Franz Straube

Franz Straube
Personnel
birthday	May 9, 1920
place of birth	Obergreißlau ,  Germany
date of death	2009
size	180 cm
position	Defense
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1928-1937	Teutonia Langendorf
1937-1938	TSV Leuna
1938-1940	VfB Leipzig
1947-1959	Weissenfels progress
1 Only league games are given.

Franz Straube (born May 9, 1920 in Obergreißlau ; † 2009 ) was a German soccer player who was mostly used as a full-back or libero and whose greatest success was the rise to the GDR league with the BSG progress Weissenfels .

career

Straube began playing football in the youth of Teutonia Langendorf, for whom he also played in the first team at the age of 17. During this time Straube learned the trade of tailor in a Weißenfels shoe factory. In Langendorf, Straube stood out as a two-footed and variable player who soon aroused the interest of other clubs. So it wasn't long before he joined TSV Leuna and caught the eye of the multiple German champions VfB Leipzig in his year there . In 1938 Straube moved to the Saxons and quickly gained a foothold there. He was considered a great defender talent and was often described as an elegant, technically skilled player. At VfB Straube played until 1940 together with players like Erich Thiele and Gerhard Richter from the cup winners' team of 1936 in the Gauliga Sachsen .

In October 1940 Straube's sporting career was suddenly interrupted when he was called up for military service. Although he was still able to play in a soldiers' team at his location in Naumburg for six months, he was soon sent to Yugoslavia and Greece, where he was stationed until 1944. There the opportunities to play football in a team became increasingly rare. Only occasionally was there an opportunity to play in a soldier's team with other players from VfB Leipzig in the Belgrade area. Due to multiple malaria illnesses, it was not until the beginning of 1945 that Straube should be deployed on the Eastern Front. Straube's regiment only got as far as the triangle between the Czech Republic / Slovakia / Hungary, where Straube was wounded by a shot in the stomach on Easter Day 1945. Finally, on his 25th birthday, May 9, 1945, he was taken prisoner on Czechoslovak soil.
Straube spent his captivity near Novgorod and was mostly used as a lumberjack. On May 9, 1947, he received his discharge papers and three weeks later Straube was back in Langendorf.

It took a year until Straube was physically fit enough again to be able to play in the first team of Weißenfels. But then he quickly found his game again and surprisingly reached the quarter-finals of the FDGB Cup with the Weißenfelsern in the 1949/50 season . There they just failed at the eventual winner SG Eisenhüttenwerk Thale .
Straube's individual class - direct free kicks were one of his particular strengths - was also reflected in regular nominations for the state selection of Saxony-Anhalt as well as being included in the selection team for the eastern zone under Helmut Schön . At the beginning of the 1950s, several clubs were interested in the Obergreißlauer, including Horch Zwickau , Wuppertaler SV , TSG Ulm 1846 or Hertha BSC , but in the end Straube remained loyal to Weißenfels.

This loyalty finally paid off in 1955, when Straube rose to the GDR league together with progress Weissenfels . However, Straube could not fully enjoy this success, because at the time he was charged with stolen goods - Straube had transported a friend's stolen property - and sentenced to two years in prison. Straube was subsequently rehabilitated , but the two years he spent in prison were lost. So it happened that Straube only made his debut in the league in 1957 and only had 48 appearances and 3 hits by the end of his career in 1959.

After retiring from his career, Straube completed a degree in physical education between 1964 and 1967 and was a member of the DTSB Weißenfels district board for many years. In addition, he was involved for a long time as a youth coach, but was also temporarily active as a coach for the Weißenfelser district club SV Uichteritz, which was competing in the district class . In May 1995 he was awarded the gold pin of honor by the Saxony-Anhalt Football Association. Straube died in 2009 at the age of 89.

literature

• German football magazine "Libero" No.3 Oct./Nov.'88, p. 17 ff., Author: Dr. Alfredo W. Pöge, Wiesbaden
• Lorenz Knieriem, Hardy Grüne : Player Lexicon 1890 - 1963 . In: Encyclopedia of German League Football . tape 8 . AGON, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Obituary on the pages of the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung
2. ↑ Article on Straubes 75th birthday on the pages of the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung ( Memento from September 8, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
3. ↑ Mitteldeutsche Zeitung : "Cyclists establish 1900 sporting tradition in the village / Anniversary of today's SV Uichteritz honored in home parlor" from April 6, 2010