When Israeli national team player Almog Cohen takes the pitch against his old love, Nuremberg, his German fans welcome him with Israeli flags. A German, Michael Nees, is technical director and coach of the Israeli under-21 team and is helping to build the future of Israeli football. With more than 2,000 participants, the next “European Maccabi Games” at Berlin Olympic Parc, where the Nazis celebrated their triumphs in 1936, will be the largest event to feature Jewish athletes outside Israel. Israeli team captain Alec Privalov wears the Star of David on his chest and the German tricolor on his back. Tsvika Riz, the German national team’s biggest fan in Israel, sees no contradiction between walking through Tel Aviv in a Germany shirt, although his grandfather refused to allow even a single German product into his house. Almost the entire Tsvika family died in the Holocaust.

Football as a Trailblazer for Reconciliation?

When Germany and Israel established diplomatic relations 50 years ago, all this was unthinkable. The Holocaust was still too fresh and a "normal relationship" between the two countries was impossible. In the documentary “90 Minutes for Israel and Germany - Football between Tel Aviv and Berlin,” DW authors Thomas Lemmer and Matthias Frickel tackle the question as to why football has always played a pioneering role in reconciling the two countries. But can this relationship ever really be called “normal” at all?

Bayern Munich has Lots of Fans in Israel

How do Jewish footballers in Germany live? And how does a German coach in Israel tread the fine line between historical legacy and current conflict in the Middle East? Why do fans in Tel Aviv root for Bayern and the German national team at all? The authors look at four biographies to examine how football brings Germans and Israelis closer together. What do they like about each other and what problems do they still have to face because the Holocaust defines their mutual perceptions even now?

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