.

Three war volunteers in German gaols, 1914-1918. Experiences and feelings
Throughout the Great War, tens of thousands of Belgians volunteered to defend their homeland, assaulted and occupied. However, some of them did not succeed in reaching the front. Their heroic dreams of being young patriots were snuffed out in German jails, for which they were unprepared. How did theylive through these unusual circumstances? What were the emotions expressed by these war volunteers at their foiled aspirations, and what do these expressed emotions reveal about their relationship in a world upturned, and with themselves? This article delves into these questions through an analysis of the emotions expressed by three young war volunteers in their personal notebooks, written during or shortly after their internment.