 Walter withKaiserslautern in 1956 | |||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Friedrich Walter | ||||||||||||||||
| Date of birth | (1920-10-31)31 October 1920 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Kaiserslautern,Germany | ||||||||||||||||
| Date of death | 17 June 2002(2002-06-17) (aged 81) | ||||||||||||||||
| Place of death | Enkenbach-Alsenborn, Germany | ||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)[1] | ||||||||||||||||
| Position(s) | |||||||||||||||||
| Youth career | |||||||||||||||||
| 1928–1937 | 1. FC Kaiserslautern[a] | ||||||||||||||||
| Senior career* | |||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | ||||||||||||||
| 1937–1959 | 1. FC Kaiserslautern | 411 | (372) | ||||||||||||||
| 1943 | TSG Diedenhofen | 29 | (18) | ||||||||||||||
| 1943 | TSG Saargemünd | 12 | (1) | ||||||||||||||
| Total | 469 | (391) | |||||||||||||||
| International career | |||||||||||||||||
| 1940–1958 | Germany / West Germany | 61 | (33) | ||||||||||||||
| Managerial career | |||||||||||||||||
| 1945–1949 | 1. FC Kaiserslautern (player-coach) | ||||||||||||||||
| 1960 | VfL Neustadt/Coburg | ||||||||||||||||
| 1962–1968 | SV Alsenborn | ||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| |||||||||||||||||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||||||||||||||||
Friedrich "Fritz"Walter (German:[ˈfʁiːdʁɪçfʁɪtsˈvaltɐ]ⓘ; 31 October 1920 – 17 June 2002) was a Germanfootballer who spent his entire senior career at1. FC Kaiserslautern. He usually played as anattacking midfielder orinside forward. In his time with theGermany andWest Germany national teams, he appeared in 61 games and scored 33 goals, and was thecaptain of the team that won the1954 FIFA World Cup. After his career, he was named honorary captain of the Germany national team.
Born on 31 October 1920, Walter was exposed to football early with his parents, Ludwig (1894–1976) and Dorothea Walter (née Kieburg; 1896–1978), working at the1. FC Kaiserslautern club restaurant.[2] By 1928 he had joined the Kaiserslautern youth academy, and he made his first team debut at 17, continuing an association with the club that would be his only professional club.[3][4][5]
International pro teams had repeatedly offered him hefty sums, but with support from his wife always declined in order to stay at home, to play for his home town, the national team and "Chef" (German for "Boss") Herberger.
Walter debuted with the Germany national team in 1940 underSepp Herberger, and scored ahat-trick againstRomania.[4]
Walter was drafted into the armed forces in 1942. However, the end of the war found 24-year-old Walter in aPrisoner of War camp inMaramures in which he played with Hungarian and Slovakian guards. When the Soviets arrived they generally took all German prisoners back toGulags in theSoviet Union. One of the Hungarian prison guards had seen Walter playing for Germany, and told them that Fritz was not German but from theSaar Protectorate.[6] Walter would later call the match in question as the most important of his life as it spared him and his brother from a gulag sentence.
Upon his return in 1945, Walter, who by now suffered frommalaria, again played for Kaiserslautern,[7] leading them to German championships in 1951 and 1953. Walter coachedVfR Kaiserslautern during the 1948–49 season and helped them win the 1948–49 Westpfälzischen Amateurliga.Sepp Herberger recalled Walter to the national team in 1951, and he was named captain.[4]
He was captain of theWest German team that won their firstWorld Cup in1954, beating Hungary. He and his brother,Ottmar Walter, became the first brothers to play in a World Cup winning team.[5]
In 1956, after the crackdown by the Soviets of theHungarian Uprising, the Hungarian football team were 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 him from deportation to the Soviet Union. Walter received his last cap[8] during the semi-final againstSweden in the1958 World Cup, suffering an injury which ended his international career, and he retired from football in 1959.
The home stadium of 1. FC Kaiserslautern was renamed theFritz-Walter-Stadion in 1985.
Fritz Walter was named an honorary captain of the German football squad in 1958.[9] The other five areUwe Seeler,Franz Beckenbauer,Lothar Matthäus,Bettina Wiegmann andJürgen Klinsmann.
Walter died inEnkenbach-Alsenborn on 17 June 2002, aged 81.[10] It was his dream to see theWorld Cup 2006 in "his" town Kaiserslautern as the town had not been selected in the smaller tournament of 1974, but it was denied with his death. But on the fourth anniversary of his death on 17 June 2006, theUnited States playedItaly in Kaiserslautern and a minute of silence was observed in his memory. Today people may visit the "Fritz Walter Haus" in the town ofEnkenbach-Alsenborn approx. 20 km east of Kaiserslautern (first exit from Kaiserslautern onBundesautobahn 6 direction Mannheim).[11]
In November 2003, to celebrateUEFA's 50th anniversary, theGerman Football Association (DFB) selected him as itsGolden Player of the past 50 years (from 1954 to 2003).[12]
During the eighties and nineties, there was another successfulBundesliga striker called "Fritz Walter", who mainly played forVfB Stuttgart. Although he had no relationship to the great Kaiserslautern captain, sports fans jokingly called him "Fritz Walter junior".
In 2005, theFritz Walter Medal, a series of annual awards which were established in his honour, and which are given by theGerman Football Association to youth footballers in Germany, was first awarded.[13]
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Walter's wife of five decades was Italia Walter (née Bortoluzzi; 1922–2000), a woman fromBelluno, Italy.
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 rainy weather conditions, often rendered with odd local dialect grammar "of Fritz, his weather". This is because he, as many other soldiers, had contracted malaria during the war, thus rendering him unable to stand the heat of the sun. The 1954 World Cup final was played in "Fritz Walter's weather" conditions.
