Kyiv, early 1942. The city had been under German occupation since September, and hunger was everywhere. Nikolai Trusevich, once the star goalkeeper of Dynamo Kyiv, was a prisoner of war with nowhere to live. Then a bakery director named Josef Kordik gave him a job sweeping floors. Kordik was an ethnic German and a football fan. He recruited more starving former professionals to Bread Factory No. 1, eight of them from Dynamo Kyiv. The bread they baked went to German soldiers, but it also kept them alive, and Kordik used his status to win them slightly better rations. Then he made them a team, called FC Start. This is the story of what that team did in the summer of 1942, and how a real tragedy turned into a legend. Why would starving men risk playing the occupiers?
The Death Match: Football Under Occupation
In August 1942 a Kyiv bakery team beat a German air force side 5-3, but the legend of their doom was written later.
Bread and Brooms
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Frequently Asked Questions
What was the Death Match?
It was a football game played in Kyiv on August 9, 1942, in which the bakery team FC Start beat the German air force side Flakelf 5-3. The name came later, from Soviet storytelling. It first appeared in print in 1946.
Did a German officer really threaten to kill the players if they won?
The threat is part of the legend, first told by Soviet propaganda. Survivor Makar Goncharenko said an officer came into the locker room but mainly told them to follow the rules and greet opponents in the German fashion. Start also played another match a week later and won 8-0.
Why were the FC Start players arrested and killed?
The Gestapo began arresting the players on August 18, 1942, taking eight into custody most likely after a tip-off that they had been Soviet secret police. Three players were shot at the Syrets camp on February 24, 1943, in what was reportedly a collective punishment. German prosecutors in Hamburg found no evidence in 2005 that the match results led directly to their deaths.
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