Edmund Weiskopf

Edmund Weiskopf or Weißkopf , also Ödön Virág (born November 22, 1911 or January 1, 1911 in Budapest ; † March 16, 1996 ), was an Austro-Hungarian footballer who played most of his career in France and - as Edmond Weiskopf , called Virage  - was also used in the French national team.

To the sources

The biography of this winger of Jewish origin is, as can already be seen from the different spelling of names and dates of birth, provided with various question marks, which is rather unusual for a player who has won national titles and international appearances for two countries. There are also no published statements by Weiskopf, only a short portrait of his former trainer Arthur Baar , which leaves Weiskopf's later stations in the dark. The author Marc Barreaud even seems to assume that they are two different people. Biographical traits can also be found in Horak / Maderthaner, who describe him under the name "Edi" Weißkopf as a later Austro-French national player who at the time was a bar owner in Paris and is said to have also worked in the Resistance .

Club career

Before World War II

Born shortly before the First World War in the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy , he played under the name Virág Ödön in the 1920s for the Jewish club VAC Budapest and then in the amateur team of the MTK Budapest , from which he moved to the Vienna Krieau in 1931, where he was successful at the time First division club SC Hakoah Vienna changed. There he played under Baar and Béla Guttmann as Edmund Weißkopf until the end of the season in 1934, among others at the side of Friedrich Donnenfeld and József Eisenhoffer . In total, he played 36 championship games for the Hakoah and scored five goals. By then, Weiskopf had also had an unspecified number of C international matches (juniors) for the young Hungarian football association.

The decisive motives for his subsequent move to France are not known. Although anti-Semitism was still mainly latent in Austria at the beginning of the 1930s, religious or private reasons could have influenced Weiskopf's decision as well as sporting ones, because Oskar Reich had ousted him from the regular eleven during his last months with the Krieauern . In addition, there was also money to be made from playing football west of the Rhine since 1932 (officially up to 42,000 old Francs per year), and numerous Austrians and Hungarians were drawn into Division 1 , so that he might simply have followed the “move of the times” is. In addition, he had already attracted attention in France in April 1933 when he scored a goal with Hakoah at a tournament in Marseille in a 6-2 win against FC Sochaux and a 3-1 win over hosts Olympique .

From 1934 to 1936 he was under contract with FC Sète , who had just won the Doublé ( championship and cup win in the same season) the previous season. A repetition of these successes did not succeed in the southern French in the following two years, so that Weiskopf initially remained untitled; After all, Sète was one of the dominant teams in French football with league placements four and seven and reaching the cup quarter-finals in 1935.

In 1936 coach József Eisenhoffer brought him to Olympique Marseille , and in his first season he was national champion with this team. Although he only made 13 appearances in the 30 league encounters, he was still considered a regular player in the left wing position, especially since he had also scored 13 goals. The claim that Weiskopf played for the second division club Le Havre AC in the second half of this season and then returned to Olympique is implausible. Because then he would have played almost the entire preliminary round for Marseille and it would have been unusual for the club to have done without a player of this efficiency (1.0 goals / game) in the second half. In addition, weiskopf recorded two league appearances for Olympique in September 1936 (against RC Paris and RC Roubaix ), in which he scored one goal each. This was followed by a longer break, which was due to the fact that the club had seven top-class offensive forces, including Vilmos Kohut and Édouard "Waggi" Wawrzyniak, two other left wingers. In January 1937 Edmund Weiskopf reported back with a bang in Marseille's first team when he contributed three hits to the 5-0 away win against Red Star . Also in his following ten games up to May - exactly at the time in which he is said to have been at Le Havre - he was again successful eight times; against Strasbourg he was even able to score three goals again.

1937/38 Marseille was runner-up, and this time Weiskopf was on the field in twelve point games (five goals). His former Hakoahn team-mate Donnenfeld was also part of Olympique's squad during this season, but both were not used in the crowning finale of the season when Marseille won 2-1 after extra time against FC Metz in the Coupe de France final .

The only sporadic consideration in Marseille's first team should have encouraged Weiskopf's willingness to leave the club; from the summer of 1938 he stormed for the cup final opponent, FC Metz. With this team it was only enough to reach a middle place in Division 1 , but there the Budapest native, naturalized on March 3, 1938, became a French national team player in the spring of 1939 (see below ).

