It is sometimes advisable not to take everything a player in the football industry says literally. On Wednesday evening, however, it was appropriate to believe every syllable when Hans-Joachim Watzke, managing director of Borussia Dortmund, accepted the Leo Baeck Prize from the Central Council of Jews in Berlin. He has “never” personally experienced a greater honor; He also couldn’t imagine that there would be another one that would top them, said Watzke in a lounge in the Berlin Olympic Stadium named after the legendary US sprinter Jesse Owens. When Josef Schuster, the Chairman of the Central Council, told him over the phone that he had been awarded the Leo Baeck Prize, he felt “completely overwhelmed” and was “speechless”.
Even though Watzke, 65, is not the first football official to receive the award (former DFB President Theo Zwanziger also received it a few years ago), his name still stands out. The list of prize winners includes chancellors, ministers and state presidents, as well as politicians who have been or are receiving confidential advice from the well-connected Christian Democrat Watzke. Of course, Watzke did not receive the prize for a political role. But for its fight against anti-Semitism, or more precisely: for the fight that Borussia Dortmund has led with and under Watzke, is leading – and will continue to lead.
The fact that it was not Watzke alone who was honored, but a number of the club’s employees, was clear from both the speech by Central Council boss Schuster and Watzke’s acceptance speech. The BVB managing director expressly, representatively and noticeably thanked the former fan representative Daniel Lörcher, who has shaped BVB’s anti-discrimination initiatives for years. Watzke thus focused on a work that was intended to have a political and educational impact and to push back the influence of neo-Nazis on the stands in the Westfalenstadion that was not so long ago. An example of this work is educational trips for BVB fans to places of German terror against Jews.
BVB made donations to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, adopted the anti-Semitism definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) (and thus played a pioneering role in the Bundesliga), and condemned the Hamas terror of October 7, 2023. Among other things. In his acceptance speech, Watzke also emphasized his friendship with the State of Israel. And he added that this “always requires that you take the right to say to your friend from time to time: I personally don’t like that so much if you don’t agree with a political decision.”
Central Council Chairman Josef Schuster criticizes BVB’s Rheinmetall deal
Watzke didn’t get more specific at this point, but he was more specific at another point. When he said, for example, that in view of the events in Amsterdam on the sidelines of the Maccabi Tel Aviv game at Ajax Amsterdam or recent anti-Semitic attacks in Berlin and other areas of Germany, he was ashamed that “Jews in Germany or Germans of the Jewish faith are afraid again “to take to the streets.” Watzke expressed his belief that “a misguided migration policy” was one of the drivers of this development and contributed to radicalization on the right and left fringes of society. “You just have to be able to say that too,” shouted Watzke and received applause – not least from the prominent representatives of a high-circulation newspaper in the country, which often sounds similar in its bar-wide headlines and editorials.
Conversely, Watzke also showed taker qualities: when Central Council Chairman Schuster discussed Borussia’s controversial advertising contract with the weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall. “To be honest, I wasn’t thrilled that Borussia Dortmund entered into a sponsorship relationship with a defense company that has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to dealing with its own history under National Socialism,” said Schuster – and expressed his hope that BVB would influence Rheinmetall.
