There are sixty thousand spectators at the Prater in Vienna to welcome the last game of the Austrian national team. E 'April 3, 1938, and in Austria is celebrating the Anschluss, the annexation to Nazi Germany. In the stadium and in the neighborhoods of the capital resonates goose-step of Brown Shirts. Austria and was granted the honor to greet his audience one last time. But not everyone was there to see the national team, but to see one man, the smallest of all, who not by chance called "der Papieren" onionskin. The only twenty-two not addressed his greetings to the stands, dominated by the leaders of the Reich in glittering uniforms. It was hailed as a hero, and not denied the fate of the heroes died, in circumstances still unclear, was sanctified and forgotten. That hero is Matthias Sindelar, one of the greatest footballers of all time. And this is the story of a victim of reason of state who died for an idea, not to bow to power, and a slow death. The Anschluss
beginning of 1938 Hitler had consolidated his power in Germany and to complete the expansion of the Reich, a long-planned, on Feb. 12 met the Chancellor Austrian Kurt Schuschnigg at Berchtesgaden in Bavaria asking that would eliminate the veto to political parties and release all detainees involving Nazis in government: the military invasion penalty. Schuschnigg agreed and called Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a pro-Nazi lawyer, as Interior Minister.
But in the weeks after he began to realize how Seyss-Inquart was plotting to destabilize it and tried to ignite the patriotism of the population. For the first time the Communists and Socialists could be seen in public together and March 9, as a last resort, planned a plebiscite to decide whether to approve the annexation to the Reich . To make up a large majority imposed The minimum age for voting in 24 years, so as to exclude the young, in large part by pro-Nazi sympathies. But the bet was won at the polls, was obviously lost. Germany announced that the results were affected by heavy fraud and that would be accepted, in most of Hitler's Propaganda Minister announced the outbreak of revolts in Austria and arguing that a large part of the Austrian population had sought the intervention of troops of the Reich. Hitler sent an ultimatum to Schuschnigg, which expired at midnight on 11: the power or switch entirely to the Nazis, or the country will be invaded . The ultimatum was extended by two hours, even if the invasion had been planned for each. Seyss-Inquart, not without some problems, finally was elected Chancellor . Hitler crossed the border Branau, his hometown, while the Eighth Army of Wehrmacht troops entered Austria meeting only flags and cheering in what became known as the Blumenkrieg, the war of the flowers.
Hitler was back in Austria, April 2 , when 200,000 people received him in triumph Heldenplatz, the Heroes' Square, to hear the Reich proclaiming the Anschluss, the event that appeared in Le Figaro as "the most serious accident at the end of the first world war. " The next day we would be the match between Hertha and Austria to celebrate the event. Sindelar made an event that, in its way, unforgettable.
Mathias Sindelar
There is always a poor neighborhood in the history and destiny of the great champions of sport and football in particular, as if the "hunger", real and metaphorical, constitutes a weapon more. For only those who really suffered really do anything to get and build on the unique talent that has to emerge from poverty.
Eusebio, the Black Panther, began in the dusty streets of Lourenco Marques, Mozambique, Maradona in Fiorito, Buenos Aires, Romario to Jacarecinho, Rio de Janeiro. Mathias Sindelar, der Papieren, the Mozart of football, which has "played the game of football like no other," wrote Friedrich Torberg as in "Ballad of the death of a player" has begun on the outskirts of Vienna. But Sindelar was not born in Austria but in Moravia in Jihlava, 10 February 1903, a family of Jewish origin. This too will weigh in the ultimate fate of tissue paper. His father was a bricklayer and moved to the Austrian capital, where it grew with dignity Sindelar, who as a boy worked as an apprentice mechanic, and her three sisters.
