L'hommage à Heisserer
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kibitzJ'ai peut-être mal regardé, mais il me semble que personne n'a évoqué l'article que les DNA ont consacré à notre joueur mis à l"honneur :
Oscar Heisserer fête son 90e anniversaire en ce 18 juillet. Il restera sans doute pour l'éternité le plus grand joueur que l'Alsace ait produit au cours du XXe siècle.
L'un des plus grands champions alsaciens du XXe siècle, toutes disciplines confondues, devient aujourd'hui nonagénaire. On ne dirait pas, tant son esprit demeure vif, même si, comme il dit, « les jambes (le) préoccupent et que (sa) canne est devenue sa meilleure amie ».
Deuxième, derrière Ignace Heinrich (athlétisme), devant Roger Hassenforder (cyclisme) et Roxana Maracineanu (natation) au classement des DNA des sportifs alsaciens du siècle dernier, Oscar Heisserer porte, du haut de ses 90 ans, un regard lucide, attendri mais sans concession, sur le football qui reste sa dévorante passion.
« On est vite oublié »
Bien sûr, aux jeunes qui le croisent à Koenigshoffen, au stade Charles-Frey, dont il est aujourd'hui encore l'un des familiers, sa silhouette trapue n'évoque plus, au mieux, qu'une très lointaine icône. « Oh, vous savez, une fois la carrière terminée, on est vite oublié, soupire-t-il sans la moindre amertume. A fortiori des anciens comme moi... »
De l'amertume, en revanche, il en nourrit à l'encontre d'un club comme le Racing et du peu de cas qu'il manifeste à l'égard de ses ex-serviteurs. « Personne, grommelle-t-il, n'est venu assister aux obsèques d'un Émile Scharwath ou d'un Elek Schwartz, deux joueurs ayant marqué l'histoire du club, surtout Elek, avec lequel j'ai disputé la finale de la Coupe de France 1937 et que l'on était venu sortir, en 1977, de sa retraite d'entraîneur de renom pour hisser le Racing en 1re division. C'est triste. »
Années volées
Lui-même ne se rend plus guère à la Meinau où, en provenance de son Schirrhein natal, il a fait ses débuts pros. C'est pourtant sous le maillot du Racing qu'il a vécu ses premières grandes émotions. « La finale perdue de la Coupe 1937 m'aura marqué, avoue-t-il. Mais avec le temps je suis devenu philosophe. Il faut un gagnant et un perdant... » Les trois finales (1939, 40 et 45) qu'il a ensuite remportées avec le RC Paris devenu son club en 1938 l'auront sans doute aidé à surmonter la déception de l'échec initial.
Plus difficile à évacuer, c'est ce satané conflit mondial qui, s'emporte-t-il, lui a « volé (ses) meilleures années ». Il avait 25 ans quand la guerre a éclaté. Comme tous ces jeunes de sa génération sacrifiée, il n'a retrouvé les terrains qu'à 30 ans. Combien de titres, de sélections en équipe de France (il en compte 26, la première en 1937, la dernière en 1948) se sont-ils évanouis dans le désastreux fracas des armes ?
« L'âge de pierre »
Il en sourit, fataliste. « C'est le grand regret de ma vie, sussure-t-il. Je n'avais pas d'ambition démesurée, mais voulais monter haut. On peut perdre, mais dignement. Sur un terrain, moi j'ai toujours tout donné. »
C'était sa « marque de fabrique ». Aujourd'hui encore il est « sans pitié » pour un type qui ne « joue que sur ses qualités ». « Ça ne suffit pas », lâche-t-il, catégorique. Voilà pourquoi il admirait le grand Alfredo Di Stefano, pourvu comme lui de trois poumons. Voilà pourquoi il admire un joueur comme Patrick Vieira. « Par sa rage de vaincre, son engagement permanent, il me ressemble un peu, estime-t-il, même s'il est impossible de comparer les deux époques. La mienne, c'était l'âge de pierre du football... »
« Une vie simple »
Devenu entraîneur à Lyon (entre 1949 et 55) une fois son immense carrière terminée, c'est lui qui gonflait et graissait les ballons (vous imaginez Wenger, Halilhodzic ou Le Guen soumis à ce genre de corvée). Oscar Heisserer n'a pourtant pas insisté. « J'ai arrêté après mon expérience lyonnaise, rappelle-t-il. Beaucoup de choses, de joueurs, m'ont déçu. Peut-être leur demandais-je trop. » « Et puis, concède-t-il, je n'avais pas le virus. Je n'étais pas fait pour ça. »
Lui, il est fait pour la « vie simple, sans grands besoins ». Être chouchouté par ses trois filles Carine, Francine et Danièle (« elles sont formidables ») lui suffit. Depuis qu'il a perdu son épouse, c'est son grand bonheur avec les livres dont il est un friand consommateur (« je suis féru d'histoire »). Avec le football aussi, bien sûr, dont il reste passionné.
