Emil Goerlitz

Emil Goerlitz
Personnel
Surname	Emil Anton Goerlitz
birthday	June 13, 1903
place of birth	Katowice ,  German Empire
date of death	May 31, 1987
Place of death	Altenburg ,  Germany
size	180 cm
position	Goalkeeper , storm
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
until 1923	Prussia 05 Katowice
1923-1924	1. FC Katowice
1924-1925	Pogoń Lwów
1925-1926	Edera Trieste
1927-1933	1. FC Katowice
1934-1937	Eintracht Altenburg
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1924-1925	Poland	8 (0)
1 Only league games are given.

Emil Anton Görlitz (born June 13, 1903 in Katowice , German Empire , † May 31, 1987 in Altenburg / Thuringia ) was a German - Polish football player . He was the first German-born Oberschlesier in the Polish national team .

Life

Görlitz was born into a Catholic German family in Katowice. He was the fifth of nine children. The parents worked as caretakers in a school. After attending elementary school , he made an apprenticeship as a locksmith , which he completed with the journeyman's examination. At first he also practiced the profession, from which his nickname "locksmith" came. When he was 19 years old, his hometown was annexed to Poland after the division of Upper Silesia in 1922, although 85 percent of the Katowice had voted in the previous referendum to remain with the German Reich. Görlitz, who thus became a Polish citizen, admitted that he had belonged to the "German Optanten ".

His football career took him to Lemberg (Lwów) in eastern Poland for two years in mid-1924 , where he said he learned Russian through contact with Russian-speaking club mates. In mid-1926 he went to Trieste in Italy, from where he returned to Katowice after a year. In 1934 he moved to Altenburg / Thuringia, where he found a job in the city administration.

With the German occupation of Eastern Upper Silesia in September 1939, he took over the management of the fleet of a steelworks in Sosnowitz that had been taken over by the German occupiers . As "uk" he was not drafted into the Wehrmacht . But he did not belong to any Nazi organization. In February 1945 he was taken prisoner by the Soviets. Thanks to a knee injury he inflicted himself, he was able to leave the Glatz camp in Lower Silesia after three months.

In the summer of 1945 he returned to Altenburg, where he was employed as a driver in the Soviet headquarters . From 1947 to 1949 he worked in the Society for German-Soviet Friendship . Since he did not join the SED , he lost his post. Until his retirement, he then worked at the nearby VEB tar processing plant in Rositz .

Since 1962 he has traveled repeatedly to Katowice, which has become Polish again. Since 1968, as a GDR citizen, he has regularly taken part in the meetings of the “Traditionsgemeinschaft 1. FC Kattowitz” in Salzgitter , the “godfather town” of Kattowitz in the Silesian country team . On his return from a visit to his hometown, he smuggled part of the 1. FC Kattowitz archive first into the GDR and a little later into the Federal Republic. In 1971 he was awarded the DFB badge of honor.

Club soccer

As a teenager, Görlitz joined three of his brothers Prussia 05 , the strongest of the Katowice clubs. After the city was annexed to Poland, the club had to change its name and was now called 1. FC. As a goalkeeper he made a name for himself far beyond Upper Silesia, in 1924 the Polish master Pogoń Lwów recruited him . With Görlitz in goal, the club defended its championship title in both 1924 and 1925. Görlitz was revered as a star in Lemberg.

After two years he accepted an offer from the Italian club Edera Triest , where he got a professional contract. Görlitz thus became the first professional player in Poland. Since he was denied the great success there, he returned after a year to 1. FC Kattowitz, where he became team captain .

Görlitz led his team when they left the field of play in the decisive game for the championship title against Wisła Krakau on September 25, 1927 in protest of the referee's obvious discrimination. 1. FC Katowitz was ultimately runner-up in 1927. More and more often he also appeared as a striker, next to his older brother Josef Görlitz , who was one of the club's goal scorers and was called "Görlitz I" in the sports coverage of the time. Emil was "Görlitz II".

In 1934 he was elected to the board of directors as a still active player . In the same year he protested in vain against his brother Josef's lifelong ban . The Upper Silesian Association of the Polish Football Association ( PZPN) accused the latter of attacking the referee in a fight in a league game, although numerous witnesses testified for the accused. Emil Görlitz left Katowitz to stand in the goal of Eintracht Altenburg.

National team

On May 18, 1924, when he was still playing for 1. FC Kattowitz, at the age of 20 he guarded the national team's goal for the first time in the Stockholm game against Sweden (1: 5). As a reserve goalkeeper, he took part in the Olympic Games in Paris in 1924, but was not used.

In total, he played eight games for the national team, the last was the 2-1 win against Turkey in Istanbul on October 2, 1925. In these eight missions Görlitz had to accept a total of 15 goals, while the Polish strikers scored only 7 goals.

In a 2011 illustrated book about the history of the PZPN, he was honored as the best goalkeeper in Poland in the twenties.

literature

• Thomas Urban : Black Eagles, White Eagles. German and Polish footballers at the heart of politics. Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-89533-775-8 , pp. 13, 15 f., 24.
• Oberschlesischer Kurier (Salzgitter), May 24, 1973, p. 6.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Górnoślązacy w polskiej i niemieckiej reprezentacji narodowej w piłce nożnej - wczoraj i dziś. Edited by the House of German-Polish Cooperation. Gliwice 2006, p. 9.
2. ^ Kattowitzer Zeitung, November 23, 1924, p. 14.
3. ^ Dziennik Zachodni, 23./24. July 2011, p. 20.
4. ↑ Upper Silesian Voice [Katowice], February 24, 2012, p. 3.
5. ↑ Oberschlesischer Kurier (Salzgitter), May 24, 1973, p. 6.
6. ↑ Andrzej Gowarzewski: Lwów i Wilno w ekstraklasie. Katowice 1997, p. 165.
7. ↑ Gazeta Wyborcza (Katowice edition), December 27, 2003, p. 12.
8. ↑ Thomas Urban: Black eagles, white eagles. Germans and Polish at the wheel of politics. Göttingen 2011, p. 13.
9. ↑ Przegląd Sportowy, June 30, 1928, p. 2. http://buwcd.buw.uw.edu.pl/e_zbiory/ckcp/p_sportowy/1928/numer026/imagepages/image1.htm
10. ↑ Kattowitzer Zeitung, January 19, 1934, p. 8.
11. ^ Kattowitzer Zeitung, April 29, 1934, p. 8.
12. ↑ Andrzej Gowarzewski: 90 lat PZPN. Katowice 2011, p. 47.