's father dies at war, on the Isonzo, and Matthias passes adolescence helping his mother and sisters in their laundry, but the center of his thoughts is just one: the ball of rags that is kept outside the door of the shop. And Matthias, slender, slight, with the ball we can do and how. On the street sporting a series of dribbling, play, stop and passages that draw the attention of ' Hertha, a professional team in the capital, who recruits him for the youth team in 1918, but it does begin in the first team already in 1922 . On the stages of football that counts, its qualities stand out and the Wiener Amateur in 1924, which later became FK Austria Vienna, makes its flag, its symbol, his idol. With viola, Mozart, the "Fiddler" will play until the final, winning a title, six domestic cups and two Mitropa Cup, then the leading continental club trophy .
"onionskin" was a striker extreme elegance, engineering and unparalleled talent. A genuine star who has delighted in the domestic market, one that in the Thirties was the strongest national in the world. Those were years when the school was the school football Mittleuropea, the example for all, the only team at the Wunderteam, the team of the wonders of Austria, coached by the great coach Hugo Meisl was Hungary. There was also a direct confrontation between the two countries that were once joined under the banner of the emperor in Vienna in 1932. He finished 8-2 for Austria, with three networks that Sindelar also served five assists.
With him on the field of Austria won 28 matches out of 31 until 1934, the year in which the Wunderteam participates for the first time at the World Championships. His reputation exceeds the boundaries of the "soccer-phobic" Sindelar U.S. and start earning a lot, making testimonial ad for designer clothes and luxury cars, but spending the most money on women and gambling.
" was the owner of the ball, the artist of fake ," he said of Vittorio Pozzo, coach of two-time champion World. "The lack of physical meet with intelligence. He had learned to unmark in a masterly way. Vacated distributed, sorted, said issues of attack, became the true intelligence of the first line .
It was not enough, however, his presence on the field to beat the Azzurri in the semifinals of the World Cup 1934. In Milan, June 3, the team of Hugo Meisl and tissue paper is 1-0 defeat. Sindelar has to leave before the curtain falls, however, knocked the studs Monzeglio. The goal is to match Enrique Guaita: the action appear to be tainted by an earlier foul on goalkeeper Peter Platzer Giuseppe Meazza not sanctioned by the referee, Swedish Ivan Eklind that is unique in the history of the World Cup, also directs the final between Italy and Czechoslovakia. It is said that before the two decisive encounters, Eklind have met Mussolini.
that matched or not true, the direction of Sweden is heavily criticized and branded as too homely. Curiously, then, the Swede will head even Italy and France in the World 1938, the same linesman's semi-final in Milan, the Belgian Louis Baert: that race in Italy will wear the black jersey in honor of the Duce.
blue On the day of the triumph of Rome, Sindelar is in a hospital bed, in Milan: here he meets his fate, Camilla Castignolo , an Italian girl who teaches German literature. Sindelar falls in love and decides to take her to Vienna.
The consequences of the Anschluss
Among the first steps taken by the new National-Socialist government in Austria after its annexation to the Reich of 1938, set out the dismantling of the Football Association, the oldest in the world. In what would become the Ostmark, a mere province in the empire of the Fuhrer, the Jews were dismissed from the team players, coaches exempt Jews, training and clubs outlawed Jewish ancestry and their equipment confiscated.
Many of the managers, coaches and players FK Austria Vienna were driven off by the mere fact of being, or suspected of being Jews. These include the historic President Michl Schwartz. For the "survivors" was expressly ordered not speaking to colleagues who had been expelled. But Sindelar was unbending. Franz Schwartz, grandson of the glorious president "purged", remembers him as a perfect Viennese manners, attitudes, way of speaking. And how his
Vienna, lives in the shadows, whispers and secrets.
The game farewell
Secrets as his intentions in his game "farewell", the challenge against the German national team that was supposed to celebrate the Anschluss. A match that would have ended in a draw with goals, at least that was the desire (or order) of the Fuhrer and the officers of the Reich. Sindelar has requested, and obtained, which for the last game of the Austrian national team could take the field with the traditional red and white jacket .
How exactly happened during the game today is mixed with the legend, then with the myths that have flourished since that day heroism of tissue paper and the whole team. For the first time all Sindelar create clear scoring chances, but it always ends up missing the door a few inches . So much so that many people think, and say many newspapers the next day, he was wrong on purpose, that in a certo senso quello era il suo modo per prendersi gioco dei tedeschi, oppure che gli fosse stato ordinato di non segnare. Per quanto difficilmente plausibile possa sembrare, questa teoria ha riscosso particolare successo nei giorni e negli anni a venire.
