Willi Kraus (soccer player, 1943)

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Willi Kraus (* 1. May 1943 ; † 19th October 2008 ) was a German football player and bank robber . As a football player, Kraus played 36 games in the Bundesliga in 1966/67 and 1967/68 at FC Schalke 04 , scoring 16 goals. In the previous two years he had scored 39 goals in 46 league games in the second -rate regional football league Berlin at Tennis Borussia Berlin and won the championship in 1965 and scored three goals in six games in the Bundesliga promotion round.

Football career

The striker came from the youth of FC Schalke 04 . There he played with Stan Libuda and Karl-Heinz Bechmann , among others . In the last year of the old first-class football league West , 1962/63, he came on April 10, 1963, in an away game against TSV Marl-Hüls once in the league for Schalke 04 to use. On the right wing he formed the attack in the then World Cup system with Manfred Berz , Willi Koslowski , Waldemar Gerhardt and Walter Rodekamp in a 0-1 defeat. Since he, in contrast to Bechmann and Libuda - as well as Rodekamp with only three missions - did not make the leap into the first team, Kraus played for a year with the Dutch club Go Ahead Eagles Deventer in 1963/64 . He played in the Eredivisie with the Red and Yellow from the stadium De Adelaarshorst and made 28 league appearances, but mostly as a defender. The "Eagles" took 12th place . After one round, the trained electrician from Essen-Kray switched to Tennis Borussia Berlin for the 1964/65 season . With the "Veilchen" from Charlottenburg, he won the championship in the second-class Berlin Regionalliga in 1965 and scored 23 goals in 24 appearances. He finished 2nd in the Berlin scorers list behind Heinz Fischer from Tasmania 1900 with 25 goals. In the promotion round to the Bundesliga , the team of trainer Herbert Siegert had to do with FC Bayern Munich, Alemannia Aachen and 1. FC Saarbrücken. Right winger Kraus played in all six games and scored three goals. He had dealt with defense lawyers Werner Olk , Werner Nievelstein and Erich Rohe , among others . With 3: 9 points, the "Veilchen" took 4th place. In his second TeBe year, 1965/66, it was enough behind Bundesliga relegated Hertha BSC to 2nd place, Kraus had 16 goals in 22 league games alongside other players such as Hans Tylinski (36 goals), Bernd Gersdorff , Georg Damjanoff and Werner Lungwitz achieved. After two years in Berlin, Kraus returned to his home club Schalke 04 in Gelsenkirchen for the 1966/67 season.

There he became an important player in the Bundesliga seasons 1966/67 and 1967/68 . With the 16 goals he scored in 36 Bundesliga games, he was a guarantee of relegation. In particular, his goal for the 2-1 home win on May 20, 1967 in the home game against Fortuna Dusseldorf in the 79th minute of the game in front of 25,000 spectators, was one of the decisive factors in the relegation of coach Fritz Langner's team . After losing his player's license due to theft - Kraus played for Schalke 04 for the last time on February 3, 1968 in a 1-1 home draw against 1. FC Köln - the local regional league team Eintracht Gelsenkirchen undertook the again in the 1968/69 season Attempt to return the soccer player Kraus to normal life through regular soccer operations. In the team of coach Heinz Murach and teammates like Willi Koslowski, Edmund Brylewski, Werner Kontny, Heinz Meiners and Günter Schwaba , however, he only ran from August 18 to September 15, 1968 in five first round matches (1 goal) before he went through again Delinquency finally had to pull from behind bars.

Next to the square

Kraus became known nationwide mainly because he had to break off his football career after he was sentenced to long imprisonment as a bank robber, which was later followed by further prison sentences.

In February 1968 Kraus was dismissed from Schalke. During a routine traffic control, police officers found burglary tools, a loaded pistol and propane gas bottles as well as stolen goods from a robbery: knitted shirts and chocolate in his car. Schalke's President Günter Siebert had other reasons for the dismissal: "We are currently receiving a lot of bills that Kraus has made in the name of Schalke." And the teammates themselves should have slept a little more easily afterwards. "Willi hid a pistol under his pillow at the training camp," remembers teammate Günter Herrmann . "He surrounded himself with false friends and was someone who could easily be persuaded," said Willi Koslowski , who had tried in vain with Kraus at Eintracht Gelsenkirchen to get back on the right track. Kraus rarely withdrew in the penalty area, even if it would have been better sometimes. This also applied to his night trips.

Willi Kraus died on October 19, 2008 at the age of 65. A month later he would have had to answer again before the Essen District Court for a gun crime.

societies

literature

  • Christian Karn, Reinhard Rehberg: Player Lexicon 1963–1994. Agon Sportverlag. Kassel 2012. ISBN 978-3-89784-214-4 . P. 276.
  • Ulrich Merk, Andre Schulin: Bundesliga chronicle 1966/67. Agon Sportverlag. Kassel 2005. ISBN 3-89784-086-3 .
  • Ulrich Merk, Andre Schulin, Maik Großmann: Bundesliga Chronicle 1967/68. Agon Sportverlag. Kassel 2006. ISBN 978-3-89784-087-1 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kraus, Willi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1943
DATE OF DEATH October 19, 2008