During war and occupation

Then Edmond Weiskopf moved to the Racing Club de Paris . This was not only attractive because of his playing strength (cup winner and league third from 1939), but also three Austrians and Gyula Mathe alias were on this team during the 1939/40 season with “Rodolphe” Hiden , “Auguste” Jordan and “Henri” Hiltl Jules Mathé is a Hungarian who was or was also a French national team. In addition, Racing was due to the influence of its President Jean Bernard-Lévy as a "Jew-friendly club". This season was not only marked by the approaching Second World War in France . As early as September 1939, the French general mobilization meant that numerous clubs only had rump teams available; an orderly game operation was no longer possible, so that the league was divided into three parts. In view of the German invasion from May 1940 - Paris fell in mid-June - even this measure no longer allowed a regular championship course: Racing, for example, was only able to play nine out of 18 games in the northern relay. The cup competition, on the other hand, was still fully completed with the final on May 5, 1940 in the Prinzenpark Stadium, which was not sold out (only 25,970 paying spectators). And in this final Edmund Weiskopf was in the attack of the Racing Club, who won 2-1 against Olympique Marseille - at least until he was sent off after he had fought a very intense duel with Marseille center runner Max Conchy , who was also excluded. This encounter also brought another sporting clash with Friedrich Donnenfeld, who stormed for "OM" in the left wing position.

Six weeks after this sporting triumph, on June 14th, the Wehrmacht occupied Paris. It can be assumed that Weiskopf had already left the capital at this point. According to the armistice agreement of June 22nd, the south-east of the country remained unoccupied, so that the risk of persecution for a Jew with French citizenship was initially lower - or at least appeared to be, because the agreement enabled German authorities to access all members of the Jewish minority living in France , which was also carried out this summer. From September 1940, Theodor Dannecker , an employee of the RSHA office under Helmut Bone in Paris, began to set up a " Jewish card index ". At the same time - and in some cases even accommodating the German occupiers - the new French government under Marshal Pétain pursued an independent anti-Semitic policy in the unoccupied part of the country as early as 1940 (withdrawal of naturalizations from July 22nd, lifting of the ban on anti-Semitic statements in the press on August 27th, first “Jewish statute” on October 3rd).

In terms of sport, the final opponent from the beginning of May, Olympique Marseille , welcomed Weiskopf with open arms; This club change was one of the most spectacular transfers of the 1940/41 season in Division 1. In the summer of 1941, he succeeded there again, albeit only a regional title, because OM ended the season as champions of the southern season, to which he contributed two hits in ten missions. Obviously he found it necessary to get an alias around the turn of the year 1940/41 : on December 29, 1940, he was still on the pitch as Weiskopf at the away game in Cannes , at the cup game in front of a home crowd against Hyères on January 5, 1941 and in the the following nine league games but with false papers as Virage There was no final against the Northern champions Red Star Paris , and anyway the winner would not have been a recognized national champion - the "war championships" 1940 to 1945 do not count as official titles. In 1941/42 he was still active for Marseille and scored four goals in 13 games.

From the summer of 1942, the Weiskopfs / Virages route is temporarily lost; This coincides with the time when, as a result of the resolutions of the Wannsee Conference (January 1942), people of Jewish origin in France were increasingly harassed. He is said to have played at FC Annecy , with whom he may have stayed until 1944 - or which he only came to in 1946, after the end of the war. The fact that Jews in the Italian zone of influence of this eastern French region were protected from persecution to a far greater extent than in the rest of the country - at least until the armistice between Italy and the Allies in September 1943. Weiskopf played according to another source speaks in favor of his move to Annecy from 1942 to 1945 again at Racing Paris, which is solely due to his biography and the political context (for example, on July 16, 1942, in the Jewish quarter of Paris, the Marais , there was a major raid by the French police, the Rafle du Vel'd'Hiv ) but it is unlikely, especially since in the 1943/44 season in all of France - both in the occupied and in the "free" part - due to the sport-political objective of the Vichy regime to abolish professionalism, no club teams at all, but only regional national teams ( équipes fédérales) competed. In addition, the mouthpiece of the occupying power, the Pariser Zeitung , reported on March 5, 1943 that French football had now also been " de-Jeweled " and explicitly named Weiskopf, who last played at FC Annecy. The same source also mentions on August 5, 1943 that he was initially intended for the Équipe Fédérale Grenoble-Dauphiné, but was then removed from the list as a Jew. For the 1944/45 season it is proven that Edmond Weiskopf played eight first division games for Red Star and scored four goals.

