
This provides the opportunity to remember the survivors and their families with humility and respect. This event is aimed at ensuring Auschwitz never happens again and that remains an obligation on everybody born since then. And the football family remembers every year, on the occasion of the ‘Remembrance Day in German Football’, that people from their communities were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis. In addition to many different groups who did not conform to their world view or stood in the way of their political plans, it was primarily people of Jewish heritage who were tortured and murdered in the concentration camps.
This year, the football family particularly remembers the people who were stigmatised and brutally persecuted as ‘deviants and homosexuals’ due to their sexuality and sexual identity. Over 10,000 were transported to the concentration camps by the Nazis. They were often victims of perverse medical experiments by the camp doctors who were intent on destroying their victims’ sexual capacity. Their lot included being subjected to mocking contempt and tormented by other camp inmates in excessive acts of violence. They were harassed to the point of suicide, which represented a means of maintaining their dignity and putting an end to their immeasurable suffering.
It is self-evident that sexuality and sexual identity should be inalienable human rights. This also involves deepening and intensifying the dialogue on the issue in football and also forms part of ‘learning from Auschwitz’. This lesson has to be learned again and again. That is the message from the survivors of concentration camps on the ‘Seventeenth Remembrance Day in German Football’ on matchdays 18 and 19.


This fan meeting got off to a rather unexpected start. On Sunday afternoon, the Bayer 04 managing directors had just welcomed the fans present at the team hotel for the traditional get-together at the training camp when Fernando Carro’s phone rang. The CEO, glancing towards managing director sport Simon Rolfes with a smile, said: “We’ll just have to answer that quickly.” When asked by the fans what the call was actually about, the pair left it open with a wink. Instead, Carro and Rolfes then spent over an hour happily answering the fans’ many other questions.
Show more
Bayer 04 Leverkusen have agreed Kerim Alajbegovic’s transfer to Italian record champions Juventus. The club brought the 18-year-old attacking player back to Leverkusen this summer via a buy-back option, following a season at Red Bull Salzburg. Until his move to Austria, the Bosnia international had been playing for Bayer 04’s Under-19s.
Show more
A warm welcome to the Weimarer Land, Bayer 04! The Werkself moved into their accommodation for this year’s training camp on Saturday evening. In Blankenhain, Thuringia, head coach Carles Martínez’s team have a programme of gruelling training sessions – several of which will be open to fans – and team-building activities lined up for the next six days. We’ll be following the Werkself up close and providing you with exclusive insights, quotes, photos and videos from the training camp.
Show more
With 22 days to go until the start of the Bundesliga campaign, the Bayer 04 Women’s team have gained a fresh boost of confidence. In a friendly against Belgian top-flight side KRC Genk on Saturday afternoon, coach Roberto Pätzold’s team secured a 1–0 win. Lobke Loonen (20’) scored the winner for the Black and Reds at the Kurtekotten training centre.
Show more
Werkself TV shows the highlights of the 3-0 victory in the friendly match against Rot-Weiss Essen...
Show more