TENNIS: The American Federation has flatly apologised …
An old and controversial version of the German anthem was used before the match of the 1st round of the Fed Cup between the United States and Germany Saturday, forcing the United States Tennis Association to apologize.
“The American Federation offers its sincere apologies to the German team and its supporters to use the old version of the German anthem,” said USTA on his Twitter account .
“This error will not happen again,” she added.
The USTA extends a sincere apology to the German Fed Cup team & fans 4 the outdated National Anthem. This mistake will not occur again. pic.twitter.com/4LyG3ACe5u
— USTA (@usta) 11 February 2017
Before the start of the first single from Alison Riske and Andrea Petkovic in Lahaina (Hawaii), a soloist sang the first verse of the German national anthem which, like the second, was banned in 1945. This first verse, which begins by “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles” (literally, Germany, Germany above all), has an openly nationalist connotation.
The German anthem starts from the third verse since 1952 in the former West Germany, and since 1990 in the reunited Germany, for what was originally the third verse “Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit” (literally unit, right and freedom) . The Communist GDR had, adopted its own anthem between 1949 and 1989.
The players of the German team, their management and the few dozen supporters present said they were outraged by the odd, the first stanza, which had been recovered by the Nazis for their Pan-German policy remains a taboo in a country still haunted by the horrors of the Second World war.
“It’s the worst thing I have ever experienced”
“It’s a total disgrace, an insult, it’s the worst thing I have ever experienced,” commented afterwards, before the media, the German player Andrea Petkovic. “We are in 2017, it is inconceivable that something like that could happen in the United States,” she added, saying he had with another player to tears, in shock on hearing the version of the anthem. The captain Barbara Rittner team talked about it as an “inexcusable scandal” and an “incredible lack of respect.”
