Bernhard Carl "Bert" Trautmann (22 October 1923 – 19 July 2013) was a German professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper.
Born in Bremen in 1923, he joined the Jungvolk, the junior section of the Hitler Youth in August 1933. Trautmann joined the Luftwaffe early in the Second World War, and then served as a paratrooper. He was initially sent to occupied Poland, and subsequently fought on the Eastern Front for three years, earning five medals, including an Iron Cross. Later in the war, he was transferred to the Western Front, where he was captured by the British as the war drew to a close. As a volunteer soldier, he was classified a category "C" prisoner by the authorities, meaning he was regarded as a Nazi. One of only 90 of his original 1,000-man regiment to survive the war, he was transferred to a prisoner-of-war camp in Ashton-in-Makerfield, Lancashire. Trautmann refused an offer of repatriation, and following his release in 1948 decided to settle in Lancashire, combining farm work with playing goalkeeper for a local football team, St Helens Town.
Performances for St Helens gained Trautmann a reputation as an outstanding goalkeeper, resulting in interest from Football League clubs. In October 1949, he signed for Manchester City, a club playing in the country's highest level of football, the First Division. The club's decision to sign a former Axis paratrooper sparked protests, and 20,000 people attended a demonstration. Over time, he gained acceptance through his performances in the City goal, playing in all but five of the club's next 250 matches.
Named FWA Footballer of the Year for 1956, Trautmann entered football folklore with his performance in the 1956 FA Cup final. With 17 minutes of the match remaining, Trautmann suffered a serious injury while diving at the feet of Birmingham City's Peter Murphy. Despite his injury, he continued to play, making crucial saves to preserve his team's 3–1 lead. His neck was noticeably crooked as he collected his winner's medal; three days later an X-ray revealed it to be broken.
Trautmann played for Manchester City until 1964, making 545 appearances. After his playing career, he moved into management, first with lower-division sides in England and Germany, and later as part of a German Football Association development scheme that took him to several countries, including Burma, Tanzania and Pakistan. In 2004, he was appointed an honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for promoting Anglo-German understanding through football. In 2013, Trautmann died at home near Valencia, Spain, aged 89.
Bernhard Carl Trautmann was born on 22 October 1923 in Walle, a working-class area in west Bremen, living with his father, who worked in a fertiliser factory by the docks, and his mother Frieda. He had a brother, Karl-Heinz, three years his junior, with whom he enjoyed a close relationship. The bleak economic climate of the early 1930s forced the Trautmanns to sell their house and move to an apartment block in the working-class area of Gröpelingen, where Bernhard lived until 1941.
The young Bernhard had a keen interest in sport, playing football, handball and völkerball (a form of dodgeball). To this end, he joined the YMCA and football club Blau und Weiss. He took to playing for the football club with enthusiasm, but the YMCA activities did not interest him to the same extent.
In August 1933, he joined a new organisation, the Jungvolk, the junior section of the Hitler Youth. The following year, he won several local junior athletics events and was awarded a certificate for athletic excellence signed by Paul von Hindenburg, the President of Germany. At the onset of the Second World War, Trautmann was working as an apprentice motor mechanic.
Trautmann joined the Luftwaffe as a radio operator in 1941. During training, he showed little aptitude for radio work, and transferred to Spandau to become a Fallschirmjäger (paratrooper). He first served in Occupied Poland, although being stationed far behind the front line meant experiencing prolonged bouts of monotony; consequently, Trautmann and the rest of his regiment resorted to sports and practical jokes to pass the time. One such practical joke involving a car backfired on Trautmann, resulting in a staff sergeant burning his arms. Trautmann was court-martialled over this incident and sentenced to three months in prison. At the start of his confinement, Trautmann came down with acute appendicitis, and spent the remainder of his sentence in a military hospital.
In October 1941, he rejoined the 35th Infantry Division at Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, where the German advance had halted. Over-winter hit-and-run attacks on Soviet Army supply routes were the unit's main focus and in spring, Trautmann was promoted to Unteroffizier (corporal). Gains were made in 1942, but the Soviet counter-offensive hit Trautmann's unit hard, and by the time it was withdrawn from the Eastern Front, only 300 of the original 1,000 men remained. Trautmann won five medals for his actions on the Eastern Front, including an Iron Cross First Class.
Promoted to Feldwebel (sergeant), Trautmann was part of a unit formed from the remnants of several others that had been decimated in the east, and moved to France to guard against an expected Allied invasion of France. In 1945, he was one of the few survivors of the Allied bombing of Kleve, and decided to return to Bremen. By this point, German soldiers without valid leave papers were being shot as deserters, so Trautmann sought to avoid troops from either side. However, a few days later, he was captured in a barn by two Allied soldiers. Deciding that Trautmann had no useful intelligence to give them, the soldiers marched him out of the barn with his hands raised. Fearing he was about to be executed, Trautmann fled. After evading his captors, he jumped over a fence, only to land at the feet of a British soldier, who greeted him with the words "Hello Fritz, fancy a cup of tea?" Earlier in the war, he had been captured by the Soviets and later the French, but escaped both times.
He was imprisoned near Ostend, Belgium, then transferred to a transit camp in Essex, where he was interrogated. As a volunteer soldier who had been subject to indoctrination from a young age, he was classified a category "C" prisoner by the authorities, meaning he was regarded as a Nazi. Trautmann, one of only 90 of his original regiment to survive the war, was then transferred to a prisoner-of-war camp at Marbury Hall, near Northwich, Cheshire, and interned with other category "C" prisoners. He was soon downgraded to non-Nazi "B" status, after which he was taken to Fort Crosby in Hightown near Liverpool where he stayed for a short while working on local farms and mixing with the locals; from here he was sent to PoW Camp 50 (now Byrchall High School) in Ashton-in-Makerfield in Lancashire between St Helens and Wigan, where he stayed until 1948.
Football matches were regularly held at the camp, in which Trautmann played outfield. However, in a match against amateur team Haydock Park, Trautmann was injured while playing centre-half. He swapped positions with goalkeeper Günther Lühr, and from that day forward played as a goalkeeper. During this time he became known as "Bert", as the English were unfamiliar with "Bernd", the abbreviated version of his name.
With closure of the PoW camp imminent, Trautmann declined an offer of repatriation and stayed in England, working on a farm in Milnthorpe then subsequently working on bomb disposal in Huyton.
In August 1948, he started playing amateur football for the non-league Liverpool County Combination club St Helens Town, through which he met the club secretary's daughter, Margaret Friar, whom he later married. Over the course of the 1948–49 season, Trautmann's goalkeeping reputation steadily grew and a series of large crowds were attributed to his performances, including a record 9,000 attendance in the final of a local cup competition, the Mahon Cup. The success of that season elevated the club into Division Two of the Lancashire Combination League for the start of 1949–50.