German PoW and hero goalie stars in tale of reconciliation
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Version 0 of 1. As a piece of fiction, a film about a former Nazi paratrooper who becomes a hero of English football might struggle to convince audiences. But the true story of Manchester City goalkeeper Bert Trautmann has inspired a major movie that begins shooting this summer. One of the finest goalkeepers ever, admired for his acrobatic athleticism and agility, Trautmann helped to take his team to victory in the 1956 FA Cup final. He famously continued to play after he broke his neck in the last 17 minutes. The victory was all the more remarkable because he had overcome deep hostility to his signing by Manchester City in 1949, only four years after the war in which he fought for Germany on the Russian front and in western Europe. A former Luftwaffe paratrooper, awarded the Iron Cross for bravery before his capture by the British, Trautmann’s arrival at City’s Maine Road home sparked outrage among ex-servicemen and Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. One demonstration reportedly attracted 20,000 protesters. But he won over supporters and eventually secured a place in English football folklore. The extraordinary story will be told in Trautmann, a UK-German co-production. Its British producer is Chris Curling, whose films include The Last Station, a drama about Tolstoy starring Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer in Oscar-nominated performances. Two other feature films – about former Manchester United player George Best and Leicester City’s Jamie Vardy – are also in development. But Curling told the Observer that Trautmann is not primarily a sports film. He said: “For me, it’s much more a personal story about a young guy who got caught up in the Nazi movement and was then fighting on the eastern front. He saw terrible things in the war and was eventually captured by the British. When he entered the PoW camp, he was still following Nazi ideology. But he learned to see a different version of the world. He decided to stay in the UK, fell in love and was very successful on the football field. That interests me as much as the football.” He added: “It’s a story about reconciliation between people. There was a big campaign against him at Manchester City. So, in the film, we watch a man coming to terms with his past and starting anew … overcoming hostility towards him. These days, that seems particularly relevant as well – how we as British people treat outsiders.” Before his death in 2013, Trautmann had spent several days with the film-makers, giving interviews to Marcus Rosenmüller, a German writer-director who used to play football semi-professionally, and producer Robert Marciniak. While drawing on archive footage, they will also recreate Trautmann’s prowess as an athlete with computer-generated imagery. German actor David Kross, who starred in Stephen Daldry’s Oscar-nominated The Reader, will play the lead. Freya Mavor, described by Curling as a major new talent, will portray Margaret, the Englishwoman Trautmann fell in love with. Trautmann was in the Hitler Youth, later training its recruits, and during the war witnessed a massacre of civilians by SS death squads. In 2010, Trautmann told the Observer: “Growing up in Hitler’s Germany, you had no mind of your own. You didn’t think of the enemy as people at first. Then, when you began taking prisoners, you heard them cry for their mother and father … When you met the enemy, he became a real person. The longer the war went on, you started having doubts. But Hitler’s was a dictatorial regime. You got your orders and you followed them. If you didn’t, you were shot.” He was captured on the Russian front, before escaping and returning to serve in France. After being captured he was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Lancashire. In England, he “learnt about humanity, tolerance and forgiveness”, he said. Manchester had been heavily bombed during the war, prompting the protest against City’s signing of Trautmann. One campaigner said: “When I think of all the millions of Jews who were tortured and murdered, I can only marvel at Manchester City’s crass stupidity.” The club had many Jewish fans. But Manchester’s communal rabbi, Dr Alexander Altmann, reminded them that an individual should not be punished for his country’s sins. Trautmann eventually played more than 500 times for City. It was not until three days after the 1956 final that he discovered the full extent of the injury sustained in making a save to keep his team’s 3-1 lead. A surgeon told him: “You should be dead.” Trautmann played down his bravery, saying: “If I had known I had broken my neck, I would have been off like a shot.” |