Le héros de Wembley
Un bémol toutefois : « Quand je vois tout ce business avec et autour du foot..., soupire-t-il. D'accord, j'ai bien gagné ma vie. Mais jamais au cours de ma carrière un club ne m'aurait offert un survêtement. Jamais je n'aurais pu m'arrêter de travailler une fois remisées mes chaussures à crampons. Les stars d'aujourd'hui, sans rien faire, pourraient faire vivre leurs familles pendant trois cents ans. »
Oscar Heisserer restera pour l'éternité le premier à avoir privé de victoire l'Angleterre sur ses terres. « Oui, se souvient-il. Elle avait, depuis la naissance du foot, toujours gagné ses matches à Wembley. En ce 26 mai 1945, au lendemain de la Libération, elle mène 2-1 contre la France quand j'égalise à la 89e'. Les paras français stationnés à Londres, venus supporter l'équipe tricolore dont j'étais le capitaine, m'ont porté en triomphe. Emotionnellement, bien plus que les souvenirs laissés par la Coupe du monde que j'ai disputée en 1938, ce moment-là restera le plus fort de ma carrière. »
A Wembley, pour la France entière, il avait été un héros.
Source : DNA d'aujourd'hui
http://archives.dna.fr/cgi/idxlist_light?a=art&aaaammjj=200407&num=9346&m1=heisserer&m2 -
Et bien s'il passe par là, je lui souhaite un Joyeux Anniversaire Oscar! O:)
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Pas vu...
C'est vrai que c'est triste que notre club a tendance à oublier ses anciennes vedettes: Stojaspal et Schwartz par exemple sont décédésils y a peu de temps sans aucun hommage ni même de minute de silence... :( -
Faut dire aussi que je crois que 'était en page 6 des Sports seulement
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Ben les jeunes comme moi, ces noms là, ça ne nous dis absolumenent rien!! :(
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Grâce au stub, j'ai tilté sur le nom
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Je me souviens que lors des premières années Proisy, guignol s'était gargarisé à plusieurs reprises devant les journalistes de son projet de faire une sorte de musée à la gloire du Racing... On attend toujours, à ranger parmis les baliverne du fumistes tennisman...
De manière générale, c'est peut être une manière comme une autre de bâtir un grand club: Faire honneur à son passé et son histoire. -
De musée, il n'y aura pas, vu qu'en arrivant ils ont tout bazardé
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kempf a écrit : Ben les jeunes comme moi, ces noms là, ça ne nous dis absolumenent rien!! :(
C'est ca qui est triste (mais comment t'en vouloir?) Oscar Heisserer était le plus grand joueur Alsacien de tous les temps, le seul Alsacien a avoir été capitaine de l'Equipe de France... -
kibitz a écrit : De musée, il n'y aura pas, vu qu'en arrivant ils ont tout bazardé
Et dire qu'au début, moi j'y croyais vraiment en Proisy...
Je suis parfois un chouia naif... -
Quand t'as un gars qui se pointe et qui annonce que "le Racing jouera le titre dans les 5 ans", fatalement t'as envie d'y croire...surtout qu'à cette époque là le club effectuait une belle saison et qu'on avait pas une équipe de bras cassés...
Plus dur fut la chute...
