Fritz Walter

Fritz Walter

Fritz Walter with Kaiserslautern in 1956.
Personal information
Full name	Friedrich Walter
Date of birth	(1920-10-31)31 October 1920
Place of birth	Kaiserslautern, Germany
Date of death	17 June 2002(2002-06-17) (aged 81)
Place of death	Enkenbach-Alsenborn, Germany
Playing position	Attacking midfielder Inside forward
Youth career
1928–1929	FV Kaiserslautern
1929–1937	1. FC Kaiserslautern
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1937–1959	1. FC Kaiserslautern	364	(357)
National team
1940–1958	Germany	61	(33)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

Friedrich "Fritz" Walter (31 October 1920 – 17 June 2002) was a German footballer. In his time with the German national team, he made 61 caps and scored 33 goals. He usually played as an attacking midfielder or inside forward.

Walter was exposed to football early with his parents working at the 1. FC Kaiserslautern club restaurant. By 1928 he had joined the Kaiserslautern youth academy, and he made his first team debut at 17, continuing an association with the club that would be his only professional club.

International pro teams had repeatedly offered him hefty sums, but with support from his wife always declined in order to stay at home, to play for his home town, the national team and "Chef" (German for "boss") Herberger.

Walter debuted with the German national team in 1940 under Sepp Herberger, and scored a hat-trick against Romania.

Walter was drafted into the armed forces in 1942, however, the end of the war found 24-year-old Walter in a Prisoner of War camp in Maramures in which he played with Hungarian and Slovakian guards. When the Soviets arrived they in general took all German prisoners back to a Gulag in Soviet Union where life expectancy was about five years. Fortunately, one of the Hungarian prison guards had seen Walter playing for Germany, and told them that Fritz was not German but from the Saar Territory.

Upon his return in 1945, Walter, who by now suffering from malaria, again played for Kaiserslautern, leading them to German championships in 1951 and 1953. Sepp Herberger recalled him to the national team in 1951, and he was named captain.

He was captain of the West German team that won their first World Cup in 1954. Ironically, given the intervention of the Hungarian guards during the war, that win came over Hungary. He and his brother, Ottmar Walter, became the first brothers to play in a World Cup winning team.