Kurt Otto (soccer player)

Kurt Otto (born August 28, 1900 in Rüttenscheid , † December 29, 1942 missing in Stalingrad ) was a German football player and coach .

career

Otto was active as a player in the 1920s, including at the 1st Bielefelder football club Arminia , Chemnitzer BC and later - at the same time as Sepp Herberger - at the Berlin tennis club Borussia . He switched to coaching earlier than the latter, which he initially held for a year at FC Schalke 04 . In this 1929/30 season, the team, to which Fritz Szepan , Ernst Kuzorra , Ferdinand Zajons , Valentin Przybylski and Emil Rothardt already belonged, became champions of the Ruhr district and West German. He then went to the West German Game Association as a trainer , Herberger later became his successor there. For the 1932/33 season he returned to Gelsenkirchen for another year. In June 1933 he was with Schalke in the final of the German championship . However, the 3-0 defeat against Fortuna Düsseldorf cost him his post. In the following year and a half he was in charge of the selection teams for the cities of Essen and Dortmund.

Otto was appointed coach of the Polish national team in March 1935 . However, he was only responsible for the training, the team formation was incumbent on the association captain Józef Kałuża , who was his predecessor and successor in the office of national coach. Otto supervised the Polish selection in a total of 13 games, including two games against the DFB -Elf: In 1935 the Poles lost 1-0 in Breslau , in 1936 both teams separated 1-1 in Warsaw. In both games, the Poznan center forward Friedrich Scherfke , who belongs to the German minority in Poland and whom Otto particularly encouraged, was used. At the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Poland took fourth place. He also conducted courses for regional football associations in Poland.

In the almost two years under Otto, the white-reds won four times, they drew twice and lost seven times. Given this record, he was dismissed as a coach in February 1937. The country's largest sports newspaper, “ Przegląd Sportowy ” published in Warsaw , regretted Otto's withdrawal. He broke the previously dominant “conservatism”, deployed “young forces” and “made the national team independent from the whims of the prima donnas”.

A few weeks after his dismissal as coach of the Polish team, he took over the post of "Reichsbund sports teacher for the Gau Silesia ". He conducted courses for players and coaches from the region.

At the beginning of the Second World War , Otto was drafted into an artillery regiment of the Wehrmacht . After a brief assignment on the "Western Front", which was not fought on until June 1940, he was delegated to the Wehrmacht Sports Club (WSV) in Liegnitz . In Silesia he also conducted courses for clubs in the Wroclaw district . In February 1941 he was appointed coach of the Silesian national team, which also included a number of former Polish national players from Eastern Upper Silesia . The team he trained took part in the Reichsbund Cup.

In May 1942 Otto was transferred back to his artillery regiment. This was used at the end of 1942 in the Battle of Stalingrad . Otto went missing there on December 29, 1942. In 1950 he was declared dead by the Bochum- Langendreer district court .

publication

• Kurt Otto: The sport of football. Exercise, training, competition. Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1938, 164 p. (With 113 ills.)

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. 48, 64–66.

Web links

• Kurt Otto in the database of weltfussball.de
• Kurt Otto at 100-schalker-jahre.de
• Photos in the National Digital Archive (NAC) Warsaw

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jürgen Leinemann: Sepp Herberger. One life, one legend. P. 96; Munich, 2004, ISBN 3-453-87986-4
2. ↑ 75 years ago Schalke was in a DM final for the first time ( memento of the original from December 31, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Website of FC Schalke 04 from June 11, 2008, viewed on March 23, 2010. 
3. ↑ Przegląd Sportowy, March 16, 1935, p. 1. http://buwcd.buw.uw.edu.pl/e_zbiory/ckcp/p_sportowy/1935/numer022/imagepages/image1.htm
4. ↑ Thomas Urban: Black eagles, white eagles. German and Polish footballers at the heart of politics . Göttingen 2011, p. 64.
5. ↑ Andrzej Gowarzewski: Biało-Czerwoni 1921-2001 . Katowice 2002, pp. 46-52.
6. ↑ Przegląd Sportowy, February 18, 1937, p. 2. http://buwcd.buw.uw.edu.pl/e_zbiory/ckcp/p_sportowy/1937/numer014/imagepages/image2.htm
7. ↑ Ostdeutsche Morgenpost, July 18, 1937, p. 8.
8. ↑ East German Observer , March 11, 1940, p. 4.
9. ^ The Football Week, January 21, 1941, p. 16.
10. ^ The Football Week, February 4, 1941, p. 4.
11. ^ German office Gz II C2 - 111014/209