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Raymond Kaelbel a pourtant fait mieux que Oscar Heisserer en coupe du monde 1958. Cela pourrait-il faire de Kaelbel le meilleur joueur alsacien de tous les temps?
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Heisserer, l'homme aux trois poumons
En 2004, les DNA lui décernent le titre de « sportif alsacien du siècle ». Milieu offensif, solide et athlétique, Oscar Heisserer (au centre de la photo) illustre les années glorieuses du RCS entre 1934 et 1938, puis la reconstruction d'après guerre entre 1946 et 1949. Ses passages au Racing offrent au club deux places en finale de la coupe de France à dix ans d'intervalle, 1937 et 1947.
Très endurant et très mobile sur le terrain, Oscar Heisserer est appelé « l'homme aux trois poumons ». « Il pouvait courir pendant 90 minutes, se souvient René Hauss, son coéquipier en 1949. En cela, son jeu était déjà très moderne. »
L'homme a une hygiène de vie irréprochable. Il ne boit, ni ne fume et les troisièmes mi-temps se déroulent toujours sans lui. « Il ne mangeait que des légumes, du poulet et des fruits, explique Francine Bord, sa fille. Il était très exigeant avec lui-même et les autres. »
1937 est une année à jamais gravée dans la mémoire collective alsacienne. Oscar Heisserer forme alors un trio magique avec Fritz Keller et Ossi Rohr. « C'était la meilleure attaque de France à l'époque », confirme Paul Wolff, président du club Périgueux-Strasbourg en 1940.
Rien ne résiste à cette alliance des deux attaquants et du milieu de terrain. Ils perdent de peu, 2 à 1, en finale de la coupe de France face à Sochaux, malgré une frappe du « Bomber » Rohr, dont Heisserer disait qu'il était « venu sur terre avec des chaussures de foot aux pieds ». La guerre privera les trois héros des plus belles années de leur carrière. Mais pas d'une première place dans la légende du Racing.
source : MSCinfo -
A la veille de Angleterre-France, un bon article des Cahiers du Foot évoque le match épique de 1945, où la France fut la première nation continentale à jouer à Wembley, où elle arracha le nul grâce notamment à son capitaine Oscar Heisserer (but égalisateur à la 90').
Fiche du match -
Le site Football Paradise consacre un article magistral à Heisserer:
Citation: Oscar Heisserer: The Footballer Who Defied the Nazis
One of the most versatile players of his generation, Frenchman Oscar Heisserer was coveted by the Nazis in order to aid the German National team. Yet he defied them and created an everlasting legacy as a result. FP tells his story.
The Romans invaded the French region of Alsace in 58 BC and re-established it as a centre of viticulture – the study of grapes to make wine. So good was the Alsatian wine that Julius Caesar himself reportedly proclaimed it as the best in all of Gaul.
Alsace fell to the Alemanni, Germanic tribes from the upper Rhine river, as the Roman Empire declined. The Alsatian dialect which is spoken to this day is a direct descendant of the Alemanni languages. It is quite remarkable that the dialect endured even after the Franks occupied the region for centuries.
The reason for this historical peregrination is to stress the fact that Alsace is a melting pot of Romanesque, Germanic and Frankish cultures. The Germans and the French have fought over the region for centuries. Imagine a highly pulsating tennis rally where the ball is Alsace. You get the idea.
The two European giants last engaged in conflict over the region’s sovereignty during the Second World War.
And it was during this most horrific of times that the loyalties of several Alsatians were tested. Most notably of a man called Oscar Heisserer.
Slender, blonde and born in a typically Deutsch sounding commune called Schirrhein (then in Germany), Heisserer looked a great deal more German than French. But it was the French national team jersey that he wore with pride with the captain’s armband around his arm.
If Germany had not ceded the region to France in the Treaty of Versailles then Heisserer would have probably starred for Die Mannschaft and history would have been deprived of an inspiring tale of moral courage shown in the face of adversity.
With the iniquitous, actions evoke a greater response than mere words. An intuitive grasp of this metaphor led Heisserer to have, ironically, a counter-intuitive reaction to the members of the Schutzstaffel who put him in a locus of unparalleled moral conundrum.
