FC Bayern is the club of Franz Beckenbauer, Harry Kane, and countless fans across the world. However, Bayern is also the club of Kurt Landauer. A Jew from a businesspeople’s family, he served for Germany in World War I and got to know football from English and Swiss students. As a club president, he led his FC Bayern to its first championship 1932, a year before the Nazi rise to power. As a Jew, Landauer promptly landed in a concentration camp only to flee to exile in Switzerland. And just two years after World War II, he returned to Munich to take on the presidency of his beloved club for a second time. His life story is a wild ride through the 20th century. And that his story was almost forgotten until a group of young, activist Bayern Munich supporters rediscovered it in the 2000s speaks to that century as well - but also to the power of fans in helping their club grow roots. One of those fans is with us, Patrik Stöhr - he is part of the team that leads what is now the Kurt Landauer Foundation that connects the world famous FC Bayern to all kinds of anti discrimination work in its hometown and on its terraces.
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HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:
Kurt Landauer Foundation, German website
CNN on the unveiling of Landauer's statue in Munich, 2019; SBNation piece on the same topic
The Jerusalem Post on Landauer, 100 years after FC Bayern's first championship 1923
“Bayernlied,” the first club anthem of FC Bayern from 1907, recently reconstructed from sheet music fragments. Here performed by the Augsburg-based choir Quarterpast
FC Bayern, Stern des Südens (official contemporary club anthem from the outro), video with lyrics
“Rediscovered by the Fans” - Deutsche Welle English Speaking clip about the debut of the 2014 movie about Kurt Landauer with some movie scenes
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Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind
Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/