Bernd Trautmann in the movie foul play with a legend

Nearly Bernd Trautmann would have ended up at Schalke 04. In the summer of 1952, a well-Known from the prisoner of war had made the contact. Trautmann drove from Manchester to the Ruhr area, he was negotiating with Schalke's President, chatted with the famous squads like Seriously, life sharing, and Fritz Szepan, who offered him as a kind of hand of money, the Acquisition of a gas station. More not was for a footballer. Although the men were quick to agree, was nothing out of the exchange. As transfer fee to Manchester City demanded £ 25,000, the equivalent of 500,000 Mark, and so much was the scarf core, a largely unknown goalie but not worth it.

That was too bad for "Traut the Kraut", he would have been quite fond of on the way home, would probably become a national player and perhaps one of the heroes of Bern. But his stint in Manchester would have remained only a brief Episode. The memory of the first German in England's highest League, which managed to debut descent, in the second year of the ascension and in the third place 15 landed. Nothing Special.

A century of design

but the reluctantly in Manchester-at-heart, Trautmann became a legend, a century, form the you adore in England still. Bernd Trautmann, the one they call there since his 15 years at Manchester City have all Bert – this is the man who came as a prisoner of war, voluntarily remained and as a friend went. The Hitler the Iron cross, the Wehrmacht received from the Queen the Order of the British Empire. The first goalkeeper, the England press football player of the year chose. And until today this is unthinkable: The devil guy who broke in the 1956 Cup Final to the back of the Neck, and but played, not substitutions allowed. In a Trance of the serious injuries Trautmann threw the invading enemies in front of the feet and saved his team the victory. Long before Boris Becker, Jürgen Klinsmann, and Claudia Schiffer, Bernd Trautmann, England's favourite German.

This story had to eventually be made into a film, oddly enough, is the happen only now, 63 years after Mann's Trust, the largest in the game and six years after his death. Marcus H. rosenmüller's "Trautmann" comes on 14. March in the cinema, two days after Schalke and Manchester City this Tuesday in the Champions League. What a beautiful coincidence. Only the Film does not fit unfortunately.

rose müller has made from the Sport, in addition to touching the substance with a cheesy melodrama. A love story with a bit of football and silly sentences like: "I'd rather have danced with you, than to stand on the field of battle, but I had no choice." David Kross ("The reader") as Bernd Trautmann performs for the edification of his loved one (Freya Mavor) with the Ball ballet figures in the penalty area. For that alone, he would be in the late Forties, on any English football ground only slightly to the lynching escaped.

Now a feature film is not a documentation, it is allowed to condense and also a little bit to find. But rosenmüller could not have been on the vertices between war captivity and the Cup Final, at the very least a Minimum of historical truth and interweaving, in the case of this great template? Rose Miller Trautmann is a gentle Teddy bear who wanted to have to do with the brown rulers in the old country, never something to and to the vengeful Engl desperate to change. The right Trautmann was tall and blond and quick-tempered, exactly the way you would expect a Germanic Nazi. Volume 23, grew up in the Hitler youth, at 17, he volunteered against the wishes of his parents to the Wehrmacht. Even in prisoner of war camp, he finds that Hitler did, in fact, brought Good in the way that motorways and national pride and so on. Not, he captured the hearts of the enemies, you will conquer your being. For example, as you offer to him after the capture, a Cup of tea. "The enemy was not saved. That impressed me,“ Trautmann told time. In the Film the English camp says-the commander of the prisoners: "When it comes to me, you could in the yard of your own mass grave to dig."

truth and fiction

Also, on other occasions, rose müller is not afraid of the historical truth – perhaps because it appears to him crazy. Trautmann was not from early Childhood, an avid soccer player who had to do school work, that he was always Last on the football ground and the only place left in the gate was left. The right Trautmann has played at home prefer to Dodge ball and is a big sports fan, in the terrible sense of the word. With 15 he won at the youth Olympic 1938 games in Berlin, among other things, a silver medal in the grenade throwing. Into football he finds only in England. In the case of a prisoner of war when he is injured in the leg and not stop like what he exchanged with the goalkeeper the place – and not more leaves.

Really uncomfortable with the inventions of the script are writes, as Trautmann in 1949, a contract with Manchester City. Manchester has a large Jewish community, and there are serious reservations about the recruitment of the war opponent. There are demonstrations in front of the stadium, and the angry readers ' letters in the Newspapers follow. It is thanks to the Rabbi, Alexander Altmann, Trautmann survives this hostile. Altmann has lost much of his family in Auschwitz, and to call for reconciliation: "Despite the terrible cruelties we suffered at the Germans, we should not try to punish an individual German, is not with these crimes of hatred. If this footballer is a decent guy, I see him as not a threat.“

Bernd Trautmann in goal.Photo: picture alliance/dpa

In the Film Manchester City Executive Committee asks the Rabbi to do me this favour, but it fails with the following justification: "A Nazi in the crew, was your responsibility." It was only when man Trusts English wife in the club locally an emotional speech holds up and down screaming, remembers the Rabbi and takes the side of the Germans. Rose Miller's Film situated devalues great gesture. This is as lewd as the position that Trautmann did not prevent the war, the murder of a Ukrainian boy by a sadistic soldiers, although that would easily have been possible. There is not a single document, and Trautmann has spoken in his late years, very openly and extensively to his past in the brown of Germany.

"A bit of tooth pain,"

the one with The little boy rose, Mueller like, but so good that it lured him to black, and with sad-anklagendem view again and again prior to the trust's leaves intellectual eye over the canvas and running. Also, the very end, after the big Cup Final on may 5. In may 1956, Manchester City against Birmingham City. Man his neck was broken trust after the fatal Parade is presented a little too dramatically. He is not unconscious in the penalty area and it doesn't collapse on the way into the cabin. When Prince Philip asked during the presentation ceremony after his pain, does Not respond Trautmann: "so tragic, a bit like a toothache."

no Matter, at such moving moments, the cinema has all the rights of the film world to the hype. Also the tragic accidental death of his son will in time be preferred and in the hospital past goalkeeper live on the phone witnessed – it was a gift. Unbearable it is, as the back of the dark haired Boy jumps through the image, and Trautmann accepted the loss suffered as a just punishment for his indirect foul verb right: "This Boy has not been rescued, and now is to me the son."

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sports reconciler with heart and hands

Markus Hesselmann

Would've gone for Bernd Trautmann 1952 to Schalke, would be missing the football today, one of his great stories. But posterity would have been spared of this annoying Film.