L'incontro rimane in equilibrio fino al 62', quando proprio Sindelar sblocca il risultato con un preciso destro . Lo stadio esplode, tutti sono perfettamente consapevoli che il valore della partita va al di là del dato sportivo. Al 71', poi, Karl Sesta da 40 metri disegna un cross apparentemente innocuo che si trasforma in una conclusione letale che vale il definitivo 2-0 per l'Austria . E Sindelar celebra il trionfo con una danza di gioia proprio di fronte ai massimi dignitari del Reich. A fine gara il protocollo prevede che i giocatori salutino le autorità a braccio teso. Lo fanno tutti, tranne gli autori dei due gol, che restano sull'attenti, con le braccia rigidamente lungo i fianchi , davanti agli sguardi irritati delle autorità.
Più volte, dopo quella partita, a Sindelar, è stato chiesto di giocare per la Germania, ma Cartavelina, di dichiarate simpatie social-democratiche, ha sempre rifiutato e ha assistito dalle tribune alla sconfitta tedesca ai Mondiali del 1938. Ancora non lo sapeva, ma gli restavano sette mesi di vita.
La fine di un campione
L'ultimo anno del Mozart del calcio è quantomeno bizzarro. Let the football player, and buy a bar in the district of Favoriten, by Leopold Drill, a friend of his jew, one of the many victims of legalized expropriation in the new order imposed by the Fuhrer in the now become Ostmark for 20 000 trademarks more than it had offered the bureaucrats of the regime. An initiative that according to some critics, however, should be interpreted in another way: the sample, which is said to have completed the transaction with cash, would not merely opportunistically take advantage of the situation to buy the club for a fraction of its real value.
Thus, thirty years, an athlete who could still be among the most admired and sought after Europe, she served them beer and coffee with former comrades. The Gestapo oversees local , and Sindelar is known as friendly monsters with all customers, who is half Jewish, the official report, which define onionskin "not in tune with the party . But
January 23, 1939 Sindelar does not go to the bar. A friend, Gustav Hartmann, seek him out in the apartment of Annagasse. He finds naked, lying on the floor, dead . Beside him Castignoli Camilla, still alive. He dies a few hours later, as the boyfriend sample, asphyxia caused by carbon monoxide from a defective stove . The chimney was blocked, and immediately gave the blame to poor maintenance. But few believed the official version, written on the police report which, however, according to the Austrian national archive would have been lost or destroyed in war. On 25 January an article in the Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung claimed that " all signs point to the conclusion that this great man was the victim of a crime for poisoning."
One theory that has found many supporters, that the murder, which gradually identified as culprits : a murderess on commission, because of alleged gambling debts of Sindelar; Camilla, who then would suicide for the sense of guilt; the Gestapo, that he would kill tissue paper to prevent the possibility that the player put in embarrassing the Reich by flying abroad.
But there are also those who supported and supports the thesis of suicide is an act of desperation against the destiny of their country, a symbolic gesture as the ultimate romantic expression of individual freedom, the extreme form of assertion of independence of thought against the Nazi hierarchy.
A seventy years later the questions remain unanswered. There remains only the confession of Egon Ulbrich, a great friend of Sindelar, who revealed to the BBC a few years ago, he had convinced the police to "fix" the report , eliminating any reference to the criminal sphere, and especially suicide, so that Sindelar could have a state funeral .
The most poetic explanation of the death of the Sindelar, however, has given Alfred Polgar, in the obituary that he dedicated to the champion. " Sindelar followed the city, which was the favorite son and pride. It was so inextricably linked to Vienna to death when she died. Why live and play football in the troubled city, destroyed, oppressed would have meant betraying Vienna with a spectrum repellent themselves. But how can playing football in those conditions? And how can we go on living when life is nothing without football? .
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