Horst Assmy

Horst Assmy (left), 1956

Horst Assmy (born November 29, 1933 , † January 14, 1972 in Kassel ) was a German football player and national player of the GDR .

Young and second division player in Berlin

In 1947, after the Second World War, sports in Berlin had normalized to such an extent that regular football competitions could also take place. In the Berlin City League, twelve teams from the four occupation sectors played for the Berlin championship. One of them was VfB Pankow , which ended up in 8th place at the end of the season. At the beginning of the season, 13-year-old Horst Assmy registered here. He played in the Pankower youth team until he was included in the men's squad in the 1952/53 season. In the meantime, the GDR sports leadership had withdrawn the East Berlin football teams from the overall Berlin city league and in 1950 incorporated them into the top GDR league . Among them was VfB Pankow, who had been knocked off the bottom of the table at the end of the season, but was allowed to play another season in the league after being transformed into a company sports association (BSG) under the name of Einheit Pankow. Even then, again bottom of the table, the Pankower had to compete in the 1952/53 season, now with the 18-year-old Horst Assmy in the second-rate GDR league . At the beginning of the season, Einheit Pankow had advanced to the semi-finals of the GDR Cup ( FDGB-Pokal ), but lost to Lok Stendal 0-1. However, the Stendaler was disqualified for using a player who was not eligible to play, so that Pankow played the final against the SG Volkspolizei Dresden on September 14, 1952 in Berlin . When the score was 0: 2 Assmy was substituted into the team, but could not avert the final 0: 3 defeat. When the sporty decline of Pankower continued at the end of the season with a 10th place, Assmy switched to BSG Motor Oberschöneweide in Berlin , which, however, had an unsuccessful season as a relegated from the league. In 1953/54 the Oberschöneweidern did not manage to rise again, Assmy was nevertheless able to record successes. First he made his first game in 1953 in the U-23 selection of the GDR (a second followed in 1954) and was then appointed to the East Berlin city selection, which competed on December 25, 1953 against a selection from West Berlin . In the 3-2 victory of the East Berliners, Assmy scored the 2-0 with an overhead kick. Only five months later, Assmy, still a second division player, played his first international match on May 9, 1954. In front of 70,000 spectators, he was used as a substitute for the encounter with Romania in Berlin.

DDR-Oberliga and soccer champions with Vorwärts Berlin

In the summer of 1954 Assmy was again in the interest of Berlin's sporting events. The army soccer team of the ZSK Vorwärts Berlin had been promoted to the upper league and tried to poach Assmy and other top performers from Motor Oberschöneweide while looking for talented players. Due to violent public protests, ZSK had to refrain from its plan. In the meantime, the tug-of-war about Assmy continued, because the SC DHfK Leipzig was also interested in the young striker, who was supposed to hunt for goals for the newly formed soccer team at the sports university. Although numerous other teams had to delegate players to Leipzig, the Oberschöneweider Assmy were able to hold on for the time being. However, with Lothar Meyer (SC DHfK) and Günther Wirth (Vorwärts Berlin) they lost valuable players at the beginning of the 1954/55 season, and so Assmy no longer saw any sporting prospects in the company sports community. In December 1954, he also registered with the Berlin army football team. There he immediately belonged to the regular team and, as a right-wing striker, together with his old teammate Wirth formed a dangerous wing tong. After his second international match against Romania on September 18, 1955, he had finally fought for a regular place in the GDR national team. On December 16, 1956 Assmy was again in the final of the FDGB Cup, but had to accept a defeat this time too, now against Chemie Halle with 1: 2. In 1958 Assmy was finally able to celebrate his first title win, Vorwärts Berlin was sovereign with six points ahead of GDR champions. With his eleven goals, Assmy had contributed significantly to the success as the top scorer of his team. The following year the army footballers did not go well, and Assmy, along with other players, was publicly attacked for his lack of athleticism. Thereupon he left the army club with his teammate Rolf Fritzsche in September 1959 and went illegally to West Berlin. Up until then, Assmy had held the rank of first lieutenant as an army footballer, and so his departure was condemned with great propaganda effort as desertion and betrayal of GDR sport. From then on, he was no longer listed in the official GDR statistics, although he had 102 GDR league games and 27 goals, as well as 12 international A matches with 4 goals.

GDR national team

International match overview
No. 4 *	9.5.1954	GDR - Romania	0: 1
No. 7	September 18, 1955	Romania - GDR	2: 3
No. 8	11/20/1955	GDR - Bulgaria	1-0
No. 9	July 22, 1956	Poland - GDR	0: 2	1 goal
No. 10	September 20, 1956	GDR - Indonesia	3: 1
No. 17	4.5.1958	Albania - GDR	1: 1
No. 19.	August 13, 1958	Norway - GDR	6: 5	1 goal
No. 20	21.9.1958	GDR - Romania	3: 2	1 goal
No. 21	October 7, 1958	GDR - Bulgaria	1: 1
No. 22	November 2nd, 1958	GDR - Norway	4: 1	1 goal
No. 23	February 11, 1959	Indonesia - GDR	2: 2
No. 25	June 21, 1959	GDR - Portugal	0: 2

(* serial no. of the GDR international match listing)

In addition, Assmy was used in a B international match in the GDR in 1958.

Contract player in West Berlin, Gelsenkirchen and Kassel

Because of the change of association, Assmy was initially subject to a 14-month ban. From November 1960 he played for one season with the Berlin top division tennis Borussia , at that time in one of the five highest national German divisions, was used in 15 games and scored five goals. In the 1961/62 season, Assmy played 20 games and scored nine goals for FC Schalke 04 in the Oberliga West, plus three goals in four games of the championship finals . But even with Schalke the contract was canceled after a year and Assmy moved again, this time to the Oberliga Süd for KSV Hessen Kassel . It was the last station of his career as an active soccer player, in which he played again with his former forward colleague Fritzsche for two years. By the end of the 1964/65 season, Assmy had completed 57 point games in Kassel, in which he scored eleven goals. In the last two seasons Kassel was only second class because the team could not qualify for the Bundesliga, which was introduced in 1963. In June 1965, Assmy said goodbye to active football at the age of 31. He died of kidney failure at the age of 38.

Web links

Commons : Horst Assmy  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Assmy's profile in the Schalke04 archive