Erwin Helmchen

Erwin Helmchen (born May 10, 1907 in Cottbus , † June 8, 1981 in Kiel ) was a German football player .

Erwin Helmchen in a scrapbook

career

Associations until 1945

The young player Erwin Helmchen learned the basics of football with the blue-whites of FV Brandenburg Cottbus . In the Niederlausitz district class, the young attacker celebrated his first senior titles with his club in 1927 and 1928. He took part with the FV Brandenburg in the finals of the southeast German championship , but where the representatives from Central Silesia - the Breslau clubs - played a dominant role. In 1928 he joined PSV Chemnitz and moved to West Saxony in the "Saxon Manchester".

The powerful striker - he scored 213 goals in the regional championship rounds in his first five rounds at PSV - had to deal with local rivals Chemnitzer BC in the early years . Only at the end of the Association of Central German Ball Game Clubs - in the years 1931 to 1933 - was Helmchen able to move into the finals for the Central German championship with the Green-Whites. In the second attempt, in 1932, the striker and his teammates won the Central German championship with a 3-2 win against Dresdner SC . Helmchen contributed 51 goals to the championship in Chemnitz and a total of 126 goals are recorded for him for the 1931/32 season. In the final round of the German championship he failed with his teammates Erich Haase, Willy Munkelt and Erich Mädler after a 2: 3 defeat in Leipzig on May 22, 1932 at the eventual German champions FC Bayern Munich . In 1933, the DSC retaliated in the final for the Central German Championship with a 3-1 win against PSV.

The era of the Gauliga Sachsen opened Helmchen with his club in the debut season 1933/34 behind Dresdner SC and VfB Leipzig in third place. On May 13, 1934, the new stadium on the "Planitzwiese", later known as the stadium on Gellertstrasse , opened with a 5: 1 in front of 25,000 spectators against SpVgg Fürth . Already on June 16, a friendly match against the Spanish champions of 1932 Madrid CF , as Real Madrid was still called at the time, with “miracle goalkeeper” Ricardo Zamora followed in front of 20,000 spectators , which PSV won 5-2 with three Heimchen goals. In the rounds of 1934/35 and 1935/36, the goalscorer won from duty - he was not characterized by extraordinary speed and finesse ball technique, but he got his extraordinary hit rate through his native shooting power, which he used in every situation - with the PSV Chemnitz two championship titles in the Gauliga Sachsen, each in front of the Dresdner SC. In the finals for the German soccer championship, he impressively confirmed his scoring qualities. In 1935 Chemnitz prevailed in the group matches against Hertha BSC , Vorwärts-Rasensport Gleiwitz and Yorck Boyen Insterburg and only failed on June 2 in Düsseldorf in the semifinals with 2: 3 goals at the eventual final winner FC Schalke 04 . Both goals against the defending champion from Schalke were scored by Erwin Helmchen, who was attacking half right. In the final round in 1936, the Saxons met Schalke in the group games. In the first leg on April 26th, PSV prevailed in front of 40,000 spectators in Dortmund's Rote Erde stadium with 3-2 goals, and Helmchen contributed two goals to victory. In the final group game on May 17th, the men around Kuzorra and Szepan turned the tables and prevailed with 2-1 goals in front of 55,000 spectators in the Dresden Ostragehege . Equally on points, but with the worse goal difference, the final round was over for Helmchen and his team-mates. With a total of ten goals, Helmchen once again underlined his above-average qualifications in the final round.

The goalscorer was runner-up with his team in the 1936/37 round and took third place in Saxony in 1938 and 1941, but it was no longer enough to make it into the final round of the German championship. Although the DFB selection players Walter Rose and Ernst Willimowski also belonged to the Helmchen-Elf in the wars of 1940/41 and 1941/42 , the Dresdner SC and the Planitzer SC were too strong for the Chemnitz team in these years.

After the Second World War, until 1956

The new beginning after the Second World War also began in Chemnitz after the dissolution of the former sports clubs with loosely organized sports communities that were initially only allowed to hold competitions at the local level. The SG Chemnitz Nord took part in the Chemnitz district soccer relay from 1946, in which they took first place in 1947 and third in 1948. When the soccer district played in two seasons in the 1948/49 season, SG Nord won its season, but was defeated in three final games that had become necessary for the Chemnitz championship of SG Einheit Meerane . In addition to his role as player-coach, the 41-year-old Helmchen still distinguished himself as a goalscorer - 67 goals in three rounds - and was also called up as a center forward by Saxony coach Helmut Schön in the selection game between Saxony and Berlin on January 23, 1949 . The senior scored the last goals in the autumn round of 1949/50 in the state class of Saxony for SG Nord, which has now been converted into BSG Fewa Chemnitz, and then - after winning the unofficial autumn championship - to change to Schleswig-Holstein. First he worked at Eintracht Rendsburg and from February 1950 at VfB Lübeck in the North Football League as a player-coach. At the mature footballer's age of almost 43 years - seven days before his birthday - Helmchen completed his second league appearance for Lübeck on May 3, 1950 in the catch-up game against FC St. Pauli. Göttingen 05 protested against the participation of Helmchen as a player , as he would not have been eligible to play under the current statute. The protest was done with the descent of VfB. In the following season 1950/51 - Helmchen won the championship with the green-whites from the stadium at the Lohmühle in the Schleswig-Holstein state league, but failed in the promotion round to the upper league - there was another dispute, now about the (basic) Asked if he could play in the amateur league himself as a paid coach. A related protest by local rival Phoenix was rejected. In 1951/52 he again won the national league championship with VfB, but the return to the Oberliga Nord was not successful at the second attempt.

