Fritz Walter (1950's footballer)

Fritz Walter (October 31, 1920 – June 17, 2002) was one of the most popular German football players. In his time with the German and West German national team, he earned 61 caps and scored 33 goals.

As the son of a Vereinswart of 1. FC Kaiserslautern, Walter began his football career early. At age 8, he joined the Kaiserslautern youth academy, and he made his first team debut at just 17, where he would faithfully remain throughout his career.

Walter debuted with the national team in 1940 under Sepp Herberger, and scored a hat-trick against Romania. Walter was drafted into the armed forces in 1942, however, the end of the war found 24 year old Fritz in a P.O.W. camp in Hungary. As the allied forces approached from the West, it was the Russians who reached Hungary from the East and in general, took all German P.O.W.'s back to a Gulag in Russia where life expectancy was about five years. Fortunately, one of the Hungarian prison guards had seen Fritz playing for Germany and when the Russians came, told them that Fritz was not German but Austrian, and his life was spared. Upon his return, Walter again played for Kaiserslautern, leading them to German championships in 1951 and 1953. He returned to the national team in 1951, and was named the captain.

He was captain of the West German team that won their first World Cup in 1954. Ironically, that win came over Hungary. But in 1956, after the crack down by the Soviets of the Hungarian Uprising, the soccer team got caught away from home, and for two years, Fritz managed their games and provided the financial backing and in small measure, paid them back for having saved his life. Walter received his last cap during the semi-final against Sweden in the 1958 World Cup, suffering an injury which ended his international career, and retired from football in 1959.

Fritz's brother Ottmar Walter played with him on the 1954 West German team that won the World Cup. His brother is still alive, he still lives together with his wife in their house at Kaiserslautern itself. Fritz Walter died in 2002 aged 81. It was his dream to see the World Cup 2006 in "his" town Kaiserslautern, but it was denied with his death. But on the fourth year anniversary of his death on June 17, 2006, the United States played Italy in Kaiserslautern and a minute of silence was observed in his memory.

Accolades

Fritz Walter is one of four honorary captains of the German soccer squad. The other three are Uwe Seeler, Franz Beckenbauer and Lothar Matthäus.
The home stadium of 1. FC Kaiserslautern is named the Fritz Walter Stadion.
In 2004, when UEFA celebrated its 50th anniversary, the German Football Association selected him as its Golden Player from 1954 to 2003.

Trivia

In the eighties and nineties, there was another successful Bundesliga striker called "Fritz Walter", who mainly played for VfB Stuttgart. Although he had no relationship to the great Kaiserslautern captain, sports fans jokingly called the younger Fritz Walter "Fritz Walter junior".
Fritz Walter's wife of five decades was Italia Walter, a woman from Italy. This is remarkable, as it was then highly unusual in then-conservative Germany to pick foreign wives.
It was popular knowledge in Germany that Walter appeared to play better the worse the weather was, and so now the term "Fritz Walter's weather" is used to describe stormy weather conditions.

External links

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Fritz Walter (1950's footballer)

Accolades

Trivia

External links