Even as a child, Heisserer displayed prodigious talent with a football at his feet. His step up to the ‘big league’ came in 1934 when he moved from FC Bischwiller to Racing Club de Strasbourg Alsace who at the time of Heisserer’s joining, had won the regional championship on three occasions.
Strasbourg is the pride of Alsace not just for its football club but for also being the seat of several major international institutions such as the European Parliament, the European Science Foundation and the International Institute of Human Rights among others.
From Marie Tussaud to Arsene Wenger, the Alsatian capital is the birthplace of several eminent personalities who have contributed immensely to their respective metiers.
In Alsace, everyone had something of both France and Germany. For example, Germanic surnames are commonplace. At one point, all the players in the Racing starting XI had surnames of Alemanni roots such as Roessler, Keller, Schwartz or Hummenberger. Antoine Griezmann, the Atletico Madrid superstar and French international has Alsatian roots from his father’s side, hence such a German sounding surname.
RC Strasbourg, founded in 1906 as FC Neudorf, stood the test of time amid a geographical merry-go-round that made the club oscillate between the French and German leagues. It had to wait until 1933 to turn professional after a meeting at the Restaurant de la Bourse. The club began in Ligue 2 and earned promotion to the top flight at the end of the 1933-34 season by beating Mulhouse and AS Saint-Etienne in a couple of two-legged play-offs.
Racing’s crowning glory of the 1930s could have come in the 1937 Coupe de France final against rivals Sochaux. Played at the Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir in Colombes, Heisserer started the game but unfortunately finished in the losing side as a late winner from an Irishman named Bernard Williams gave Sochaux a 2-1 victory.
Despite the setback, Racing remained a formidable force in French football and Heisserer their finest footballer.
Standing at 5ft7, Heisserer was one of the most versatile players of his time. For example, he started the Coupe de France for Racing at the inside left position, played inside right for France but cited Patrick Vieira when asked about his playing style. Heisserer, in his own words, was “more attack minded and stockier”.
The Racing talisman had a keen eye for a pass and chipped in with crucial goals for both club and country, most notably a 90th minute captain’s goal against a Stanley Matthews led England side at Wembley that earned Les Bleus a 2-2 draw.
His international career spanned for eleven years earning 23 caps for the French national team. Heisserer was the first Alsatian and the only Racing player to ever captain France.
Heisserer also appeared in the two games that France played in the 1938 FIFA World Cup on home soil. The Belgians were dispatched 3-1 in the first round but the French fell victims to the Italians in the second round by losing 3-1. France’s consolation goal was scored by Heisserer himself.
Consistent performances for Racing Strasbourg drew the attention of Racing Paris, French league champions in 1936, ambitious beyond measure and looking to dominate French football for years. But the Parisians were dealt with a heavy blow. The Nazis.
The French capitulation at the hands of Hitler’s Germany was swift and clinical. Within six weeks, the Nazis had conquered France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Alsace was integrated into the Reich and was officially under German occupation for the first time since 1919. Laws were passed that that forced Alsace to join Baden and form a single administrative united called Gau Baden Alsace. The German language was declared as the lingua franca, outlawing French and Alsatian languages.
Mandatory military service forced more than 130,000 men from Alsace and Lorraine to be conscripted into the Nazi army. Most were sent east to fight off Stalin’s Red Army. More than a third of those men never returned to their homes.
The Nazi invasion was followed by the German rechristening of several organisations and institutions. Racing Strasbourg were renamed Rasensportverein Strassburg while tiny Red Star Strasbourg were adopted by the Schutzstaffel and were turned into SS Strassburg.
The Nazis did not just exploit the industry and resources of the occupied countries but also capitalised on the abundance of athletes and sports personalities readily available to augment the Third Reich’s increasing sporting supremacy.
For example, the Poland international Ernst Wilimowski and many other Polish footballers of his generation, took German citizenship as Volksdeutschers. Wilimowski was the finest Polish international at that time having scored an impressive 21 goals in 22 appearances for his country.
Following the Nazi invasion of Poland, ‘Wili’ became a policeman and played for Polizei-Sportverein Chemnitz. After scoring an astonishing 37 goals in five games, Wilimowski was called up to the German national side.
