Fritz Walter
Friedrich “Fritz” Walter (German pronunciation: [fʁɪt͡s ˈvaltɐ], About this soundaudio (help·info); 31 October 1920 – 17 June 2002) was a German footballer who spent his entire senior career at 1. FC Kaiserslautern. He usually played as an attacking midfielder or inside forward. In his time with the German national team, he appeared in 61 games and scored 33 goals, and was captain of the team that won the 1954 FIFA World Cup.
Early club career
Walter was exposed to football early with his parents working at the 1. FC Kaiserslautern club restaurant. 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.[1][2][3]
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.
International debut
Walter debuted with the German national team in 1940 under Sepp Herberger, and scored a hat-trick against Romania.[2]
War
Walter was drafted into the armed forces in 1942, however, the end of the war found 24-year-old Walter in a Prisoner of War camp in Maramures in which he played with Hungarian and Slovakian guards. When the Soviets arrived they generally took all German prisoners back to Gulags in the Soviet Union. One of the Hungarian prison guards had seen Walter playing for Germany, and told them that Fritz was not German but from the Saar Territory.[4] 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.
Return to Germany
Upon his return in 1945, Walter, who by now suffered from malaria, again played for Kaiserslautern,[5] leading them to German championships in 1951 and 1953. Sepp Herberger recalled him to the national team in 1951, and he was named captain.[2]
He was captain of the West German team that won their first World Cup in 1954, beating Hungary. He and his brother, Ottmar Walter, became the first brothers to play in a World Cup winning team.[3]
In 1956, after the crackdown by the Soviets of the Hungarian 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[6] during the semi-final against Sweden in the 1958 World Cup, suffering an injury which ended his international career, and he retired from football in 1959.
