Germany

When Ernst Curtius, then professor of classics at Göttingen, made his famous speech in Berlin in 1852 on behalf of excavating ancient Olympia, he hit a respondent chord, since there was a general interest in the historiography of ancient ‘sport’ at this time.1 Some of the better known historians of antiquity have maintained this interest in physical culture up to the present. It is no wonder, then, that the international journal on sports history of ancient times, Nikephoros: Zeitschrift für Sport und Kultur im Altertum (1988-present), has been published in Germany and that Stadion: Internationale Zeitschrift für Geschichte des Sports (1975-present), the other German-based international journal, has also been strong on ancient sports. There are also SportZeiten (1987-present, sometimes under different names) and Beiträge zur Sportgeschichte (1995-present), two German sports history journals, as well as the Jahrbuch der Niedersächsischen Sportgeschichte (1988-present) and the Turn-und Sportgeschichte in Westfalen und Lippe: Zeitschrift des Westfälisch-Lippischen Instituts für Turnund Sportgeschichte (1996-present) two regional sports history yearbooks. ‘When one turns to Germany there has been so much good history written one hardly knows where to begin a discussion’, Allen Guttmann wrote.2