Since you are interested in football lets consider how early in the Thirties Nazi evil manifested itself and how reviled the Nazi salute was even before Gunter set foot on Karlsruhe's bridge.
Here is a description of Derby County's visitBefore WW2 the nazi salute did not attract anything like the opproprium it does today
"Like the rest of Britain, football had tried to carry on as normal. Yet, as far back as 1934, footballers had been one of the first sections of British society to see for themselves what was happening in Germany.
In May that year, Derby County made a four-match visit there. When they eventually reached the German border it was to find a country swathed in swastika emblems.
After Hitler’s success in the elections of 1933, the Nazi State was firmly established. Dave Holford was a 19-year-old outside-left from Scarborough, excited to be included in the tour party, despite his lack of experience: “Everywhere we went, the swastika was flying. If you said ‘Good morning,’ they’d reply with ‘Heil Hitler’. If you went into a cafe and said ‘Good evening,’ they would respond with ‘Heil Hitler’. Even then, you could see this was a country preparing for war.”
On the pitch, Derby lost three times and drew once. Twice they conceded five goals in a match and were surprised by the standard of their hosts’ game.
All agreed, however, that if the football had been hard work, overall the tour had been an enjoyable one with good hotels and plenty of time to relax and enjoy the scenery.
There was, however, one overriding blot on the collective memory. Just as the England team would be obliged to do in Berlin, four years later, these Derby players were ordered to give the Nazi salute before each game.
Full-back George Collin, who captained the side when Tommy Cooper left for England duty, remembered their dilemma: “We told the manager, George Jobey, that we didn’t want to do it. He spoke with the directors, but they said that the British ambassador insisted we must.
“He said that the Foreign Office were afraid of causing an international incident if we refused. It would be a snub to Hitler at a time when international relations were so delicate.
“So we did as we were told. All except our goalkeeper, Jack Kirby, that is. Jack was adamant that he wouldn’t give the salute.
“When the time came, he just kept his arm down and almost turned his back on the dignitaries. If anyone noticed, they didn’t say anything.”
As we have already established, anti-Jewish legislation was passed days after Hitler gained the Chancellorship, and a little later with the appointment of thousands of SA men as auxillary police, violence , abduction, imprisonment and murder were practised against communists, trades union members and jews and any other opposition from early 1933 onwards. Concentration camps like Dachau were set up to incarcerate without trial and the prisoners harshly treated, sometimes until death claimed them. As the young Dave Holford described the population was carried away with a near-religious fervour of support for Hitler and the Nazis, hence the plebiscite result of 1934. This massive propaganda effort was extended overseas via the Foreign Ministry and pro German organizations like the Blackshirts or the Deutsch Bund to overcome the opposition generated by Trade Unionists, Communists and jewish influence concerned over the treatment of their comrades in Germany. British, American and other governments overcame their repugnance and tried to maintain relations in the hope that Hitler would be replaced, or mellow or that he would overcome the most extreme elements, like Roehm, and develop a new reasonable policy. How ridiculous they look now, with hindsight, and yet they invited Karlsruhe and Emden on their "Goodwill Tours" although it meant honouring the representatives of the New Germany and gritting their teeth in the face of Nazi salutes and Swastikas.the insane pursuit of racist policies
We have only two statements that we can rely on to judge Lutjen's opinion:How far Lutjens approved or disapproved of the regime overall is problematic as the kept his counsel
"Time Segment 21:40 ......We will fight until these the last shot is expended. Long live the Fuerher!
and the following day Time Segment 00:32
To the Fuerher of the German Reich, Adolf Hitler: We shall fight to the last man with confidence in you, my Fuerher, and with rock solid trust in Germany's victory!
I wondered if these items had been added to actual signals by Goebbel's propaganda people, but checking this proved interesting in another way.
Firstly they are there in the KtB so Hans Henning von Schulze Prinz Eugen's Senior Communications officer would have had to add them retrospectively, but then Goebbels himself came up with new evidence:
From his diaries translated by Fred Taylor ISBN 0-241-10893-4 p 386 29th May 1941 "Unfortunately, our report of yesterday, including the last messages from Admiral Luetjens, gave away our code key. We were rather over-hasty in that matter and now we must pay for it. A very unpleasant business, which Dr Dietrich will suffer for. We can only hope the Prinz Eugen will not come to any harm as a result. "
Dr Dietrich was in charge of releasing information for publishing in the Nazi controlled media. He had committed the unpardonable mistake of quoting the exact words Luetjens had used in his signals. Why is this so bad?
Bletchley Park the British codebreaking establishment often used the technique of Cribs, identifying perhaps a weather forecast in a more easily broken code and searching for the same thing in the top level Enigma code so as to break it. But Dietrich had blundered by printing in the Public Press the plain language version of Luetjens' fervent farewell to the Fuerher! If the British realised it, they could compare this with the gobbledegook they picked by radio and derive the coding the Enigma had applied to the original signal and read all signals sent that day. However when the settings for Einigma changed they would be back where they started.
Oddly enough, Hinsley says Bletchley did manage to start reading Bismarck's Enigma on the 28th, although he never mentions how. The material captured from the weather ship Muenchen wasn't of value until June started, the messages could be read, and the supply ships knocked off one by one.
We can't know why Lutjens put these emotional observations into his reports. Either it was very important indeed to wish the Fuerher Long Life, or Lutjens was concerned about loved ones left ashore who might be better looked after, when the news of his death and failure of the mission were reported.
http://www.kbismarck.com/archives/gpressart1.html has the report from the June issue of "Die Kriegsmarine", Deutsche Marine-Zeitung, an official journal , with the same direct Lutjens quote as must have been included in the newspapers.
And finally the football.....
That player was,of course, Stan Cullis and his career was not finished at all. The FA were quite happy with his moral stand. Stan Cullis played for England against France on 26/05/38 twelve days after the Germany match, and against a FIFA side 26/10/38 and against Norway on 09/11/38. Also against Northern Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Yugoslavia and Romania after that. Then the war kind of spoiled his international career.he was dropped from the team and his international career was finished.
And which club did he play for, why Wolverhampton Wanderers
For the story of a real hero, an ordinary Blohm & Voss worker, who made his stand against the Nazi salute and paid an awful price, see this link. http://www.fasena.de/courage/english/5a.htm I had never seen this photo or heard his story until I turned it up yesterday. This man should be famous.
There must be US newspaper reports of Lutjen's visit to the US, possibly quotes from his speech to the Texas legislature. Maybe someone can find them.
I've found a very interesting source....... for next time
All the best
wadinga