„Pride of the Nation“
as commonly known refers to football, a sport which Paul Rascheja portrays here in an unconventional way: The favourite sport of the Germans is unmasked as a national struggle for power and demonstrates parallels with National Socialism. That top sports are a war fought without guns is something that was already known to George Orwell. Football functions in a similar way: The players, while being spurred on by their fans, are celebrated in a fashion comparable to war heroes. Their commercialisation is driven to an extreme, comparable to what occurs in war propaganda. Aggressive and brutal, in uniformed football shirts surrounded by cheering fans, the players appear like modern war warriors and are stylised like gladiators in advertising.
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