The 'Miracle of Bern' is what the West Germans called their victory over huge favorites Hungary in the 1954 World Cup final. Managing to overcome a two goal deficit against an opponent that had beaten them 8-3 earlier in the tournament, does indeed qualify as pretty miraculous. It would almost certainly not have been possible without the leadership of their captain, Fritz Walter, a player most people consider second only to Franz Beckenbauer as best ever German footballer. In an irony of history, Walter may never have lived to play that final but for the aid of an Hungarian guard.
Walter had made his debut for Germany as a nineteen year old back in 1940, scoring three goals in a 9-3 defeat of Romania. In spite of there being a war on, he would go on to earn 24 caps and score 19 goals over the two years that followed. That period came to an end when Walter was drafted into the army in 1943. At the end of the war he found himself in a POW camp in the Ukraine, waiting to be deported to a work camp further east. It is estimated up to one in three German soldiers taken prisoner by the Soviets would never see Germany again.
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| Fritz Walter carried aloft after winning the World Cup |
A guards versus prisoners football game ensured Walter didn't share their fate. He was recognized by a Hungarian guard who had seen him play against Hungary in Budapest in the spring of '42. In a further level of irony, that game had seen Germany stage a comeback from being 3-1 down at halftime to win 5-3 in a way that foreshadowed their victory in Bern. Walter had scored two goals. The guard convinced the Soviets that Walter was from the disputed Saar region that their French allies had designs on, instead of from Germany proper. As a result Walter was sent West instead of East and lived to line up for that fateful final nine years later.
Those marched East would spend years in work camps, with the last of them only released two years after the 1954 World Cup.