After the liberation of France

After the liberation of the country, he played again with Donnenfeld in a team at Red Star; When Red Star lost the French Cup final against Lille OSC 2-4 at the end of May 1946 , neither of them was in the team of the Saint-Ouen club, as in 1938 .
Even for the more peaceful time afterwards, it is not clear where or whether Weiskopf still played football at all. The fact that he was still lacing up his boots for Stade Français from 1946 onwards is arousing in view of his advanced age, which previously only had occasional assignments and the fact that Stade Français strengthened its personnel from 1945 to 1948 under coach Helenio Herrera through expensive purchases, to finally become a master, considerable doubts. In 1949 he renewed his professional license and worked for SC Maccabi Paris as a trainer. Apparently he had already been active for Maccabi since 1946: with this club he took part in the Maccabi games in Vienna in July 1946 and lost - u. a. at the side of Donnenfeld and Ludwig Mautner  - the Wiener Hakoah 1: 7. As a player, Edmond Weiskopf was no longer used in a professional French league from the 1948/49 season.

What remains of these years is the image of a person who has not stayed anywhere for a long time and whose traces are possibly so difficult to follow because he could have no interest in someone succeeding.

The national player

On March 16, 1939, Edmond Weiskopf, now naturalized in France, played an A international match for the Équipe tricolore in the Parisian Prinzenpark  - against Hungary , of all places , whose colors he had worn as a teenager. He played in a team that was able to stand up to the vice world champions of 1938 on that day (final score: 2: 2), and in his usual left wing position. But during the 90 minutes he found no connection with his storm colleagues, although the Aston - Ben Barek - Courtois - Heisserer series was one of the best that France had to offer in those years, and was personally "so nervous about his former compatriots that he practically everything he started failed, which is why his international career ended immediately ”. Weiskopf had already been part of the squad for the international match against Poland in January of that year , in which, however, he was not used.

Stations

• Vívó és Atlétikai Club (or Sondyi) Budapest
• Magyar Testgyakorlók Köre Budapest (until 1931)
• SC Hakoah Vienna (1931–1934)
• Football Club de Sète (1934-1936)
• Olympique de Marseille (1936–1938)
  • Le Havre Athletic Club (1st half of 1937) can be considered refuted
• Football Club de Metz (1938/39)
• Racing Club de Paris (1939/40)
• Olympique de Marseille (1940-1942)
• Football Club d'Annecy (1942 – early 1943)
• Red Star Olympique Audonies (1944 or 1945–1946)
  • Stade Français Paris (1946/47?) Is unlikely
• SC Maccabi de Paris (from 1946)

Palmarès

• French champion : 1937 (and winner of the southern season 1941)
• French cup winner 1938, 1940
• an international match for France

literature

• Arthur Baar: 50 years of Hakoah 1909–1959. Ramat Gan 1959
• Marc Barreaud: Dictionnaire des footballeurs étrangers du championnat professionnel français (1932–1997). L'Harmattan, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-7384-6608-7
• Hubert Beaudet: Le Championnat et ses champions. 70 ans de Football en France. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2002, ISBN 2-84253-762-9
• Hubert Beaudet: La Coupe de France. Ses vainqueurs, ses surprises. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2003, ISBN 2-84253-958-3
• Denis Chaumier: Les Bleus. Tous les joueurs de l'équipe de France de 1904 à nos jours. Larousse, o. O. 2004, ISBN 2-03-505420-6
• Gérard Ejnès / L'Équipe: La belle histoire. L'équipe de France de football. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2004, ISBN 2-951-96053-0
• David Forster / Georg Spitaler: The football champions. The life paths of the Hakoah players in the interwar period. , in: Susanne Helene Betz / Monika Löscher / Pia Schölnberger (eds.): “… more than a sports club”. 100 years of Hakoah Vienna 1909–2009. Studienverlag, Innsbruck 2009, ISBN 978-3-7065-4683-6
• Sophie Guillet / François Laforge: Le guide français et international du football éd. 2007. Vecchi, Paris 2006, ISBN 2-7328-6842-6
• Roman Horak / Wolfgang Maderthaner: Internationality - Migration , in: More than a game - football and popular cultures in modern Vienna. Löcker, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-85409-276-8
• Alain Pécheral: La grande histoire de l'OM. Des origines à nos jours. Ed. Prolongations, o. O. 2007, ISBN 978-2-916400-07-5
• Gunnar Persson: Stjärnor på Flykt. Histories om Hakoah Vienna. Stockholm 2004; here after the German translation Die Stars auf der Flucht. The history of Hakoah Vienna. (PDF from the Hakoah club archive)

