Ein Film und ein Buch

February 2nd, 2011 | by: Anne | Comments Off

Ever wonder how football got started in Germany? Well, perhaps you haven’t, but it’s a fascinating tale. Far from the “organized” and “efficient” stereotypes of German nature, early football was messy, chaotic, and frowned upon by the rest of society. This new film, Der ganz große Traum (The Big Dream), starring Daniel Brühl (non-Germans may recognize him from Inglourious Basterds), tells of the very earliest chapter in that history – the first time a football was obtained by Germans and kicked by Germans, without the involvement of the English. Brühl plays a schoolteacher named Konrad Koch, who is recognized as one of the forefathers of football in Germany.
A description of the film in English is hard to come by, so instead I’ll provide an excerpt from the marvelous book Tor! by Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger about the historical events that inspired the film:

[It] is the round ball we are concerned with. And if we look very closely, we can see it flying through the air on an October day in 1874. It lands among a group of grammar school pupils in Braunschweig, who have absolutely no idea of what to do with it. The man who threw the ball is called August Hermann. He and his friend Konrad Koch are teachers at the school in question. Both are men who are willing to try something new, especially if it keeps their charges interested.

…

Koch and his pupils formed a student association the following year devoted to playing the new game, which was still very much like rugby. In 1876, they played a school from Göttingen, whose team was made up of young English gentlemen. At the end of the year, a school in Hamburg created a football club of its own. We are still years away from the first true football games in Germany but, with hindsight, a pattern was already emerging. The people interested in the new English sport were generally well-off schoolboys. They had the time and the facilities to try something new and they were young enough to get away with unruly behavior. In an age dominated by Prussian ideals of discipline and order, English ball games were viewed with disdain. That is precisely what fascinated rebellious adolescents bored brainless by the stifling rigours of gymnastic drills. Often it took only a slight impetus to arouse their enthusiasm, an impetus provided by a handful of progressive men like Koch.

The film thus tells the story of these “rebellious adolescents” and the man who led them into this brave new world. (Apparently August Hermann has been written out, so clearly historical accuracy can be taken with a grain of salt.) If any of this piques your interest, certainly seek out the film, as I will do at my earliest convenience, but in the meantime, I highly recommend checking out the book I mentioned, Tor!. It’s written by a German with the express purpose of being a history of German football for non-Germans (like yours truly), and while certainly a history book with lots of dates and places and such, Hesse’s writing is accessible and delightful. You’ll learn about the championship final that wouldn’t end and eventually simply didn’t have a winner, and the mysterious fallacious telegram that caused a team to miss and therefore forfeit a championship. You’ll learn about how two wars shaped German football, and if you’re not much of a Bayern Munich fan, you’ll at least admire their actions under the tyranny of a certain chancellor.

I found a copy on Amazon.co.uk’s marketplace, so that would be a good bet. Make sure you get the latest edition, as it includes a chapter on the 2002 World Cup, which, while painful, is obviously of interest. If you’ve already read the book, please feel free to share your thoughts! What’s the most interesting chapter of German football history to you?