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January 9, 2024 - 7:00am
“His death is a loss for football and for all of Germany,” Lothar Matthäus told the media after fellow footballer Franz Beckenbauer died on Sunday. Beckenbauer was indeed much more than a sporting legend. His rare combination of talent and charisma made him a unifying figure for a divided country and a beacon of light on its long way out of darkness.
While the 78-year-old had been plagued by health problems for some time, the finality of his passing still sent shockwaves through Germany. “We will miss him,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on X. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called Beckenbauer an “exceptional phenomenon” who “made the German national football team an outstanding ambassador of our country”.
It’s not often that Germany’s politicians are so at ease using the collective “we” in reference to the nation. In a country so conscious of the way its previous quest for national unity ended in catastrophe, that choice of pronoun is reserved for moments of joy and sadness that can be shared without the weight of history bearing down. Providing such moments when postwar Germany needed them most was Beckenbauer’s greatest achievement.
His biography alone caught the imagination of many ordinary Germans. In many ways, it was a classic rags-to-riches story. Beckenbauer was born to a working-class family in the Munich borough of Giesing only four months after the end of the Second World War. At the age of 12 the budding young footballer intended to switch to TSV 1860 München, but changed his mind when one of their players unsportingly slapped him in the face during a match. So a sulky Beckenbauer ended up at Bayern Munich, something he would later describe as “fate”. He would go on to spend almost his entire playing career there.
By 1968 he had his nickname: the “Kaiser”. It was the year student revolts shook the country as young Germans challenged their elders about crimes committed in the Nazi era. As issues of guilt, shame and responsibility had to be renegotiated between generations, football became a sanctuary for the nation to regain self-confidence. In the stadium it was acceptable to wave German flags, to shout “Sieg!” (Victory!), for striker Gerd Müller to be nicknamed “Bomber of the Nation”, and for Franz Beckenbauer to be the “Kaiser”.
Germans old and young were delirious with joy when West Germany won the World Cup in 1974, playing in their own country and with a team captained by Beckenbauer. East Germans cheered their own team initially when, against expectations, they beat their Western rivals in the preliminary rounds. But once knocked out, many feverishly followed Beckenbauer and his teammates to victory. He was an all-German hero, even in times of division.
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SubscribeI was at the 2006 World Cup final at the Olympische Stadion, Berlin. It was a very dull game between France and Italy, who won on penalties. Shame Germany didn’t make the final.
I was at the Australia-Italy game in Kaiserslautern. Don’t get me started about Italy’s “penalty” which was right in front of me. I was nearer than the ref to the incident and we clearly saw Grosso’s trickery.
He first came to our attention when, along with Bobby Charlton (but much younger), he lit up games during the 1966 World Cup tournament. Both acting on their manager’s instructions, they cancelled each other out in the final.
Four years later in the Mexican quarter-finals, an aging Charlton was substituted with England leading 2-0. Beckenbauer gained his revenge for ’66 by taking control and forcing a 3-2 win.
Beckenbauer’s imperial, Kaiser-like attitude meant he had people who didn’t like him.
But the same could be said about any Bayern Munich player, except perhaps Gerd Mueller.
Franz was certainly much better liked when he represented Germany than when he represented Bayern.
Bayern project an awful arrogance and there is lots of Schadenfreude among the ABB when they lose.
A wonderful player; one commentator said that with him playing it was like having a coach on the pitch as well as one on the sidelines.
P.S. Bayern probably owe almost everything to FB as they were not the main team in Munich when he started playing – that would have been 1860 Munich.
Most East Germans supported West Germany over East Germany.