Dynamo Dynamo

Dynamo

Defending the Honour of Kiev

    • $13.99
    • $13.99

Publisher Description

In 1942 at the centre point of World War II an extraordinary event took place not on the battlefield but in a municipal stadium in Kiev. This is the true story of courage, team loyalty and fortitude in the face of the most brutal oppression the world had ever seen.

When Hitler initiated Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, he caught the Soviet Union completely by surprise. At breathtaking speed his armies swept east, slaughtering the ill-prepared Soviet forces. His greatest military gains of the entire war were made in a few short months, and the largest single country that he conquered was the Ukraine, roughly the size of France. Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, was circled, assaulted and overrun, and among the city’s defenders who were captured and incarcerated were many of the members of the sparkling 1939 Dynamo Kiev football team, argaubly the best in Europe before the war. Captured Kiev was a starving city whose population were deported in vast numbers as slave labour.

However one man determined to save not just the surviving players from the Dynamo side but other athletes. He offered them work, shelter and, most valuable, bread, as workers in his bakery. Inspired by the charismatic goalkeeper Trusevich, the Dynamo side was re-formed as Start FC and a series of fixtures was arranged, all of which the team win handsomely, to such an extent that they inspired Kievan spirits. The final fixture against the Luftwaffe was agreed by the German authorities: a well-fed team from the Fatherland would vanquish the upstart Ukrainians, especially if the game was refereed by an SS officer. The match is an allegory of resistance; its consequences are brutal. Andy Dougan has discovered the truth behind a legendary encounter, sorting fact from fiction and restoring to the centre of World War II a moment of extraordinary poignancy and complex bravery, of which the cliché is demonstrably true: football is not a matter of life or death; it’s much more important than that.

Reviews

‘Just as you think you've read every good book about the war another one is published…I cannot help but think that it would seem wrong to try and forget what happened during the last war until all stories such as this one have been told.’ Philip Kerr, Sunday Times

‘This is clearly a labour of love.’ Independent

About the author

Andy Dougan is a writer for the Evening Herald and the author of six previous biographies, of Martin Scorcese and Robert De Niro among others.

GENRE
History
RELEASED
2012
28 June
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
256
Pages
PUBLISHER
Fourth Estate
SELLER
HarperCollins Australia Pty Limited
SIZE
521.2
KB

More Books Like This

Moscow 1941 Moscow 1941
2010
Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad Hitler vs Stalin: The Battle of Stalingrad
2017
Berlin Berlin
2007
Russia Russia
2022
The Splintered Empires The Splintered Empires
2017
The Siege of Leningrad The Siege of Leningrad
2012

More Books by Andy Dougan

One Shot, One Kill One Shot, One Kill
2011
Untouchable: Robert De Niro Untouchable: Robert De Niro
2011
Celtic: The Lisbon Lions Celtic: The Lisbon Lions
2011
Raising the Dead Raising the Dead
2012