Association football during World War II When World War II was declared in 1939 , it had a negative effect on association football ; competitions were suspended and players signed up to fight , resulting in the deaths of many players . League football . Austria . The Republic of Austria had ceased to exist with the " Anschluss " in 1938 and the Austrian league had become a part of the German football league system , under the name of Gauliga Ostmark . League football resumed in a now independent Austria again in 1945 . England . The 1939 – 1940 season was the 65th season of competitive football in England . In September 1939 , shortly after World War II was declared , most football competitions were abandoned as the country ' s attention turned to the war effort . Regional league competitions were set up instead ; appearances in these tournaments do not count in players ' official records . A few leagues , such as the Northern League , did manage to complete a season , but more than half of the teams were unable to fulfil all their fixtures and resigned . Many footballers signed up to fight in the war and as a result many teams were depleted , and fielded guest players instead – Crystal Palace fielded 186 different players during the seven wartime seasons . The FA Cup was resumed for the 1945 - 46 season and The Football League for the 1946 - 47 season . Germany . The 1939 - 40 season started in August 1939 , but with the outbreak of the Second World War shortly after , league football was suspended . It only resumed at the end of October , with a number of local city - championships having been played to bridge the gap . As the war progressed , top - division football became more regionalised . It also expanded into occupied territories , some of them annexed into Greater Germany , increasing the number of tier - one " Gauligas " considerably from the original 16 in 1933 . The last German championship was played in 1944 and won by Dresdner SC , but the last official league game was played as late as 23 April 1945 , being the FC Bayern Munich versus TSV 1860 Munich derby in the Gauliga Oberbayern , ending 3 - 2 . The final years of league football saw the rise of military teams , like LSV Hamburg , who reached the 1944 German championship final , since most top - players were drafted into the German armed forces and ended up playing for these sides . Representative teams like the Rote Jäger also had a number of German internationals playing for them . With the end of the war , ethnic German football clubs in the parts of Germany that were awarded to Poland and the Soviet Union disappeared . Clubs like VfB Königsberg and Vorwärts - Rasensport Gleiwitz , who had successfully competed in the German championship on quite a number of occasions disappeared for good . In Czechoslovakia , where the ethnic German minority in the " Sudetenland " was forced to leave the country , clubs experienced the same fate . A few , like BSK Neugablonz , were reformed by these refugees in West Germany . Some of the events of the war continue to affect German football today . Within the first couple of weeks of the re - development of the Mercedes - Benz Arena in 2009 , home of the VfB Stuttgart , 18 undetonated bombs left over from air raids on Stuttgart during the Second World War were found on the construction site . The stadium was originally built , like so many others in Germany , on rubble left over from the war . Italy . The Italian Serie A continued to operate during the war , up until 1943 . A regional championship was played in 1944 , before resumption of the league in a limited form in 1945 . Switzerland . Football was affected less in World War II than it was during World War I . International football . England . England played 29 unofficial wartime internationals between 11 November 1939 and 5 May 1945 , 14 against Wales and 15 against Scotland . Germany . With the outbreak of the Second World War , Germany did not cease to play internationals but was limited to neutral , axis and puppet states . Its first war international was held on 24 September 1939 , a loss to Hungary in Budapest . All together , the country played 35 international games during the war , its last on 22 November 1942 , against Slovakia . Wales . Wales played seventeen wartime unofficial matches for which the players were not awarded caps , and a further six matches in aid of war charities . Football for morale . Football was seen as a morale booster during the horrors of World War II , for both soldiers and civilians . Tom Finney captained Army football teams , and organised friendly matches in Austria and Egypt . Effects on footballers . Soldiers . Some players , such as Norman Corbett , have expressed the opinion that the War ruined their careers . Other players died during the war , such as the Hungarian Jewish international footballer József Braun , who died in a Nazi labor camp in 1943 . Many German players , drafted into the " Wehrmacht " , saw their careers shortened or interrupted . Fritz Walter , captain of the 1954 World Cup - winning team of Germany who made his debut for the country during the war in 1940 , missed many years of his career due to serving in the military from 1942 and spending time as a POW after the war . Fritz Walter served as a paratrooper and also spent time in a Soviet labour camp . Many German football clubs suffered heavy casualties from Hitler ' s war . An amateur club like SVO Germaringen saw ten of its eleven players that had won a local youth championship in 1940 not return from the battle fields . TSV 1860 Rosenheim had 170 of its club members drafted into military service , of those , 44 were killed in action and another 15 are missing . Those that did return found the clubs facilities completely destroyed by air raids on the town in October 1944 and April 1945 . Rosenheim was on an important rail - and road intersection . The Holocaust . A number of Jewish footballers died during the Holocaust . The Hungarian football manager Árpád Weisz died at Auschwitz in 1944 . Henrik Nadler died at an unknown camp working as a labour serviceman . Julius Hirsch , the first Jewish player to represent the German national team , died at Auschwitz in May 1945 . Hirsch had served for four years in the German Army in the First World War , had been decorated with the Iron Cross and was a German patriot , unable and unwilling to believe that his life could be at risk . However , some people also survived the concentration camps . Leo Goldstein survived the camps to become a FIFA international referee . Goldstein is also a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame . Hungarian coach Alfréd Schaffer was interned at Dachau , and was liberated by the Allies . He died naturally in the nearby town of Prien am Chiemsee a few months later . Collaborationism . Some footballers also collaborated with the Nazis . Alexandre Villaplane , who was captain of the French national side , worked actively with the Gestapo and eventually became a SS lieutenant . He was executed in December 1944 . The Estonian international goalkeeper Evald Mikson was accused by the Simon Wiesenthal Center ( in particular by Efraim Zuroff ) of committing serious war crime s against Jews during the War , when he was working as Deputy Head of Police in Tallinn . Decorated footballers . Scottish footballer Willie Thornton won the Military Medal , while German goalkeeper Bert Trautmann won a total of five medals , including an Iron Cross .