With only two dissenting votes the Vienna Sport Club of New York has added its name to the roster of the groups which have withdrawn from the United German Societies since September 16, when it became clear that that organization had fallen under Nazi control.
A resolution adopted by the club at its last meeting at the clubhouse, 432 East 86th Street, declares that the club has no interest in belonging to an organization which is directly or indirectly concerned with politics. At the same time, the German American Football League has issued to all its members a warning against introducing the currently prevalent political differences into recreation centers and sport fields.
In its open letter the German American Football League decries intolerance as unworthy of true sportsmanship, and cautions against the repetition of political clashes in the sport world.
“All politics must be kept apart from sports,” the letter reads. “In out football games we can make no distinctions in racial, creed or blood relationships. A football player is a football player and nothing else. If as a football player he fights for the honor of his club, whether he belongs to one race or the other, should be immaterial to every other football player….
“The executive body (of the German American Football League) cannot and will not permit the recreation centers of its member groups to become the playground of political passions which are superimposed. And it is the duty of every officer of the league to see to it that spectators behave in just as civilized a manner as they, in reversed circumstances, would expect of dissenters.
“The German American Football League Executive Board therefore decided at its last meeting to notify the organizations that playgrounds where players of other races will be heckled will be closed.”
The football league’s executive board also announces that it has charged umpires to inform it of all instances, even the very slightest, in which a player is insulted.
Earlier this week, the Mainz Carnival Society withdrew from the United German Societies for reasons similar to those prompting all the other seceding societies. At a meeting held Tuesday evening at Luchow’s the society voted unanimously to sever its connection with the United German Societies when Hermann Horn, Emil Hoffman and Oakar Borchert, the Mainz Carnival Society’s delegates to the recent meetings of the United German So-
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
