Wartime Football

Fritz Walter

Jimmy Greaves once coined the phrase that football is a ‘game of two halves’ - a literal cliché that often refers to a self-destructive half followed by one of redemption and often leading to glory (a prime example being Liverpool vs AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League Final). However when researching the lives of the two protagonists in this article, I realised that the old footballing cliché took on an even deeper sense of literalness. Although 15 years separated the birthdays of Alexandre Villaplane and Fritz Walter, both became renowned for their divergent lives during the Second World War. Villaplane - the captain of France during their first ever World Cup finals match - lived a conceited life filled with betrayal, deceit and crime which ended with him being executed by a firing squad outside Paris. Conversely, Walter - who scored 357 goals in 364 games for 1. FC Kaiserslautern - lived a life of courage, loyalty and redemption that saw him captain Germany to the 1954 World Cup after being saved from a Prisoner of War camp by an unlikely source. 

The First Half

Alexandre Villaplane - born in Algeria in 1905 - would become the first player of North African descent to play for the France national team, representing Les Bleus 25 times between 1926 and 1930. Before his rise to stardom, Villaplane started plying his trade for FC Sète on the south coast of France under Scottish manager Victor Gibson. The 16-year-old possessed clear talent as he was soon promoted to the first-team, where he would continue to develop his footballing abilities until 1924. Football was not yet professionalised in France during his period, however clubs found ways of paying their players. One such club was FC Sète’s rivals, Nîmes, who tested Villaplane’s loyalty by offering the 22-year-old a lucrative contract. The substantial pay rise was enough to lure Villaplane away from the club that gave him so much and was an unfortunate foreshadow of his future. 

Despite the underlying reasons for his switch, Villaplane enjoyed a meteoric rise to superstardom at Nîmes, quickly gaining nationwide recognition as a tough-tackling midfielder with exceptional passing ability. His performances earned him the position as France captain in time for the inaugural World Cup in 1930, where he led his side out against Mexico in Montevideo - a moment that he would later describe as “the happiest day of my life”. However, amongst the success and exultation was a dark, sinister nuance. In 1929, Villaplane was again convinced to jump ship, this time leaving Nîmes for Racing Club de Paris with the new President promising to assemble the biggest club in France, along with the covenant of a considerable salary. It was around the time of his move to Racing Club that Villaplane became well-known in Paris as a profligate spender who would flaunt his wealth in bars, cabarets and horse-racing tracks, where he would then become associated with the Parisien criminal underworld. 

With professional football becoming legalised in France in 1932, new owners at FC Antibes who had ambitions of dominating French football recruited Villaplane as their headline attraction. France’s first professional league was split into two divisions, North and South, with the winner of each playing each other in a final. Villaplane’s first piece of silverware would soon follow, as Antibes finished top of the Southern league and subsequently defeated SC Fives Lille (the winners of the Northern league) in the final. However rumours started to circle of potential match-fixing as  officials were believed to have been bribed during the final. FC Antibes were stripped of their title after being found guilty and the Lille manager was given a lifetime ban from football. Villaplane - who was suspected to be the mastermind behind the scandal - was only given a small fine, although he was later let go by Antibes. 

Although an immoral storm had been brewing for a number of years, Villaplane’s descent into criminality started to gather pace in the ensuing years. Despite attempts from OGC Nice and Hispano-Bastidienne (managed by his former mentor, Victor Gibson) to resurrect his playing career, Villaplane often missed training and spent his time at the horse-racing tracks within the French capital. The final nail in the coffin came during the 1934/35 season when Villaplane was found guilty of fixing races in Paris and the Côte d’Azur. He was sentenced to jail and his once extraordinary footballing career came to a halt. Villaplane, without a profession or direction, but with the same lust for money, plunged into a life of petty crime until the outbreak of World War II. 