Heisserer was meant to follow his footsteps.
In the summer of 1940, Heisserer had returned to Alsace after fighting as a soldier on the Maginot Line. One fine day, while leaving Racing Strasbourg’s training ground, Heisserer was besieged by three vehicles out of which disgorged several SS officers. The local pharmacist who accompanied the SS pointed at Heisserer and shouted “That’s him!” Things were looking bad.
Heisserer was taken to the SS headquarters where he was told that Alsace will be part of the Reich for the next hundred thousand years so it was in his best interests to join the SS.
To which Heisserer replied, “Yesterday I was a French international and the captain of the national team. So how can I join the SS today?”
“You will regret this,” said the Nazis and left him. But this was just the beginning of the torment that Heisserer would endure to ward off their advances.
Heisserer’s defiance stands in stark contrast with another French national team captain, Alexandre Villaplane, whose avaricious and treacherous nature made him turn into a psychopathic Nazi monster at the flip of a coin. Heisserer, however, was of a different breed.
People had agreed to much worse. All Heisserer was demanded of was to play football for the Nazis. Why did he decline?
Aged just 25, he was at the peak of his powers. A ‘yes’ would have propelled him to unprecedented success and riches. Yet, he refused. He saw right through the anthropocentric sense of entitlement that the Nazis carried.
But that was just the beginning of his torment.
Sometime after Heisserer’s encounter with the Schutzstaffel, Sepp Herberger, the coach of the German national team, himself came down to Alsace. A former international, Herberger had been the assistant coach of Die Mannschaft before succeeding Otto Nerz as the full-time manager.
Herberger wanted Heisserer in his team; the same Herberger who would win West Germany the FIFA World Cup in 1954.
“I can’t be a French international and a German international. That’s not possible, is it?”
Herberger returned to Germany and never bothered the Frenchman ever again.
The SS tried time and again. They offered him monetary incentives as well but Heisserer refused every time. In fact, he played for Strasbourg with pride and did not lose a single derby against SS Strassberg.
“We always wore bleu-blanc-rouge, the French colours, and at every match many spectators were arrested for demonstrating. It was like France against Germany, you know. We always had a lot of spectators, fifteen thousand or twenty thousand during the occupation,” he said.
Football like always played a pivotal role in geopolitics and football stadiums like always played host to the rebels, the nationalists fighting against their unjust occupiers.
Heisserer, being as brave as he was, was also a critical thinker who recognised mankind’s moral crisis in times of ethical dilemma, suggesting that many joined the SS not because they believed in Hitler’s bastard cause but because they had no other choice.
“To be honest, not many of them were really SS,” he said when asked whether he had animosity towards other footballers who joined hands with the Nazis. “They were more or less forced to join. It was a crazy time. It took a lot of courage to say no.”
Celebrated football journalist Simon Kuper who interviewed Heisserer years later, asked him where he found his moral courage.
“I still had illusions. I was a famous man here in Strasbourg. All the people knew Oscar, and I was in the national team. I thought, the Germans would accept this of me. And i think that’s why they didn’t do anything. They always thought, well, at the end of the song he’ll change his mind.”
But one thing that Heisserer did not foresee was fighting for the Reich. He could opt out to represent Germany or the SS on a football pitch but military service was mandatory.
In 1943, the his inevitable call up to the Wehrmacht came in. But Heisserer had no intention to fight. He left Strasbourg for Lorraine and then arrived in Switzerland.
“I was called up on a Wednesday, and on Thursday I was gone. From here I went to Lorraine, I had false papers made- well, a whole novel.”
The Schutzsaffel arrested Heisserer’s wife who was pregnant at the time. But our hero had a contingency plan. He sacrificed his own career, character and reputation to protect his beloved wife. The Nazis were told that Heisserer had left town with another woman so as to not suspect his wife’s hand in his escape.
“Even a German friend of mine swore that I had left with another woman. Everything so that nothing would happen to my wife, you understand. I didn’t just run away, it wasn’t easy. I had made my decision, and couldn’t do anything against my own conscience, could I?”
Heisserer’s integrity and his devotion to his wife were exemplary. Seldom has there been a sporting figure who had displayed humankind’s most ethereal and numinous attributes in such a manner.
Heisserer was caught in Switzerland and interned for two years where he was forced to do hard labour. There have been reports that he helped many Jews evade the clutches of the Nazis which further throws light on his spectacular character.
In the meantime, the Germans had captured his brother, who was also a player a Racing, and sent him up to Danzig to work on a U-boat and his wife had given birth to his daughter. Both brothers returned to Strasbourg. Heisserer was part of the French army that liberated the city.
Men like Heisserer and their stories of courage, morality and virtuousness are lost in time. Tales like these reassure us of the often overlooked goodness of human nature. Within us, there lie the dormant potentialities for both good and evil. Our legacy is founded upon what we lean on when confronted with a predicament.
Heisserer chose the former and became immortal. -
athor a écrit, le 04/05/2018 13:02 : Le site Football Paradise consacre un article magistral à Heisserer:
Citation: Oscar Heisserer: The Footballer Who Defied the Nazis
One of the most versatile players of his generation, Frenchman Oscar Heisserer was coveted by the Nazis in order to aid the German National team. Yet he defied them and created an everlasting legacy as a result. FP tells his story.
The Romans invaded the French region of Alsace in 58 BC and re-established it as a centre of viticulture – the study of grapes to make wine. So good was the Alsatian wine that Julius Caesar himself reportedly proclaimed it as the best in all of Gaul.
Alsace fell to the Alemanni, Germanic tribes from the upper Rhine river, as the Roman Empire declined. The Alsatian dialect which is spoken to this day is a direct descendant of the Alemanni languages. It is quite remarkable that the dialect endured even after the Franks occupied the region for centuries.
The reason for this historical peregrination is to stress the fact that Alsace is a melting pot of Romanesque, Germanic and Frankish cultures. The Germans and the French have fought over the region for centuries. Imagine a highly pulsating tennis rally where the ball is Alsace. You get the idea.
The two European giants last engaged in conflict over the region’s sovereignty during the Second World War.
And it was during this most horrific of times that the loyalties of several Alsatians were tested. Most notably of a man called Oscar Heisserer.
Slender, blonde and born in a typically Deutsch sounding commune called Schirrhein (then in Germany), Heisserer looked a great deal more German than French. But it was the French national team jersey that he wore with pride with the captain’s armband around his arm.
If Germany had not ceded the region to France in the Treaty of Versailles then Heisserer would have probably starred for Die Mannschaft and history would have been deprived of an inspiring tale of moral courage shown in the face of adversity.
With the iniquitous, actions evoke a greater response than mere words. An intuitive grasp of this metaphor led Heisserer to have, ironically, a counter-intuitive reaction to the members of the Schutzstaffel who put him in a locus of unparalleled moral conundrum.
Even as a child, Heisserer displayed prodigious talent with a football at his feet. His step up to the ‘big league’ came in 1934 when he moved from FC Bischwiller to Racing Club de Strasbourg Alsace who at the time of Heisserer’s joining, had won the regional championship on three occasions.
Strasbourg is the pride of Alsace not just for its football club but for also being the seat of several major international institutions such as the European Parliament, the European Science Foundation and the International Institute of Human Rights among others.
From Marie Tussaud to Arsene Wenger, the Alsatian capital is the birthplace of several eminent personalities who have contributed immensely to their respective metiers.
In Alsace, everyone had something of both France and Germany. For example, Germanic surnames are commonplace. At one point, all the players in the Racing starting XI had surnames of Alemanni roots such as Roessler, Keller, Schwartz or Hummenberger. Antoine Griezmann, the Atletico Madrid superstar and French international has Alsatian roots from his father’s side, hence such a German sounding surname.
RC Strasbourg, founded in 1906 as FC Neudorf, stood the test of time amid a geographical merry-go-round that made the club oscillate between the French and German leagues. It had to wait until 1933 to turn professional after a meeting at the Restaurant de la Bourse. The club began in Ligue 2 and earned promotion to the top flight at the end of the 1933-34 season by beating Mulhouse and AS Saint-Etienne in a couple of two-legged play-offs.
