Some time ago I was watching a Deutsche Wochenschau news reel and it contained a hockey segment. This got me wondering how big was hockey in Nazi Germany, so I did a little poking around on the internet and came across an interesting character and story. The character is the German, Rudi Ball, who was in the 30's and 40's one of the worlds top hockey players. Rudi was also half Jewish. Ball scored over 500 goals in his career and played on the 1932 German ice hockey team at Lake Placid where the German team won the Bronze medal. Ball scored 3 goals in that tournament. Ball was originally excluded from the 1936 German Olympic team because of his Jewish heritage but his friend and team mate Gustav Jaenecke refused to play if Ball was not included on the teams roster. The Nazi authorities realized that they didn't stand a chance without Ball and Jaenecke so they relented. Ball used this opportunity to get his family out of Nazi Germany. He would play on the German team if his family was allowed to leave the country. Ball played and his family was allowed to leave. Ball played four games and scored two goals before he was injured. The German team placed fifth. I haven't been able to get much more details about his career but it would appear that Ball remained in Germany and played for a few Berlin teams until after the war when in 1948 he emigrated to S. Africa.