The Nazi invasion and subsequent occupation of France was swift and brutal with 376,734 killed, missing or wounded and over 1,800,000 imprisoned. The Occupation began on May 10th 1939 and the French government fled Paris in June, when the Nazi’s took over the country - aided by the assistance of the French criminal underworld and a network of collaborators. Two such opportunists were notorious crime figure Henry LaFont and former disgraced head of the French police, Pierre Bonny, both of whom became leaders of the Carlingue (French Gestapo). It was not Adolf Hitler’s unconscionable and intransigent beliefs regarding the Aryan race or Jews that resonated with the likes of LaFont and Bonny, but the opportunism to reap the financial rewards that came with treason. The Axis occupation of France provided not just a safe haven, but a platform for the most abhorrent of criminals, so it was not long before Villaplane became a prominent figure amongst the Carlingue. 

Villaplane started out as a chauffeur for the Carlingue hierarchy, however his inherent avidity for cruelty coupled with his greed caught the eye of LaFont, who promoted the former France captain up the ranks to head of the BNA or Brigade Nord Africaine. The BNA was an immigrant counterinsergency unit established by the Nazi’s to crush French Resistance fighters. The extent of Villaplane’s brutality became apparent during one event in particular in which 11 resistance fighters aged between 17 and 26 were executed and thrown into a ditch on his direct orders. One month later in April 1944, Villaplane continued his pillaging conquest into Eymet, a commune in the southwest of France where he would allow Jews to flee provided they met his financial demands. His rise up the Carlingue rankings came with even more acts of savagery, which culminated in what has become known as the Mussidan Massacre in June 1944 - in which 52 men, women and children who were not a part of the French Resistance were murdered by Villaplane and the other Nazi SS members who were present. 

However as the Allied forces started to fight back in an attempt to regain France in August 1944, Villaplane’s days became numbered. Members of the Carlingue were rounded up and put on trials for their horrific acts of violence and on the 1st December 1944, Villaplane was sentenced to death. He was shot by a firing squad on Boxing Day at the Fort de Montrouge and buried in an unmarked grave in an unmarked location. Villaplane was a sadist, an opportunist who betrayed the country that adopted him and gave him all the tools needed to succeed. A fitting juxtaposition is that one Yugoslavian by the name of Ivan Bek, a former footballer, who helped the French Resistance against the Nazi’s. Like Villaplane, he too played at the 1930 World Cup and like Villaplane, he too played for FC Sète. Both were adopted by France when searching for a better life, however whilst Bek chose to stay and fight alongside those who had helped him, Villaplane chose to betray his adopted country and everyone in it. 

The Second Half

As the cliché goes, the second half is a story of redemption, courage and glory - which can be attributed to our next protagonist, Fritz Walter. Born in 1920 in the region of Kaiserslautern, a city in the southwest of Germany, Walter was exposed to football from a relatively young age as his parents worked at the 1. FC Kaiserslautern club restaurant. He joined the club in 1928 and would make his first-team debut at the age of 17 just nine years later. Although Kaiserslautern’s performances as a team were relatively unremarkable in the years prior to World War II, a young and reserved Walter became the standout performer. His performances at club level - which included 30 goals in 15 appearances in the 1939/40 season - gained the attention of foreign professional clubs who offered Walter considerable sums of money, however Walter pledged his loyalty to his hometown club. Walter soon caught the eye of German national team manager Sepp Herberger, who used his Nazi party membership to bring Walter back from the front lines and hand the 20-year-old his Nationalmannschaft debut in 1940, in which he scored a hat-trick against Romania. 

Whilst serving in France and Italy, Walter played in 23 of the 25 wartime games with Wehrmacht (Nazi Germany armed forces). Although these affairs were relatively ordinary and were mostly played against Axis members, one particularly remarkable game came against Hungary. Two games were scheduled in 1941, one to be played at home and one to be played away, the first of which saw Germany trounce Hungary 7-0 in front of 70,000 fans in Cologne. However, the return friendly in Budapest was a different story altogether, with the Hungarians winning 3-1 at half time. In a bid to avoid embarrassing high ranking members within the Nazi party, Herberger pleaded with his players to turn the game around in the second half. The striker from Kaiserslautern scored two of Germany’s four unanswered second-half goals, giving the away side a 3-5 victory. Truly a game of two halves. 

