Leo crown bitter

Leo Kronenbitter (born March 8, 1921 , † September 25, 2006 ) was a German football player .

career

Youth and Gauliga, until 1945

Leo Kronenbitter grew up in football like his four brothers Franz (* 1913), Heinrich (* 1916), Kurt (* 1919) and Siegfried (* 1923) in the youth department of Sportfreunde Stuttgart . With the Sportfreunde, he finished third in the 1940/41 and 1941/42 Gauliga Württemberg behind Kickers and VfB Stuttgart . His talent already led him on October 6, 1940 to the district selection of Württemberg, which was able to beat the Lower Rhine with 4: 3 goals in Stuttgart in the Reichsbund Cup 1940/41. He boosted the game on the side of Kickers player Albert Sing . Also in the competition in 1941/42, now brother Kurt played right runner, he was active in October and November 1941 in two more games against Alsace and Central Germany for Württemberg. In both games he formed the strong Württemberg trio together with Edmund Conen and Albert Sing. During this phase, under the direction of the Reichstrainer Sepp Herberger , he also took part in a screening course for talents from March 17 to 21, 1941. Caused by the circumstances of the war, it came in the round 1942/43, TSV 1860 Munich won the championship in the Gauliga Südbayern , with the "Löwen" in the final round of the German soccer championship 1943 on May 2nd, 1943 at 3: 0 away win at VfB Stuttgart as a left connector. He scored the 2-0 for Munich. After the end of the Second World War , he did not return from Soviet captivity until the summer of 1950 and joined the German champions VfB Stuttgart.

VfB Stuttgart, 1950 to 1956

The playmaker was German champion with VfB Stuttgart in 1952 and German runner-up in 1953 when VfB lost to 1. FC Kaiserslautern in the final despite Kronenbitter's goal . In 1954 he won the DFB Cup with VfB when he was unable to play in the final against 1. FC Köln due to an injury.

The after-effects of the long-term imprisonment prevented more than ten missions for Leo Kronenbitter in the football league south in the debut year 1950/51 and the team of coach Georg Wurzer took fourth place. In the second VfB year, 1951/52 , the tireless ball tugger, physically fit for competitive sport, swung himself up to become the VfB playmaker and celebrated the championship in the south. The 30-year-old played 27 league games and played all seven games with VfB in the final round, including the final on June 22, 1952 in Ludwigshafen against 1. FC Saarbrücken , which was won with 3-2 goals. The VfB attack consisted of Otto Baitinger , Kronenbitter, Roland Wehrle , Peter Krieger and Rolf Blessing . Second place followed in the south in 1953, followed by another championship in 1954. In both rounds, the veteran had played all round matches and also in the finals in all nine matches - in 1954, because of the World Cup in Switzerland, a shortened final round with only two group games took place - which drove the Stuttgart team in midfield.

When VfB Stuttgart was able to conquer the runner-up in the Oberliga Süd in the 1955/56 season , the 34-year-old midfield technician had only four more missions. Leo Kronenbitter played his last league game for VfB on January 15, 1956 in a 1-1 home draw against Viktoria Aschaffenburg , where he scored the equalizer in the 73rd minute of play. He played 125 games for Stuttgart from 1950 to 1956 in the Oberliga Süd and scored 14 goals.

End of playing career

Leo Kronenbitter experienced the end of his playing career from 1956 to 1959 at TSG Ulm 1846 . The "Spatzen" competed in the 2nd League South and took third place in the 1956/57 round behind the two promoted 1860 Munich and SSV Reutlingen . When the younger brother Siegfried also played alongside Leo for the second year, Ulm was promoted to the Oberliga Süd as runner-up in 1957/58. On May 10, 1959, the 38-year-old Leo Kronenbitter played his last league game with his second round for Ulm in the 0-1 defeat at FSV Frankfurt . The player who earned his money as a technical draftsman at Bosch in Feuerbach then ended his career.

literature

• Werner Skrentny (Ed.): When Morlock still met the moonlight. The history of the Oberliga Süd 1945–1963. Klartext, Essen 1993, ISBN 3-88474-055-5 .
• Raphael Keppel, The German Football League 1946–1963, Edgar Hitzel Sports and Games Publishing House , 1983, ISBN 3-9802172-3-X .
• Hardy Grüne , Lorenz Knieriem: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 8: Player Lexicon 1890–1963. AGON-Sportverlag, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 .

Web links

• Leo Kronenbitter at hefleswetzkick.de ( Memento from March 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive )