German football team embroiled in Auschwitz row Wolfgang Niersbach, president of the German football federation (DFB), said that the team was considering a visit to the camp where more than a million Jews and other prisoners were killed by the Nazis during the Second World War. The team's base is more than 300 miles north of the infamous camp. Oliver Bierhoff, who scored the winning goal in Euro 96, and is now the team manager, said: "We will deal sensitively with the issue before announcing anything ebcause we do not want to face claims that it had been just a public relations stunt." Dieter Graumann, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, has said that a visit by the team would "be more effective than a thousand commemorative speeches" and that any decision where they would not attent would be "inconceivable." Henryk Broder, a Polish-born German-Jewish commentator, however said that a visit should not be considered. What are the footballers supposed to do in Auschwitz? Swear that they're sorry? Explain that this sort of thing can "never happen again?" he wrote in Der Spiegel. The German footballers have no business going to Auschwitz. That is, unless some of them choose to go there on their own and without the cameras, for personal reasons that would make them accountable to no one. Players Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski were both born in Poland.