Robert Schlienz

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Robert Schlienz
Personnel
birthday February 3, 1924
place of birth Zuffenhausen ,  German Empire
date of death June 18, 1995
position Striker , defender
Juniors
Years station
1930-1942 FV Zuffenhausen
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1940-1945 FV Zuffenhausen
1945-1960 VfB Stuttgart 391 (143)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1956 Germany B 1 00(0)
1955-1956 Germany 3 00(0)
1 Only league games are given.

Robert Schlienz (born February 3, 1924 in Zuffenhausen near Stuttgart ; † June 18, 1995 ) was a football player for VfB Stuttgart and a German national player . He is considered one of the best football players that VfB Stuttgart has ever produced. His trademark was the lack of his left forearm, which was amputated in 1948 after a car accident.

career

FV Zuffenhausen

Robert Schlienz grew up in Zuffenhausen, which was incorporated into Stuttgart in 1931 . The boy from Schwieberdinger Strasse began playing football when he was six at the local FV Zuffenhausen . He was trained by his father Paul Schlienz, who also played for FV Zuffenhausen. At the age of sixteen, Schlienz helped out in the first team. In 1942 he was with the A-youth of the FV Zuffenhausen Wuerttemberg area champion, the team achieved 73 wins in 79 games, with a goal difference of 371: 45. On the way to the championship, the juniors of VfB Stuttgart were beaten 6-1 and those of the Stuttgarter Kickers 7-0, before SSV Ulm was defeated 3-0 in the final of the Württemberg Youth Championship .

As a result, the life of Robert Schlienz was under the shadow of the Second World War . He was called up for military service and came to the Eastern Front . There he was wounded in the jaw by a Russian rifle bullet, which left a large scar on his face. Due to his war injury, he was released from the Wehrmacht and allowed to return to his home country.

Towards the end of the war, when the players were running out, the association allowed the use of guest players from other clubs. This was the way Schlienz, who actually played as a center forward for FV Zuffenhausen, came to VfB Stuttgart. He was picked up by the former VfB goalkeeper Ernst Schnaitmann , who had already discovered Schlienz a few years earlier for the youth city selection. Robert Schlienz played a few games for VfB Stuttgart in the Gauliga in the 1944/45 season . He was also on the pitch in the last game before the end of the war against KSG Untertürkheim-Wangen, which was canceled on April 2, 1945 when VfB was 5-2 due to an air raid alarm . Less than three weeks later, on April 21, 1945, the French troops marched into Stuttgart and occupied the city. A short time later, the Second World War ended after the surrender of the German Reich.

After the end of the war, FV Zuffenhausen, who had played in the Gauliga from 1943, lost half of the team. Five players from the successful A youth team from 1942 had died in the war, so that the club from the north of Stuttgart could no longer provide a powerful team. In addition, the introduction of the South German Oberliga as the top division in the American occupation zone , which was decided shortly after the end of the war in October 1945, meant a further step in the professionalization of football. For this reason, Robert Schlienz, on the renewed initiative of Ernst Schnaitmann, joined VfB Stuttgart, which is playing in the newly founded league.

VfB Stuttgart

Robert Schlienz began his career as a center forward . In the South German Oberliga, then the top division in South Germany, he scored 46 goals in 30 games in the 1945/1946 season.

On August 14, 1948, Schlienz had a serious car accident. Because one day his mother had previously died, he did not come in time for the team meeting and had privately to a Cup match against VfR Aalen in the 70 km distant from Stuttgart Aalen travel after. On the way he got into a pothole with his Opel flatbed truck , which he had borrowed from a friend, and overturned along with the vehicle. His left forearm, which he had held out of the open car window due to the heat, was shattered and had to be amputated. This seemed to put an end to his football career, but his coach at the time, Georg Wurzer , encouraged him to keep going. In extra shifts he studied new training and movement sequences with Schlienz. In addition, Wurzer took the former center forward back to the position of outside runner, who, if necessary, went into the attack himself to score goals. Less than four months after his accident, Schlienz was back on the field for VfB on December 5, 1948 in a 2-1 home win over Bayern Munich . The football magazine praised the returnees as "physically no longer of the former agility, but served the southern German league's former record goalscorer useful templates, from which Läpple and Barufka in particular benefited".

He played for VfB Stuttgart from 1945 to 1960 and was the captain of the club's most successful team, which was two German champions ( 1950 , 1952 ) and two German cup winners ( 1954 , 1958 ).

In 1955 and 1956, the then national coach Sepp Herberger appointed him for three games in the German national team, in which Germany played against Northern Ireland , the Netherlands and England .

Life after his active career

After the end of his career as a footballer, Schlienz ran a sports shop on Wilhelmsplatz in Bad Cannstatt . The father of two daughters later sold wine and gifts and moved with his wife Netti to Dettenhausen, around 30 kilometers southwest of Stuttgart .

He also remained loyal to VfB Stuttgart. After his active days he was often found in the stands in the Neckar Stadium and under President Hans Weitpert he was on the club's board for a short time in 1969, but soon retired.

Robert Schlienz died of a heart attack on June 18, 1995 at the age of 71 . More than 300 mourners attended his funeral in the cemetery where he lived in Dettenhausen in pouring rain. Just a few days after his death, VfB Stuttgart renamed its amateur stadium the Robert-Schlienz-Stadion .

On June 25, 1950, he received the Silver Laurel Leaf for his athletic achievements.

Success as a player

literature

  • Hans Blickensdörfer: The one-armed man from the VfB Stuttgart: Schwabenstreich , S. 75 ff. Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1989, ISBN 3-462-01976-7 .
  • Robert Schlienz: The football was my roundest thing from Der VfB Stuttgart: Schwabenstreich , S. 80 ff. Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1989, ISBN 3-462-01976-7 .
  • Hans Blickensdörfer: Knight with the iron fist from 100 years of VfB Stuttgart , p. 92 f. VfB Stuttgart, 1992, ISBN 3-9802290-4-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Blickensdörfer: The one-armed man from The VfB Stuttgart: Schwabenstreich , p. 76.
  2. ↑ Hardy Grüne: Schlienz 'Miracle Healing from With the Ring on the Chest: The History of VfB Stuttgart , p. 60.
  3. ↑ Bernd Wedemeyer-Kolbe: One-armed in the German national football team ( Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 1, 2014).
  4. ↑ Schlienz 1989, p. 82.
  5. ^ Sports report of the federal government of September 29, 1973 to the Bundestag - printed matter 7/1040 - page 57
personal data
SURNAME Schlienz, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH February 3, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Zuffenhausen near Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH June 18, 1995