Surprisingly, the German national team won the 1954 World Cup final in Switzerland against favorites Hungary. The "Miracle of Bern" helps to rebuild national self-confidence after the lost war.
by Ulrike Bosse, NDR Info
There are authors who refer to the victory in the 1954 World Cup as the "actual founding date" of the Federal Republic of Germany. Historians who have studied it intensively disagree - but it is definitely an event that is firmly anchored in the collective memory of Germans. "It was a victory that was balm for the German soul, no question about it," recalls Jürgen Bertram.
Role model Helmut Rahn in the "leaden" 50s in the Harz Mountains
Jürgen Bertram's mother died early. He grew up with his father in the mining town of Goslar.Bertram, born in 1940, was 14 at the time of the World Cup and a fervent football fan. For him, the players of the German national team are role models. His favorite player is Helmut Rahn, "because he played very unconventionally and shot at goal from all possible positions, like in the famous 3:2", the winning goal in the final in Bern on July 4, 1954.
Jürgen Bertram grew up in Goslar as an only child with his father; his mother died young. The father worked his way up from an underground miner to an office manager. At the beginning of the 1950s, the atmosphere in the Harz mining region was still marked by the seriousness of the post-war period, as he reports, the work was hard. There are clear hierarchies. What the superiors say must be followed. "It was a leaden time, as one would say today. Leaden was the atmosphere in which everything happened."
The soccer field becomes a place of refuge
In families, too, things are relatively authoritarian and repressive, as Bertram says. Lockdown and beatings are considered tried and tested methods of education. "For example, I wasn't allowed to play soccer," he recalls. "And I was always afraid during this game that my father would appear somewhere on the edge of the meadow and whistle at me." But little Jürgen is attached to the football game with all his heart and soul. The football pitch is his sanctuary:"Football was the only way for me to identify with something, to put myself on show, to get recognition."
"Football was considered a proletarian sport"
As a teenager, Jürgen Bertram was a fervent football fan. But his father doesn't believe in "proletarian sport" for reasons of status.There were social reasons why father Bertram didn't want his son to play soccer. "Football was considered a proletarian sport," said Bertram. "My father had just been promoted to office manager. That's why he didn't like his son playing football with the proletarian children." And even if the reality on the pitch is different in Jürgen Bertram's memory, it still corresponds to social perception:In the early 1950s, football was considered entertainment for the so-called lower classes, write sports historians.
"Proletariat" and "bourgeoisie" anchored in consciousness
Moreover, the social hierarchy is relatively firmly established:the working class is a social class in itself. "Proletariat" and "bourgeoisie" exist not only in the vocabulary of the communists, but also in the consciousness of the people. And social advancement hardly seems possible - which is also due to the lack of educational opportunities. In 1951, for example, only three percent of high school graduates came from the working class - 80 percent of all children only attended elementary school. The fact that Jürgen Bertram's father worked his way up from underground miner to office manager is therefore considered to be something special.
Television brings the 1954 World Cup to the general public
The 1954 World Cup was the first sporting event ever to be broadcast live on television in several countries.The 1954 World Cup heralded a new development for football. This is also due to the new medium:television. The World Cup in Switzerland is the first sporting event that is broadcast directly in several countries and can be followed live on television. But the 1954 World Cup opened on June 16 - in public perception, that didn't play nearly as big a role at the time as, for example, the commemoration of the workers' uprising of June 17, 1953, which was first celebrated in 1954 as the "Day of German Unity".
But the games played by the German team arouse people's interest, as Jürgen Bertram recalls. "The newspapers advertised:such and such a pub would then and then broadcast this or that game. And then people flocked to it." Crowds of people also gather in front of the shops that sell TVs.
Germany is considered an absolute outsider in 1954
The German team is considered an absolute outsider. She wins the first game against Turkey, but then loses 8-3 to World Cup favorites Hungary. Despite this, Germany made it through to the knockout rounds and, after beating Yugoslavia and Austria - again against Hungary - are in the final. The Hungarian national team hadn't lost a game in years. "That was the big favourite," says Bertram.
Reporters are initially reluctant to report on the final
Not only the footballers became legends in 1954, sports reporter Herbert Zimmermann also achieved cult status with his live reports.Rudi Michel, who is part of the team of German radio reporters at the World Cup, later recalled in an NDR interview that he and his colleagues were quite sure of a German defeat. At the time, nobody wanted to report on this final. In the end, the live report by Herbert Zimmermann becomes a document of contemporary history, especially the passage about the winning goal, which is played again and again:
"Schäfer crossed in. Header. Saved. Rahn should shoot from the background... Rahn shoots... Tooor! Tooor! Tooor! Tooor! Goal for Germany!"
The German team wins 3:2.
Germany-Hungary final:Secretly down the gutter
14-year-old Jürgen Bertram experienced this moment in the pub in Goslar's Schützenhaus - without his father's knowledge. "I was grounded the day the Germans became world champions." But he climbs down the gutter and runs into the pub. There the victory was celebrated and the game analyzed:"I think that was the unity of the team, the spirit of Spietz. That was the base of the German national team, which obviously grew together there," Bertram is still convinced today. It also helped that the Germans, unlike the Hungarians, wore rainproof shoes.
The "Heroes of Bern" are still footballers without millions
As "people like you and me", the footballers of 1954 offer a particularly large potential for identification.In Bern, the spectators storm the field after the award ceremony and carry coach Sepp Herberger and the most important players on their shoulders. For many, this victory made them the "heroes of Bern". The special train that takes the players from Switzerland back to Germany is greeted by an enthusiastic crowd at almost every station. It was easier to identify with the players than today, says Jürgen Bertram about the enthusiasm. Because the players practice all other professions at that time, play "only" on the side - and collect no millions.
The first stanza:nationalism or exuberance?
Hungary's goalkeeper Gyula Grosics was beaten in the 84th minute with Helmut Rahn making it 3-2. Few even see this as a victory of the West over the East.The fact that Germany, like David, beat the football goliath Hungary also contributed to the popularity, adds Bertram. The victory aroused a patriotic "We're somebody again" feeling. However, opinions differ as to how far the joy at the victory of the German soccer team should be interpreted as a renewed surge of nationalism. Jürgen Bertram remembers that the first verse of the Deutschlandlied was sung in the Schützenhaus pub during the finale. Some German spectators also sing this first verse when playing the national anthem in the football stadium in Bern.
However, some do not see this as a conscious nationalist statement, but rather as stupidity in a moment of emotional exuberance. At a time when Chancellor Konrad Adenauer is still trying to secure sovereign rights for the Federal Republic, voices that the victory against Hungary could be interpreted as a victory of the West over the East against the background of the Cold War also do not correspond to the official political interpretation .
Federal President refrains from politicizing the victory
Presidential honors were bestowed on the German footballers in 1954, but Heuss attached importance to consideration "outside of politics".In any case, this World Cup victory is not exploited nationalistically by politicians. No minister is in the stadium for the final game, not to mention the Chancellor. And Federal President Theodor Heuss defended patriotic joy at his reception for the successful team, but expressly opposed the politicization of the sporting event - and against the nationalistic-sounding pathos with which DFB President Peco Bauwens appeared: "We're here for the sport. I think we should keep it outside of politics."
On the soccer field:"Suddenly you were Helmut Rahn"
The 14-year-old Jürgen Bertram didn't think about politics at the time, but was simply enthusiastic about the sporting victory:"Suddenly you were Helmut Rahn while you were playing. Shoot at goal like him, or you were Fritz Walter and steered the game ." And according to the historians who have studied it intensively, that was ultimately the overall prevailing reaction.