Web links

• Data sheet with photo on the website of the French Football Association FFF

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Spelling of contemporary Austrian sports and daily newspapers
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Written communication from football historian Professor Pierre Lanfranchi dated May 29, 2008 to the main author of this article.
3. ↑ In Ejnès, p. 378, actually with the ending -e. Virage means curve, turn, twist in French , and the author may have had a footballing quality of the winger in mind. However, Weiskopf is also listed under this pseudonym on a homepage on Olympique Marseille which was extremely productive for the football historian during the war years; see e.g. B. http://www.om-passion.com/joueursutilises_saison_1940.html and here, 2nd paragraph .
4. ↑ Chaumier, Ejnès and Pécheral name November 22nd, Barreaud January 1st, the French Football Association and www.weltfussball.de October 22nd as Weiskopf's date of birth
5. ↑ Barreaud, p. 47 (as Weisskopf / Virag before the war) and 166 (as Weiskopf / Virag at the end of the war, with different exact dates of birth)
6. ↑ Horak / Maderthaner, pp. 186f.
7. ↑ In Hungarian, the family name is put in front.
8. ↑ Baar, p. 277; some internet sources speak of a club called Sondyi Budapest .
9. ↑ See the article “Reinforcements from Budapest and Palestine” in the Wiener Sport-Tagblatt of December 24, 1931, p. 9; The Hungarian sports newspaper Nemzeti Sport also wrote on October 1, 1936, on the occasion of the announcement of his move to Marseille, that Weiskopf had been a former MTK player. Arthur Baar's statement: 50 years of Hakoah 1909–1959 Ramat Gan 1959, the change to Hakoah had already taken place in 1928, is a mistake. Weiskopf scored his earliest known goal as a Hakoah Professional in December 1931 at an international Christmas tournament against Nemzeti Budapest (see Wiener Sonn- und Mondags-Zeitung of December 28, 1931 ), the first goal in a competitive match on February 14, 1932 in the Cup - The eighth final game against the Cricketers (see Reichspost of February 15, 1932, p. 5: "The goal of the Krieauers scored Weißkopf" ).
10. ↑ See http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/hongfran-recintlp.html and Chaumier, p. 313
11. ↑ See Reichspost of April 8, 1934, p. 18 and other subsequent editions.
12. ↑ At the beginning of the 1938/39 season the following was valid: basic remuneration maximum FF 2,000 per month, plus FF 150 victory and FF 75 draw bonuses per game up to the above. Annual maximum (Guillet / Laforge, p. 140) - and there have been tried and tested ways to “circumvent” this restriction (see here, 2nd paragraph ).
13. ↑ See this compilation for the numbers of foreign professionals in France
14. ↑ http://www.compactmemory.de/ (Die Neue Welt, issue 292 of April 14, 1933, p. 8)
15. ↑ Barreaud, p. 47
16. ↑ Pécheral, p. 88
17. ↑ Beaudet 2002, p. 191
18. ↑ http://www.om-passion.com/joueursutilises_saison_1936.html ; also Guillet / Laforge, p. 138
19. ↑ This claim can be found on Edmund Weiskopf in the database of weltfussball.de; Surprisingly, however, also on http://www.om1899.com/joueurs/dossierjoueur/weiskopfedmond.htm ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) - if at all, Weiskopf could have played in Le Havre from October 1936 to January 1937; however, this would have been outside of the official time window for club changes.
20. ↑ http://www.om-passion.com/matchsom_1936_2590.html or http://www.om-passion.com/matchsom_1936_2609.html
21. ↑ Pécheral, p. 91
22. ↑ Last season game (home defeat against Sochaux ) on May 20, 1937, see http://www.om-passion.com/matchsom_1936_2809.html
23. ↑ http://www.om-passion.com/joueursutilises_saison_1937.html ; also Guillet / Laforge, p. 139
24. ↑ With József Eisenhoffer (1900-1945) there was another ex-Hakoah player, member of the 1925 championship team , in Marseille's squad, with whom Weiskopf had also played in Vienna before the older one at Olympique during the 1932/33 season Signed contract.
25. ↑ List in Beaudet 2003, p. 193, and Guillet / Laforge, p. 313
26. ↑ In addition to the romanized first name, the additional designation "called Virag" appeared during this period (cf. Ejnès, p. 378).
