EURO 2008 INFO

When over 50,000 roaring fans fill Vienna's Ernst Happel Stadium Sunday to watch Germany take on Spain in the Euro 2008 final, chances are they won't be reflecting on the stadium's dark place in history.

When the fans of the German and Spanish teams throng into Vienna's Ernst Happel Stadium on Sunday to watch the Euro 2008 finals they will be hoping to enjoy a day of thrilling sport in Austria's most historic stadium. Many may not realize, however, that this history spans back to the 1930s when the stadium served as a Nazi barracks and then as a prison where Jews were held before being deported to concentration camps.

The dark chapter in the stadium's history began in 1934, three years after it was completed and christened the Prater Stadium. That May, Austria's fascist Chancellor Engelbert Dolfuss stood in the stadium and announced the country's new constitution, which abolished democracy in Austria and made it an authoritarian state.

Four years later, following Germany's March 12 annexation of Austria, the stadium would host the so-called "Anschluss Spiel," or "annexation match," between the countries' football teams. Austria would defeat Germany on the pitch 2-0, a week before its citizens voted in a referendum to join Hitler's Third Reich.

In September 1939, the stadium would be put to darker uses. After having housed German soldiers, the stadium was requisitioned by the Gestapo to be used as a temporary prison for over 1,000 Jewish men.

While held there, the Austrian Jews were examined by Josef Wastl, who was then the head of the anthropology department of Vienna's Natural History Museum. The museum still holds hair samples, finger prints, photos and haunting plaster masks of the 440 detainees Wastl examined for his "Anthropology of Jews" report.

Within three weeks, the Jews would be transported by rail to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Of the 1,038 deported, 44 were released and only 26 survived.

Before World War II, Vienna's Jewish community numbered as many as 200,000 people and was at the time the second largest in Europe after Warsaw's. Today, a mere 7,500 Jews live there.

The stadium's name was changed in 1993 to honor Ernst Happel, the legendary Austrian player and coach.