Underappreciated outside Germany, will the currywurst win new fans at Euro 2024?

BERLIN (AP) — Bite-sized bliss. The currywurst is considered a fast-food delicacy in Germany, and a perfect treat before a game.

UEFA has confirmed that soccer fans from across Europe will find this savory German invention on offer at stadiums throughout the country during the European Championship, which kicks off on Friday.

The pork sausage garnished with curry sauce is usually presented on a pristine white cardboard platter with a two-pronged plastic fork. It can be served with skin or without – visiting fans will have developed their own preference by the end of the month-long tournament.

While its origins are contested, the currywurst has a special place in the food culture of Berlin.

“Our city is all about currywurst, and I think our city can’t live without currywurst. Whoever comes to Berlin has to try currywurst to know what the city’s about,” said Linda Konnopke, who helps run her family's popular fast-food joint in the German capital’s Prenzlauer Berg district.

Her great-grandparents Max and Charlotte Konnopke first began selling sausages from their portable grill in 1930, and the family-run business has since become an institution famous for its currywurst, which Günter Konnopke, their son, introduced to East Berlin in 1960. It was an immediate hit. The recipe is still a closely guarded family secret.

“Our absolute highlight is our currywurst without skin. That’s our biggest seller,” Linda Konnopke said.

The currywurst is usually sliced into convenient bite-sized portions. It can be doused in ketchup and sprinkled with curry powder, but some vendors – like Konnopke’s – will use their own specific curry sauce.

A woman named Herta Heuwer is largely credited with its invention. Heuwer was one of thousands of Berlin’s “Trümmerfrauen,” or rubble women, who helped clear the wreckage left after World War II, and afterward she ran her own fast-food business in the borough of Charlottenburg in the west of the city.

Some say Heuwer was bored one day and decided to experiment with the ingredients she had; others that she ran out of mustard and needed an alternative. Either way, she claimed to have invented the currywurst on Sept. 4, 1949.

Berlin proclaimed itself the “currywurst capital” on a plaque honoring Heuwer where she sold her first currywurst, but there are rival claims from Hamburg and the Ruhr area in western Germany.

At the German Cup final in Berlin last month, Kaiserslautern fan Luisa Albert said she prefers the currywurst in Kaiserslautern, which is in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. As stadium food, she said, it’s always a winner.

“Currywurst is the best thing you can eat before a game,” she said. “It gives you the strength to cheer and celebrate and do everything.”

Fans attending games at Berlin’s Olympiastadion will be able to get their currywurst from Hertha Berlin supporter Ollie Brandt, who has been offering fast-food outside the stadium for more than 40 years.

Brandt takes great pride in offering currywurst sausages manufactured to another longstanding family recipe, but he doesn’t think much of currywurst from outside the capital.

“If you go to the Rhineland, for example, you get a grilled sausage that’s smeared with a sort of curry sauce sold as a currywurst. But that’s no currywurst,” Brandt said as he held up a package of his own sausages. “This here is a real currywurst.”

Brandt said fans would simply have to try the different types and styles to determine their favorite.

“We have I don’t know how many thousands of snack bars all over Berlin, East and West. Everyone does it differently. It doesn’t taste the same anywhere, but it’s still simply unique,” Brandt said. “You have to try it.”

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Linda Konnopke, the great-granddaughter of Max and CharlotteKonnopke, the founder of Konnopke's Imbiss, a fast food restaurant under the tracks at Eberswalder Straße subway station, poses for a photo, in Berlin, Germany, Friday, May 24, 2024. The currywurst, Germany's sausage with curry sauce, promises to be among the most tantalizing gourmet treats on offer at the European Championship this summer. The currywurst is considered a fast-food delicacy in a country where the humble sausage enjoys great importance. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Employees frys and serves Currywurst, Germany's sausage with curry sauce, at Konnopke's Imbiß, a fast-food joint under the tracks at the Eberswalder Straße U-Bahn station in Berlin, Germany, Friday, May 24, 2024. The currywurst promises to be among the most tantalizing gourmet treats on offer at the European Championship this summer. The currywurst is considered a fast-food delicacy in a country where the humble sausage enjoys great importance. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Currywurst, Germany's sausage with curry sauce, served on a cardboard at Konnopke's Imbiß, a fast-food joint under the tracks at the Eberswalder Straße U-Bahn station in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, June 6, 2024. The currywurst promises to be among the most tantalizing gourmet treats on offer at the European Championship this summer. The currywurst is considered a fast-food delicacy in a country where the humble sausage enjoys great importance. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

At Konnopke's Imbiss, a fast food restaurant under the tracks at Eberswalder Straße subway station, customers queue up for currywurst in a long line, in Berlin, Germany, Friday, May 24, 2024. The currywurst, Germany's sausage with curry sauce, promises to be among the most tantalizing gourmet treats on offer at the European Championship this summer. The currywurst is considered a fast-food delicacy in a country where the humble sausage enjoys great importance. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