27. ↑ See the chapter on RC Paris in Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling (ed.): Star of David and Leather Ball. The history of the Jews in German and international football. Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89533-407-3 , pp. 419-432. Weiskopf does not mention the author Günter Rohrbacher-List.
28. ↑ Two years earlier, over 33,000 visitors paid their obolus there, and the 1939 finale in the larger Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir was attended by over 52,000 spectators (Guillet / Laforge, p. 313f.)
29. ↑ Beaudet 2003, p. 193; L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: Coupe de France. La folle épopée. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2007, ISBN 978-2-915-53562-4 , p. 356
30. ↑ cf. Bernhard Brunner: The France Complex. The National Socialist Crimes in France and the Justice of the Federal Republic of Germany. Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16896-5 , p. 49
31. ^ Henry Rousso: Vichy. France under German occupation 1940–1944. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 9783406584541 , p. 89; Michael Curtis: Verdict on Vichy. Power and prejudice in the Vichy France regime. Arcade, New York 2003, ISBN 1559706899 , pp. 105f.
32. ↑ Guillet / Laforge, p. 142
33. ↑ http://www.om-passion.com/joueursutilises_saison_1940.html and Pécheral, p. 387
34. ↑ http://www.om-passion.com/matchsom_1940_24198.html
35. ↑ http://www.om-passion.com/matchsom_1940_3316.html
36. ^ To Edmond Virag, dit Eddy Weiskopf, international de football (Kijpest, Wekerletelep, banlieue de Budapest, October 22, 1911 Neuilly-sur-Seine, May 10, 1996) ( Memento of the original of February 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: Der Archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. it says laconically: "The Germans [sic!] never bothered him under the new name." 
37. ↑ http://www.om-passion.com/joueursutilises_saison_1941.html ; according to Pécheral, p. 387, only three goals
38. ↑ Until 1944 according to Barreaud, p. 166, and Pécheral, p. 446 - from 1946 according to FFF on Weiskopf's data sheet; However, the association information should only be used with caution, as they are even related to much more renowned national players, especially with regard to club affiliations. Contain errors.
39. ↑ Michael Curtis: Verdict on Vichy. Power and prejudice in the Vichy France regime. Arcade, New York 2003, ISBN 1559706899 , pp. 178f.
40. ^ Edmund Weiskopf in the database of weltfussball.de
41. ^ Rohrbacher list in Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling (ed.): Star of David and leather ball. The history of the Jews in German and international football. Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89533-407-3 , p. 431
42. ↑ Barreaud, p. 166; according to François de Montvalon / Frédéric Lombard / Joël Simon: Red Star. Histoires d'un siècle. Club du Red Star, Paris 1999, ISBN 2-95125-620-5 , p. 283, on the other hand, he is said to have  only played for Red Star in the 1945/46 season - still under the pseudonym Virage .
43. ↑ Arbeiterzeitung from October 9, 1945, p. 4
44. ↑ Beaudet 2003, p. 194; Guillet / Laforge, p. 315; L'Équipe / Gérard Ejnès: Coupe de France. La folle épopée. L'Équipe, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2007, ISBN 978-2-915-53562-4 , p. 362
45. ↑ The only sources for this Weiskopf station are again the pages of weltfußball.de and the FFF.
46. ^ France Football Officiel, born in 1949, therein Renouvellement de licenses d'ex professionnels pour la Saison 1949–50
47. ↑ Sportschau issue 28/1946; Sports daily newspaper on Monday of July 22, 1946
48. ↑ Stéphane Boisson / Raoul Vian mention him in their meticulous work Il était une fois le Championnat de France de Football. Tous les joueurs de la première division de 1948/49 à 2003/04. Neofoot, Saint-Thibault o. J., no.
49. ↑ Ejnès, p. 308
50. ↑ Chaumier, p. 313
51. ↑ On a photo of the Bleus before the Poland game (in Pierre Delaunay / Jacques de Ryswick / Jean Cornu: 100 ans de football en France. Atlas, Paris 1982, 1983², ISBN 2-7312-0108-8 , p. 161) Weiskopf stands in a raincoat next to the members of the Elf who have already moved.

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on February 22, 2007 .