Emanuel Schaffer

Emanuel Schaffer

Emanuel "Eddy" Schaffer (born February 11, 1923 in Drohobycz , Poland , † December 30, 2012 in Ramat HaScharon ) was an Israeli football coach . As a coach of the Israeli national soccer team , he brought it to the World Cup for the only time in 1970. He was also a mediator in sport between Germany and Israel.

family

Before World War II

Schaffer's father, Mozes ("Max") Schaffer was born in Porohy in 1893, his mother Hela in 1898 in Drohobycz, Galicia . He had three siblings: Cila (born 1920), Salka (born 1921) and Rosa (born 1928). His father was the manager of an oil company in Galicia, came to Germany as a traveling salesman in 1922 and spent a few months there, whereupon his family followed him. They moved from Poland via (Marl-) Hüls in 1928 to Recklinghausen in the northern Ruhr area , where Schaffer spent his childhood. He attended a Jewish school and became interested in football from an early age. His father Moses Schaffer was a traveling salesman at the time. When the National Socialists came to power, the family fled in 1933 and returned to Galicia in eastern Poland after stops in Metz in France and Saarland in 1936. Emanuel changed his mother tongue from German to Polish. While his older sisters continued their studies in Stanisławów , Emanuel attended grammar school in Drohobych and stayed with his aunt Lusia. There he played for the first time in a football club, Betar Drohobycz , a club of the Zionist youth movement . In 1939 the city of Drohobych was occupied by the Soviet Union. Drohobycz was attacked by the German Wehrmacht on June 22, 1941 , which marked the beginning of the German-Soviet war.

During the war

A group of young people, including Emanuel Schaffer, tried to flee to the east. Schaffer was one of the few who survived the escape. While on the run, the eighteen-year-old developed diphtheria and typhus and came to Alma Ata in Kazakhstan . There he was held in a labor camp controlled by the Interior Ministry of the USSR (NKVD). In this he joined the labor camp soccer team, which played against other labor camps and local teams. He thus secured additional food. He later worked in a shoe factory in Alma Ata and played for the football club Dynamo Alma Ata. In 1941 he received news from his aunt Lusia about the death of his family members, who were probably murdered in a massacre in Stanisławów . A month after the war ended, Emanuel returned to Poland (Bielawa) to live with his aunt Lusia and her family, who had survived thanks to a Polish woman who hid the Jewish family.

Sports

After the war was over, Schaffer returned to Poland. His emigration to Palestine was initially prevented by a lack of papers and an immigration ban imposed by the British mandate. Instead, he began a career as a footballer. He played for ZKS Bielawa, a Jewish sports club, and in the Lower Silesian football team. In 1949, Schaffer's career ended for the time being because Jewish associations and thus also his activities in football clubs were banned. When he was drafted into the Polish army, he fled via Czechoslovakia, Austria and Italy to Israel, where he arrived penniless in 1950. Schaffer resumed his football career and played in the Hapoel Haifa team . In 1954 he was even in the squad for the national team. However, due to a leg injury, he had to give up playing football.

From player to coach

“I dreamed of becoming a coach.” (Emanuel Schaffer, 1956) For this reason, he returned to Germany in 1958 to complete his coaching diploma at the Sport University in Cologne . To provide financial support, he trained the association league club Rhenania Würselen and gained additional experience. He returned to Israel as a coach to coach the Bnei Yehunda league team and the Israeli Air Force team. At the same time he had a coaching school built with German influences. Schaffer took part with his team in the 1968 Olympic Games , after a draw with Bulgaria, but they missed the bronze medal by a coin toss. From 1968 to 1971 and again from 1978 to 1980 he was the coach of the Israel national team.

His greatest success came in 1970 with the Israeli national team, which was the first and so far the only time to qualify for the final round of the World Cup in Mexico . In football circles, three clear defeats were expected. They lost the game against Uruguay 2-0, for which they could not prepare optimally due to a lack of financial resources to monitor their opponents. Against Sweden and Italy, the team was able to win a draw, which was very popular in Israel. “When we returned, the players were received like heroes. They didn't play for money but for their country. We achieved a real success for three million people, ”says Schaffer.

"German" football virtues, tactical discipline and physical fitness were the decisive criteria of Emanuel's coaching philosophy. Through his professional and successful training methods, he succeeded in revolutionizing Israeli football. Despite his successful coaching career, his old life kept catching up with him. When asked by a sports journalist why he would always curse like that while training, he replied. “I know I'm crazy […] But you have to know that whoever was there and survived came back crazy. Even those who think they are normal are crazy. No one returned healthy. ”At his grave, Avi Luzon, President of the Israel Football Association, said:“ He was the greatest coach we have ever had ”.

German-Israeli football friendship

Schaffer managed to establish German-Israeli relations in football and even in business. Emanuel was able to set up an Israeli agency for the sporting goods manufacturer Adidas and later also Puma . He kept in touch with his mentor Hennes Weisweiler , whom he met at the Sport University in Cologne, which resulted in a number of guest appearances by Borussia Mönchengladbach in Israel. The first German-Israeli guest appearance took place on February 28, 1970 in front of 30,000 spectators in the sold-out Bloomfield Stadium in Tel Aviv . Gladbach's managing directors Helmut Grashoff and Schaffer then cultivated a close friendship, which also brought the first Israeli from the Bundesliga into the World Cup squad: Schmuel Rosenthal made his debut at Borussia Mönchengladbach in September 1972.

His last years

In 2003 Emanuel Schaffer supported the restoration of the Jewish cemetery in Stanisławów and he helped erect a memorial plaque for the murdered family members. In 1998 he suffered a stroke and an inoperable brain tumor that affected his life. Schaffer lived in Israel with his family, wife and four children until his death.

literature

• Moshe Zimmermann : Trainer Emanuel Schaffer and the Israeli processing of history , in: Diethelm Blecking , Lorenz Peiffer (ed.) Athletes in the "Century of the Camps". Profiteers, resistors and victims. Göttingen: Die Werkstatt, 2012, pp. 131–142

Web links

• Emanuel Schaffer ( memento from November 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on rhenania-wuerselen.de
• An encounter in all friendship on dfb.de.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Farewell to a survivor ( Memento of the original from January 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The 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. on ballesterer.at 
2. ↑ Diethelm Blecking: Sportsmen in the century of the camps, profiteers, resistors and victims. Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-895-33872-4 .
3. ↑ ^{a b} Emanuel Schaffer ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The 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. on sztetl.org.pl (biography, English)