At Konnopke's Imbiss, a fast food restaurant under the tracks at Eberswalder Straße subway station, customers queue up for currywurst, in Berlin, Germany, Friday, May 24, 2024. The currywurst, Germany's sausage with curry sauce, promises to be among the most tantalizing gourmet treats on offer at the European Championship this summer. The currywurst is considered a fast-food delicacy in a country where the humble sausage enjoys great importance. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Currywurst, Germany's sausage with curry sauce, served on a cardboard at Konnopke's Imbiß, a fast-food joint under the tracks at the Eberswalder Straße U-Bahn station in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, June 6, 2024. The currywurst promises to be among the most tantalizing gourmet treats on offer at the European Championship this summer. The currywurst is considered a fast-food delicacy in a country where the humble sausage enjoys great importance. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Currywurst, Germany's sausage with curry sauce, served on a cardboard platter with French fries and mayonnaise at Konnopke's Imbiß, a fast-food joint under the tracks at the Eberswalder Straße U-Bahn station, in Berlin, Germany, Friday, May 24, 2024. The currywurst promises to be among the most tantalizing gourmet treats on offer at the European Championship this summer. The currywurst is considered a fast-food delicacy in a country where the humble sausage enjoys great importance. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Australia’s most decorated living war veteran, Ben Roberts-Smith, on Friday lost his appeal of a civil court ruling that blamed him for unlawfully killing four unarmed Afghans. Meanwhile a veterans’ advocate called on prosecutors to speed up their investigations of war crime allegations in Afghanistan that have left innocent soldiers under a cloud of suspicion.

Three federal court judges unanimously rejected his appeal of a judge’s ruling in 2023 that Roberts-Smith was not defamed by newspaper articles published in 2018 that accused him of a range of war crimes.

Justice Anthony Besanko had ruled that the accusations were substantially true to a civil standard and Roberts-Smith was responsible for four of the six unlawful deaths of noncombatants he had been accused of.

Roberts-Smith later said he would immediately seek to appeal the decision in the High Court, his final appeal option.

“I continue to maintain my innocence and deny these egregious, spiteful allegations,” Roberts-Smith said in a statement.

“Sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant, and I believe one day soon the truth will prevail,” he added.

Tory Maguire, an executive of Nine Entertainment that published the articles Roberts-Smith claimed were untrue, welcomed the ruling as an “emphatic win.”

“Today is also a great day for investigative journalism and underscores why it remains highly valued by the Australian people,” Maguire said.

The marathon 110-day trial is estimated to have cost 25 million Australian dollars ($16 million) in legal fees that Roberts-Smith will likely be liable to pay.

Roberts-Smith has been financially supported by Australian billionaire Kerry Stokes whose media business Seven West Media is a rival of Nine Entertainment.

Reporter Nick McKenzie, who was personally sued, said Roberts-Smith must be held accountable before the criminal justice system.

Roberts-Smith has never faced criminal charges, which must be proven to the higher standard of beyond reasonable doubt.

Only one Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign has been charged with a war crime, former Special Air Service Regiment soldier Oliver Schulz.

Schulz has been charged with murdering an unarmed Afghan, Dad Mohammad, in May 2012 by shooting him three time as the alleged victim, aged in his mid-20s, lay on his back in long grass in Uruzgan province.

Schulz was charged in March 2023. He has pleaded not guilty but has yet to stand trial. Schulz is currently taking part in a committal hearing that will decide whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to warrant a jury trial.

An Australian military report released in 2020 found evidence that Australian troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners and civilians. The report recommended 19 current and former soldiers face criminal investigation. It’s not clear whether Roberts-Smith was one of them.

Police are working with the Office of the Special Investigator, an Australian investigation agency established in 2021, to build cases against elite SAS and Commando Regiments troops who served in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.

The Australian Special Air Service Association, which advocates for veterans, has called for the government to establish a time limit for the Office of the Special Investigator rather than allow the allegations to drag on for decades.

“The whole process of dealing with these allegations needs to be completed at best speed,” the association’s chairman Martin Hamilton-Smith said.

The single criminal charge laid so far suggested that evidence behind many allegations was not credible, he said.

Defense Minister Richard Marles, who is acting prime minister in Anthony Albanese’s absence, did not immediately respond on Friday to a request for comment.

Rights activists have noted that the only Australian to be jailed in relation to war crimes in Afghanistan is whistleblower David McBride.

The former army lawyer was sentenced a year ago to almost six years in prison for leaking to the media classified information that exposed allegations of Australian war crimes.

Roberts-Smith, 46, is a former SAS corporal who was awarded the Victoria Cross and Medal for Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan. Around 39,000 Australians soldiers served in Afghanistan and 41 were killed.

His SAS colleagues are among those calling for him to become the first of Australia’s Victoria Cross winners to be stripped of the highest award for gallantry in battle.

FILE - Ben Roberts-Smith arrives at the Federal Court in Sydney, Australia, Wednesday, June 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)