Classic photo: Nazi salute of German team in hockey match with English schoolboys, March 1939

Photo taken before a hockey match between a German team and the Hitchin Boys Grammar School First XI, Hertfordshire, UK.

It was 6 months before the outbreak of World War II.

The photograph was found 72 years later (2011) by veteran BBC newsreader Richard Whitmore.

In fact, there was not one but three Heil Hitler salutes before the start of the game. It had been adopted by the Nazi party in the 1930s. By 1939 anyone in Germany not giving the greeting would have been regarded with suspicion. Today, it is a criminal offence to glorify Hitler and the Nazi salute is banned.

Note the:
- bemused and slightly perplexed expressions of the English schoolboys
- the crisp uniforms of the visiting Germans contrasts with the somewhat more relaxed PE kit of the English schoolboys
- the German goalkeeper holds a large teddy bear under his non-saluting arm

Surely some of these young men ended up facing each other on the battlefield.