Racing’s crowning glory of the 1930s could have come in the 1937 Coupe de France final against rivals Sochaux. Played at the Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir in Colombes, Heisserer started the game but unfortunately finished in the losing side as a late winner from an Irishman named Bernard Williams gave Sochaux a 2-1 victory.
Despite the setback, Racing remained a formidable force in French football and Heisserer their finest footballer.
Standing at 5ft7, Heisserer was one of the most versatile players of his time. For example, he started the Coupe de France for Racing at the inside left position, played inside right for France but cited Patrick Vieira when asked about his playing style. Heisserer, in his own words, was “more attack minded and stockier”.
The Racing talisman had a keen eye for a pass and chipped in with crucial goals for both club and country, most notably a 90th minute captain’s goal against a Stanley Matthews led England side at Wembley that earned Les Bleus a 2-2 draw.
His international career spanned for eleven years earning 23 caps for the French national team. Heisserer was the first Alsatian and the only Racing player to ever captain France.
Heisserer also appeared in the two games that France played in the 1938 FIFA World Cup on home soil. The Belgians were dispatched 3-1 in the first round but the French fell victims to the Italians in the second round by losing 3-1. France’s consolation goal was scored by Heisserer himself.
Consistent performances for Racing Strasbourg drew the attention of Racing Paris, French league champions in 1936, ambitious beyond measure and looking to dominate French football for years. But the Parisians were dealt with a heavy blow. The Nazis.
The French capitulation at the hands of Hitler’s Germany was swift and clinical. Within six weeks, the Nazis had conquered France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Alsace was integrated into the Reich and was officially under German occupation for the first time since 1919. Laws were passed that that forced Alsace to join Baden and form a single administrative united called Gau Baden Alsace. The German language was declared as the lingua franca, outlawing French and Alsatian languages.
Mandatory military service forced more than 130,000 men from Alsace and Lorraine to be conscripted into the Nazi army. Most were sent east to fight off Stalin’s Red Army. More than a third of those men never returned to their homes.
The Nazi invasion was followed by the German rechristening of several organisations and institutions. Racing Strasbourg were renamed Rasensportverein Strassburg while tiny Red Star Strasbourg were adopted by the Schutzstaffel and were turned into SS Strassburg.
The Nazis did not just exploit the industry and resources of the occupied countries but also capitalised on the abundance of athletes and sports personalities readily available to augment the Third Reich’s increasing sporting supremacy.
For example, the Poland international Ernst Wilimowski and many other Polish footballers of his generation, took German citizenship as Volksdeutschers. Wilimowski was the finest Polish international at that time having scored an impressive 21 goals in 22 appearances for his country.
Following the Nazi invasion of Poland, ‘Wili’ became a policeman and played for Polizei-Sportverein Chemnitz. After scoring an astonishing 37 goals in five games, Wilimowski was called up to the German national side.
Heisserer was meant to follow his footsteps.
In the summer of 1940, Heisserer had returned to Alsace after fighting as a soldier on the Maginot Line. One fine day, while leaving Racing Strasbourg’s training ground, Heisserer was besieged by three vehicles out of which disgorged several SS officers. The local pharmacist who accompanied the SS pointed at Heisserer and shouted “That’s him!” Things were looking bad.
Heisserer was taken to the SS headquarters where he was told that Alsace will be part of the Reich for the next hundred thousand years so it was in his best interests to join the SS.
To which Heisserer replied, “Yesterday I was a French international and the captain of the national team. So how can I join the SS today?”
“You will regret this,” said the Nazis and left him. But this was just the beginning of the torment that Heisserer would endure to ward off their advances.
Heisserer’s defiance stands in stark contrast with another French national team captain, Alexandre Villaplane, whose avaricious and treacherous nature made him turn into a psychopathic Nazi monster at the flip of a coin. Heisserer, however, was of a different breed.
People had agreed to much worse. All Heisserer was demanded of was to play football for the Nazis. Why did he decline?
Aged just 25, he was at the peak of his powers. A ‘yes’ would have propelled him to unprecedented success and riches. Yet, he refused. He saw right through the anthropocentric sense of entitlement that the Nazis carried.