After moving to Kiel in 1952 - Helmchen was employed there in the equipment procurement department at the Ministry of the Interior - he trained with the national league team SV Friedrichsort until 1956 .

Selection appointments

From the game year 1928/29 the series scorer also convinced in the national cup competition of the association teams in the eleven of Central Germany. On October 13, 1929, he overcame goalkeeper Hans Jakob in a 5-2 win in Magdeburg against southern Germany with four goals. When the Central Germans shot the defending champions from North Germany with 5: 4 goals after extra time in their home town of Chemnitz on October 12, 1930, Helmchen scored two hits as half right. With the Gau selection of Saxony, he won the Reichsbund Cup in 1935/36 . In the first final game on March 1, 1936, he kept his team in the running with his two hits, the game against the Southwest ended 2-2 draw after extra time. In the replay, Saxony prevailed with 9-0 goals. Helmchen again scored two goals and center forward Erich Hänel from BC Hartha even scored five goals. With a total of nine goals, Helmchen took the top scorer's crown in this series.

He was in two other finals with Saxony, 1937 and 1940. Both finals were lost. At the age of 33, on June 30, 1940, he led the Saxony team as captain in Augsburg against Bavaria on the field, but the team around center runner Ludwig Goldbrunner prevailed with a 3-1 victory. In the game year 1939/40 he was also the top scorer with nine goals. From 1933 to 1942 he scored a total of 26 goals in 21 Gau selection competitions, making it the leader of the ranking. Helmchen played over 100 times in the city and Saxony selection.

Due to his hit rates in the powerful Gauliga Sachsen, in the convincing finals in 1935 and 1936 for the German championship - 16 games in total from 1932 to 1936 with 29 goals - and his successes with Saxony in the Reichsbundpokal, his non-consideration for the German national soccer team by the Reich coach Otto Nerz and Sepp Herberger are incomprehensible. He was appointed to some DFB courses and was a member of the squad on May 24, 1931 in the German 0: 6 bankruptcy against Austria. In 1937 there were two more appearances in friendly matches: on May 22nd in Stuttgart against Manchester City and before the international match on October 24th in Berlin against Norway in the game against the Gau Brandenburg, where he scored two goals in a 3-2 win scored.

Helmchen is listed as Germany's all-time record scorer. In the course of his career he scored 596 goals in first and second class league games alone, plus countless goals in friendly matches, DM finals and cup matches or with the Gau selection. Knieriem attributes around 900 goals to Helmchen in competitive games (850 determined).

Death and remembrance

Erwin Helmchen lived with his wife Erna in a row house in Kiel- Elmschenhagen until his death on June 8, 1981 , where he is also buried.

The wish he expressed to want to rest under the ground of the Chemnitz "Stadium on Gellertstrasse" was symbolically fulfilled on September 8, 2001. On this day Holstein Kiel and Chemnitzer FC met in the Regionalliga Nord for their first league game. The CFC fan club “Clubsurfer” then launched the “Lawn for Erwin” campaign, in which a piece of turf from the Chemnitz soccer turf was cut off and placed on Helmchen's grave in Kiel with a little devotion.

literature

• Gerhard Claus: 100 years of football in Chemnitz. Pictures, stories, tables . Chemnitzer Verlag, Chemnitz 1999, ISBN 3-928678-58-2 .
• Gau selection competitions 1933–1942 . In: Libero IFFHS, No. D 17, 1998, III. Quarter.
• Lorenz Knieriem: goalscorer. A typology of the executor . AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2005, ISBN 3-89784-264-5 .
• Hardy Grüne , Lorenz Knieriem: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 8: Player Lexicon 1890–1963. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Lorenz Knieriem, Torjäger, p. 160.
2. ↑ Lorenz Knieriem, Torjäger, p. 167.
3. ↑ Werner Skrentny (ed.), The big book of the German football stadiums, Verlag Die Werkstatt, 2001, p. 79.
4. ↑ Raphael Keppel, Germany's international football games, documentation from 1908 to 1989, p. 118.
5. ↑ Raphael Keppel, Germany's international football games, documentation from 1908–1989, p. 122.
6. ↑ Lorenz Knieriem, Torjäger, pp. 32–35.