35. Growth of the Death Match Myth
Of the eight Start FC players picked up by the Gestapo, five were eventually murdered. However, their deaths were unrelated to their performance on the pitch and had more to do with their activities off the pitch. Some of them, being former NKVD, were suspected of having engaged in recent partisan sabotage activities against the German occupation.
Engaging in resistance against the Nazis was heroic in of itself, but not as dramatic as the “Death Match” narrative. Soviet authorities, eager to portray the heroism of the civilian populace during the war, chose to jazz up the story. After the war, the “Death Match” theme inspired a popular Soviet novel, and a hit movie, Third Time. The murdered Start FC players, they are commemorated in a statue in front of Dynamo Kyiv’s stadium.