But that was just the beginning of his torment.
Sometime after Heisserer’s encounter with the Schutzstaffel, Sepp Herberger, the coach of the German national team, himself came down to Alsace. A former international, Herberger had been the assistant coach of Die Mannschaft before succeeding Otto Nerz as the full-time manager.
Herberger wanted Heisserer in his team; the same Herberger who would win West Germany the FIFA World Cup in 1954.
“I can’t be a French international and a German international. That’s not possible, is it?”
Herberger returned to Germany and never bothered the Frenchman ever again.
The SS tried time and again. They offered him monetary incentives as well but Heisserer refused every time. In fact, he played for Strasbourg with pride and did not lose a single derby against SS Strassberg.
“We always wore bleu-blanc-rouge, the French colours, and at every match many spectators were arrested for demonstrating. It was like France against Germany, you know. We always had a lot of spectators, fifteen thousand or twenty thousand during the occupation,” he said.
Football like always played a pivotal role in geopolitics and football stadiums like always played host to the rebels, the nationalists fighting against their unjust occupiers.
Heisserer, being as brave as he was, was also a critical thinker who recognised mankind’s moral crisis in times of ethical dilemma, suggesting that many joined the SS not because they believed in Hitler’s bastard cause but because they had no other choice.
“To be honest, not many of them were really SS,” he said when asked whether he had animosity towards other footballers who joined hands with the Nazis. “They were more or less forced to join. It was a crazy time. It took a lot of courage to say no.”
Celebrated football journalist Simon Kuper who interviewed Heisserer years later, asked him where he found his moral courage.
“I still had illusions. I was a famous man here in Strasbourg. All the people knew Oscar, and I was in the national team. I thought, the Germans would accept this of me. And i think that’s why they didn’t do anything. They always thought, well, at the end of the song he’ll change his mind.”
But one thing that Heisserer did not foresee was fighting for the Reich. He could opt out to represent Germany or the SS on a football pitch but military service was mandatory.
In 1943, the his inevitable call up to the Wehrmacht came in. But Heisserer had no intention to fight. He left Strasbourg for Lorraine and then arrived in Switzerland.
“I was called up on a Wednesday, and on Thursday I was gone. From here I went to Lorraine, I had false papers made- well, a whole novel.”
The Schutzsaffel arrested Heisserer’s wife who was pregnant at the time. But our hero had a contingency plan. He sacrificed his own career, character and reputation to protect his beloved wife. The Nazis were told that Heisserer had left town with another woman so as to not suspect his wife’s hand in his escape.
“Even a German friend of mine swore that I had left with another woman. Everything so that nothing would happen to my wife, you understand. I didn’t just run away, it wasn’t easy. I had made my decision, and couldn’t do anything against my own conscience, could I?”
Heisserer’s integrity and his devotion to his wife were exemplary. Seldom has there been a sporting figure who had displayed humankind’s most ethereal and numinous attributes in such a manner.
Heisserer was caught in Switzerland and interned for two years where he was forced to do hard labour. There have been reports that he helped many Jews evade the clutches of the Nazis which further throws light on his spectacular character.
In the meantime, the Germans had captured his brother, who was also a player a Racing, and sent him up to Danzig to work on a U-boat and his wife had given birth to his daughter. Both brothers returned to Strasbourg. Heisserer was part of the French army that liberated the city.
Men like Heisserer and their stories of courage, morality and virtuousness are lost in time. Tales like these reassure us of the often overlooked goodness of human nature. Within us, there lie the dormant potentialities for both good and evil. Our legacy is founded upon what we lean on when confronted with a predicament.
Heisserer chose the former and became immortal.
Génial cet acticle, un sacré bonhomme Heisserer, fier qu'un mec comme ça ait porté nos couleurs -
Un lien de 2020, site de la FFF avec un bel hommage a Heisserer
https://www.fff.fr/article/1209-18-juillet-1914-oscar-heisserer-un-juste-est-ne.html -
1 nouvelle photo ou vidéo sur racingstub.com :
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Je ne peux que plussoyer :)
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