By 1943, Germany was starting to succumb to the Allied forces and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels declared that they were at “total war”. Despite football still being permitted, it was increasingly difficult for players to spend time away from the front lines. As such, Walter joined the Red Fighter Pilots regiment after being recruited by ex-German goalkeeper Major Graf, placing his footballing career firmly on hold for the foreseeable future. As the Soviet forces marched across Eastern Europe, Major Graf soon instructed his pilots, which included Walter, to destroy their planes and march west in order to surrender to the Allied forces. 

The Red Fighter Pilots were subsequently captured by United States armed forces and interned in a Prisoner of War camp. However a few weeks later the paratroopers were handed over to the Russians, who kept prisoners of war in notoriously inhumane conditions such as the minus 40 degree temperatures in the Siberian gulags that killed approximately 12-20 million people over Stalin’s 476 POW camps. Whilst being detained in a Ukrainian camp - the last stop before entering the Siberian gulag - Walter became involved in an impromptu game of football against Hungarian guards. As fate would have it, one of the guards recognised Walter and was left in awe following Walter’s second half display against Hungary three years earlier. The next day, Walter’s name disappeared from the list of people who were due to be sent to the Siberian gulags and fled the Ukrainain camp. 

Following the conclusion of World War II, Walter set about restoring his personal and professional life, joining up with FC Kaiserslautern once again in 1947. Although football within Germany had yet to officially become professional, four regional leagues were introduced and Walter continued his goal-scoring exploits, scoring 31 goals in 24 appearances. Once again, his performances had gained the attention of foreign super clubs, this time in the form of Atlético Madrid, managed by the legendary Helenio Herrera. Walter was offered DM225,000 - a copious amount considering the economic state of Germany after the war - but he rebuffed the Spanish clubs’ offer and chose to stay with FC Kaiserslautern. His loyalty was soon repaid when he was selected to captain West Germany during the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland. 

Despite continuing to suffer from malaria that he sustained during the war, Walter proved to be a pivotal figure, scoring three goals in the process as West Germany overcame the likes of Turkey, Yugoslavia, Austria and tournament favourites Hungary, who were led by the talismanic Ferenc Puskàs. Nevertheless, despite being the underdogs, Die Mannschaft fought hard to seal a 3-2 victory over Hungary in the Miracle of Bern as Walter lifted the famous Jules Rimet trophy. His legacy was complete. Walter would go on to feature for West Germany in the 1958 World Cup  but would subsequently retire due to an injury against Sweden - his record of 33 goals in 61 appearances speaks for itself. Walter would continue to work for the German Football Association, helping to rehabilitate young offenders through football, which aptly summarised his selflessness and generosity. Fritz Walter passed away on June 17th 2002 at the age of 81, surrounded by those close to him. He was inducted into Germany’s Sports Hall of Fame and became an honorary Captain of the German national team alongside Franz Beckenbauer, Lothar Matthäus and Bettina Wiegmann. 

The lives of Alexandre Villaplane and Fritz Walter shared similarities; both began their lives as talented footballers and both were forced to take a break from footballing activities after the start of World War II. However, their lives are incomparable. Villaplane and Walter are the personification of the ‘game of two halves’ cliché that was uttered by Jimmy Greaves all those years ago. The former exploited, intimidated and murdered in order to gain the riches that he put at the forefront of his life, which led to his inevitable self-destruction. Inversely, the latter lived a life dedicated to those who were dearest to him, demonstrating loyalty and bravery which led to his eternal eminence.

Article by Charlie Adey