BERLIN (AP) – The German soccer federation says it has a “special responsibility” to support Holocaust Memorial Day as its former president Felix Linnemann was directly responsible for sending victims to be murdered at the Auschwitz extermination camp.
The DFB said on Friday that Linnemann, who led the federation from 1925 to 1945, “was directly involved in the registration of Sinti and Roma as the head of the Hannover Criminal Police control center, which was the preliminary stage for their deportations to Auschwitz. Several hundred people are said to have been deported to the extermination camp and killed there on the basis of a direction signed by Linnemann.