Horst Eckel
Last world champion from 1954 died at the age of 89
Horst Eckel at a game of 1.FC Kaiserslautern last year.
© imago images / Jan Huebner
The last surviving member of the German world championship team from 1954 is dead. Horst Eckel died at the age of 89.
Horst Eckel (1932-2021) is the last surviving member of the German national soccer team, which in 1954 achieved the “Miracle of Bern”, the victory of the World Cup, who died. The German Football Association (DFB) announced this on December 3rd.
“The 1954 world champion died today, Friday at the age of 89”, it says on the homepage of the DFB. The former soccer player left behind his wife Hannelore, their two daughters Susanne and Dagmar and two grandchildren.
Youngest German player in the final
According to the DFB, outside runner Eckel was the youngest German player in the final in 1954 and, alongside Fritz Walter, who died in 2002, only one of two athletes from the German team who played all six of the team’s games. Eckel played 32 international matches for Germany during his football career.
Eckel was also very successful at club level. The footballer scored 64 goals in 213 games for 1. FC Kaiserslautern, was German champion in 1951 and 1953 and runner-up in 1954 and 1955.
Eckel also got involved in various social projects. “I got to know and experienced Horst Eckel as a wonderful person who, out of deepest conviction, always sided with the weaker and was a real role model for them,” explains Dr. Rainer Koch, 1st DFB Vice President. Peter Peters, 1st DFB Vice President, “not only adored the deceased as one of our soccer heroes, but also valued him personally beyond all measure”. The deputy DFB general secretary Heike Ullrich makes it “deeply sad that we lost the last icon of our 1954 world championship team in Horst Eckel”.