On 6 October 1956, Walter scored a spectacular goal inLeipzig in front of 100,000 East Germans during a friendly againstWismut Aue, when he hit the ball back-heel while diving forward.[14]
| Club | Season | League | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Division | Apps | Goals | ||
| 1. FC Kaiserslautern | 1939–40 | Gauliga Südwest/Mainhessen | 15 | 21 |
| 1940–41 | Gauliga Südwest/Mainhessen | 12 | 16 | |
| 1941–42 | Gauliga Südwest/Mainhessen | 14 | 39 | |
| 1942–43 | Gauliga Südwest/Mainhessen | 3 | 1 | |
| 1945–46 | Oberliga Südwest | 14 | 16 | |
| 1946–47 | Oberliga Südwest | 14 | 22 | |
| 1947–47 | Oberliga Südwest | 24 | 31 | |
| 1948–49 | Oberliga Südwest | 22 | 30 | |
| 1949–50 | Oberliga Südwest | 26 | 34 | |
| 1950–51 | Oberliga Südwest | 19 | 5 | |
| 1951–52 | Oberliga Südwest | 27 | 19 | |
| 1952–53 | Oberliga Südwest | 30 | 38 | |
| 1953–54 | Oberliga Südwest | 29 | 20 | |
| 1954–55 | Oberliga Südwest | 21 | 10 | |
| 1955–56 | Oberliga Südwest | 25 | 16 | |
| 1956–57 | Oberliga Südwest | 21 | 15 | |
| 1957–58 | Oberliga Südwest | 26 | 5 | |
| 1958–59 | Oberliga Südwest | 22 | 10 | |
| Total | 364 | 348 | ||
| No. | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Result | Competition | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 14 July 1940 | Frankfurt, Germany |  Romania | 4–0 | 9–3 | Friendly | [16] |
| 2 | 8–2 | ||||||
| 3 | 9–3 | ||||||
| 4 | 1 September 1940 | Leipzig, Germany |  Finland | – | 13–0 | Friendly | [17] |
| 5 | – | ||||||
| 6 | 9 March 1941 | Stuttgart, Germany |  Switzerland | – | 4–2 | Friendly | [18] |
| 7 | 6 April 1941 | Cologne, Germany |  Hungary | – | 7–0 | Friendly | [19] |
| 8 | 1 June 1941 | Stadionul Republicii,Bucharest, Romania | Romania | 2–0 | 4–1 | Friendly | [20] |
| 9 | 15 June 1941 | Vienna, Austria |  Croatia | – | 5–1 | Friendly | [21] |
| 10 | – | ||||||
| 11 | 5 October 1941 | Råsunda Stadium, Stockholm, Sweden |  Sweden | 2–4 | 2–4 | Friendly | [22] |
| 12 | 7 December 1941 | Wrocław, Poland |  Slovakia | – | 4–0 | Friendly | [23] |
| 13 | 3 May 1942 | Népstadion,Budapest, Hungary | Hungary | 1–0 | 5–3 | Friendly | [24] |
| 14 | 3–3 | ||||||
| 15 | 16 August 1942 | Bytom, Poland | Romania | 1–0 | 7–0 | Friendly | [25] |
| 16 | 2–0 | ||||||
| 17 | 3–0 | ||||||
| 18 | 18 October 1942 | Wankdorf Stadium,Bern, Switzerland | Switzerland | – | 5–3 | Friendly | [26] |
| 19 | 1 November 1942 | Neckarstadion, Stuttgart, Germany | Croatia | 2–0 | 5–1 | Friendly | [27] |
| 20 | 15 April 1951 | Letzigrund,Zurich, Switzerland | Switzerland | – | 3–2 | Friendly | [28] |
| 21 | 17 October 1951 | Dalymount Park,Dublin, Republic of Ireland |  Republic of Ireland | 2–2 | 2–3 | Friendly | [29] |
| 22 | 9 November 1952 | Rosenaustadion,Augsburg, Germany | Switzerland | – | 5–1 | Friendly | [30] |
| 23 | 21 December 1952 | Südweststadion,Ludwigshafen, Germany |  Yugoslavia | – | 3–2 | Friendly | [31] |
| 24 | 19 August 1953 | Ullevaal Stadion,Oslo, Norway |  Norway | 1–1 | 1–1 | 1954 FIFA World Cup qualification | [32] |
| 25 | 22 November 1953 | Volksparkstadion,Hamburg, Germany | Norway | 3–1 | 5–1 | 1954 FIFA World Cup qualification | [33] |
| 26 | 25 April 1954 | St. Jakob Stadium,Basel, Switzerland | Switzerland | – | 5–3 | Friendly | [34] |
| 27 | – | ||||||
| 28 | 23 June 1954 | Letzigrund, Zurich, Switzerland |  Turkey | 6–1 | 7–2 | 1954 FIFA World Cup | [35] |
| 29 | 30 June 1954 | St. Jakob Stadium, Basel, Switzerland |  Austria | 3–1 | 6–1 | 1954 FIFA World Cup | [36] |
| 30 | 5–1 | ||||||
| 31 | 21 August 1955 | Central Dynamo Stadium,Moscow, USSR |  Soviet Union | – | 2–3 | Friendly | [37] |
| 32 | 16 November 1955 | Wildparkstadion,Karlsruhe, Germany | Norway | – | 2–0 | Friendly | [38] |
| 33 | 26 May 1956 | Olympiastadion,Berlin, Germany |  England | 1–3 | 1–3 | Friendly | [39] |
1. FC Kaiserslautern
West Germany
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | West Germany captain 1951–1956 | Succeeded by |
West Germany squads | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| International | |
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| People | |
| Other | |
