Günter Weitkuhn

Günter Weitkuhn (born April 27, 1925 ) is a former German soccer player and soccer coach. He played for Stahl Thale , Turbine Halle and VfL Wolfsburg in the respective first division. Later he worked as a trainer.

Soccer career

Soccer player

Weitkuhn began his football career in the small Harz town of Thale . On May 7, 1950, he was with the BSG Eisenhüttenwerk Thale after a 3-1 victory over the BSG Hydrogenation Works Zeitz football champions of Saxony-Anhalt . In the subsequent qualifying games for the GDR Oberliga, Thale fought for a third place and thus achieved promotion. The team around striker Weitkuhn, who now took on as BSG Stahl Thale, confidently secured relegation in their first league season. In addition, she surprisingly won the GDR soccer cup . In the 4-0 win over runner-up Turbine Erfurt, Weitkuhn was part of the team as right winger and scored the 1-0 in the first minute. Weitkuhn played with Thale in the league until 1953 and played 65 of the 102 point games. With 20 goals he is behind Werner Oberländer (38 goals) Thales second best top division scorer. For the 1953/54 season, the league team Turbine Halle signed the successful striker. Weitkuhn was only used in 12 of the 28 league games and only got three goals. After the end of the season he returned to BSG Stahl Thale, which had just been relegated from the league. In 1954/55 Weitkuhn then played in the second-rate GDR league . When BSG Stahl had to relegate again after a year, Weitkuhn left Thale and the GDR in the summer of 1955 and joined the Lower Saxon upper division club VfL Wolfsburg. Here he first played in the amateur team, then as a contract player in the Oberliga Nord , one of the top five DFB divisions . When VfL was relegated in 1959, Weitkuhn returned to the GDR and ended his career as an active football player at BSG Motor Zeulenroda in the fifth division.

Trainer

After the end of his active career, Weitkuhn worked as a football coach. In 1962 he led the BSG Turbine Magdeburg from the third-class district league Magdeburg into the GDR league, which could be held until 1965. In the first half of the 1965/66 season, 1. FC Magdeburg was on a relegation zone and then dismissed its coach Ernst Kümmel . The coach of the district league team Turbine Magdeburg Weitkuhn was signed as his successor. However, this could not prevent the descent and was replaced after only six months by the later successful Heinz Krügel . Then Weitkuhn took over the training of the district division (3rd division) Chemistry Premnitz . He led this team in his first year in the GDR league, which reached a respectable 8th place as a newcomer in the 1967/68 season. A year later, however, Premnitz had to relegate as a knocked-off bottom in the table, but Weitkuhn stayed in Premnitz until the end of the 1969/70 season. In 1980 Weitkuhn returned once more to the GDR league as trainer of Lok Stendal . He was able to improve the team from 7th to 5th place, but had to leave after a year. Then Weitkuhn was coach for a year at the district league team Empor Tangermünde . He led the team in the final of the district soccer cup, which was lost 3-1 to Chemie Schönebeck. At the end of the season, Weitkuhn was replaced by Reiner Wiedemann .

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The following sources were used for the first version of the article:

• Hanns Leske : Encyclopedia of GDR football . Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89533-556-3 .
• Andreas Baingo, Michael Horn: The History of the GDR Oberliga. Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89533-428-6 .
• Weitkuhn in Wolfsburg ( Memento from May 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive )