Mourning for Hansi Schmidt: The unforgotten “King of the Westfalenhalle” is dead

Mourning for Hansi Schmidt
The unforgotten “King of the Westfalenhalle” is dead

By Till Erdenberger

Handball Germany mourns one of its greatest idols: Hansi Schmidt is dead. The backcourt player electrified the masses in his time, at VfL Gummersbach he became one of the best players of his time. Schmidt is not only part of German history on the floor.

It should have been a late recognition for a great, not just sporting life’s work: “The honor with the golden city medal with a special coin meant a lot to him. He suspected that his serious illness would no longer allow it to be awarded during his lifetime,” announced Gummersbach Mayor Frank Helmenstein on the weekend. Hansi Schmidt, one of the biggest handball idols in the country, died on Sunday night. The memories of a great German athlete’s life remain alive.

Hans-Günter Schmidt was born in Romania as a member of the German-speaking Banat Swabian minority. Schmidt made 18 international matches for Romania. The then 21-year-old never returned to the country from a trip to Cologne with the youth national team in 1963 – and joined VfL Gummersbach. With the army club Steaua Bucharest he became Romanian champion in 1963, but an era began in Oberberg with Schmidt’s arrival: The provincial club rose to become the most successful handball club in the world. The club has won the German championship seven times with director and goalscorer Schmidt, and four times they have won the European Cup together.

“Indescribable scenes in the Westfalenhalle”

“The German champions VfL Gummersbach have reached the absolute high point of their club’s history with their European Cup victory over Dukla Prague. 12,000 spectators, including around 8,000 from Oberberg, saw VfL’s victory in the Dortmund Westfalenhalle, which was packed to capacity,” wrote the ” Kölnische Rundschau” 1967 on the occasion of VfL Gummersbach’s first European triumph. “Indescribable scenes took place in the Westfalenhalle when the final siren sounded. The champions’ supporters stormed the field and didn’t seem to want to release it again. Blue and white flags swirled over the heads of the crowd, the players were lifted onto their shoulders.”

Schmidt had caused fear and terror throughout the rounds with his dreaded delayed jump shot, which he shaped. The opposing defenses have hardly found a tried and tested remedy for years. What nobody suspected at the time: It wasn’t the high point, it was just the beginning of an era. VfL Gummersbach returned to the huge hall four more times for major European handball festivals, and Schmidt became the “King of the Westfalenhalle”. In 1971, the club clinched the third of four European Cup victories of the Schmidt era – in the final against his former club Steaua Bucharest.

1,404 goals in 226 Bundesliga and European Cup appearances for VfL, plus 484 goals in 98 international matches for Germany – Hansi Schmidt shaped handball in the 1960s and 70s. For the former national coach Vlado Stenzel, the 1.96 meter giant was “one of the best players in the world” in his day. “With Hansi Schmidt, VfL Gummersbach loses one of the most formative and successful companions in the club’s history,” wrote his club on Sunday. From 1967, Schmidt was top scorer in the Bundesliga five times in a row. The top scorer didn’t make a big fuss about himself: “I’m not that important, the ball was always passed to me from all sides of the team. Now everyone expected me to make a goal out of it,” said Schmidt during the presentation his biography in 2006.

Unfinished national team career

Despite all his outstanding successes with VfL Gummersbach, Schmidt’s international career remained unfinished because he boycotted the 1972 Olympic Games in protest against national coach Werner Vick’s nomination policy. Vick had given up Schmidt’s Gummersbach colleague Jochen Brand in favor of veteran Herbert Lübking, who had recently decided to make a lucrative move to the district league. “A German national handball team without Hansi Schmidt is an impossibility. That’s a bad joke,” scolded Horst Singer from Gummersbach’s competitor Frisch Auf Göppingen at the time. “In the whole world there is no player who throws like him. The Federal Republic would only have a chance of a medal in Munich with his throwing power.”

The German selection finished sixth in Munich. Six years later, when the DHB selection in Copenhagen sensationally became world champion for the first time with numerous Gummersbachers, Schmidt had already ended his great career. Romania, for which Schmidt had played until his escape in 1963, had become world champion in the spring of 1964.

The long-time captain of the national team left a huge imprint in the history of the DHB: in 1970 Schmidt scored 13 of the 19 German goals against Yugoslavia, the record lasted for almost four decades: It was not until 2009 that Christian Schöne scored more times in a game in DHB dress ( 17 goals against Bulgaria). No other German player with fewer than 100 caps has scored as many times for Germany as Hansi Schmidt.

“Told the Ambassador his opinion”

Meanwhile, a great democrat reminded Schmidt not only of a sporting event as a great German. “For me, he is one of the great figures in German sport,” wrote former Interior and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher in the Schmidt biography “Hansi Schmidt – World Class in the King’s Position”. A handball game in the Westfalenhalle was unforgettable for him, “where Germans and Romanians faced each other. Hansi Schmidt came into the box together with the Romanian ambassador at the time. Hansi Schmidt told the ambassador his opinion without any ado, with great seriousness, but in no way provocatively about the communist regime in Romania. Since then, my respect and my affinity have not only gone to the great athlete Hansi Schmidt, but also to the citizen and democrat who loves freedom and who knows how to use the freedom of speech.” Schmidt himself said in 2002 on the occasion of his 60th birthday: “I have always acted based on performance, but I also commented on things that were outside of sport.”

Schmidt was unable to return to Romania for a long time: as a member of the Romanian military, his removal from the Romanian team in Cologne in 1963 was considered desertion. In his absence, he was sentenced to a long prison term. In 1969, the world-class handball player was finally released from Romanian citizenship – but his family was not allowed to leave the country. Hans-Dietrich Genscher, then Minister of the Interior of the Federal Republic of Germany, tried at the time through various emissaries to ensure that the athlete’s parents and his sister’s family were also allowed to leave the country.

Ceausescu decides the fate of the family

It was not until December 1974, as the German negotiator at the time, Dr. Heinz-Günther Hüsch, the Romanian side signaled: “We have submitted the case to Secretary General Nicolae Ceausescu because you want it. Only he can decide. We don’t know how he will decide. It may be that there will be a general amnesty There could also be a special amnesty. That’s up to the President now. But we assure you: it’s up to him.” Apparently the bloodthirsty dictator Ceausescu had waved the German wishes through, Schmidt’s family was allowed to leave the country after paying a fee for the emigrants.

The German handball idol had long since found his new home, and he never left Gummersbach permanently. His “second real home”, as Schmidt Gummersbach called it, awarded him the Small Golden City Medal in 2006 “in recognition of his outstanding sporting achievements”. On the occasion of his 75th birthday in 2017, the municipal council of his Romanian birthplace, Marienfelde, made him an honorary citizen.

In Gummersbach, where he found happiness in sport and private life decades ago, Hansi Schmidt died surrounded by his family. According to the mayor, Schmidt’s wish for a memorial service in his honor will “obviously be fulfilled” in close consultation with his family and VfL.

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