Updated on 09/27/2022 at 4:36 p.m
- The legacy of the last hero of Bern goes under the hammer.
- The German Football Museum even has to return Horst Eckel’s 1954 final shirt.
- Horst Eckel’s daughter Dagmar reacts to criticism of the auction of her father’s collection, who died in 2021.
- The background to the auction is a tragic one.
Dagmar Eckel described the announced auction of her father Horst’s legacy as inevitable due to the need of her 85-year-old mother Hannelore. “I can’t prevent criticism. It’s very emotional for me and a matter of pride,” said Dagmar during a press conference in Mannheim on Tuesday: “But negative things can’t shake me. I can’t handle it, I have to sell things. I have a clear conscience.”
The estate of the 1954 soccer world champion, who died on December 3, 2021 at the age of 89, will be auctioned off on November 9, 2022 at a so-called private auction by Agon Verlag. “It is the wish of the Eckels family that the collection be taken over completely by a public museum, archive or private sponsor and that the extensive historical collection be properly archived, secured and thus made publicly accessible,” the auction house said in a statement.
If the legacy of the icon of 1 FC Kaiserslautern If, with over 500 individual pieces, this auction does not go to one bidder as desired, the pieces will be offered once more individually ten days later. The Eckel family is hoping for at least 280,000 euros in proceeds. This is the starting bid.
The German Football Museum has to give away Horst Eckel’s final jersey
Manuel Neukirchner, director of the German Football Museum, received a surprising letter from Dagmar Eckel on Monday evening terminating the loan agreement for the 1954 World Cup final jersey: “We are currently examining the facts. Irrespective of this, I can already say that the purchase of the entire estate for the German Football Museum in view of the estimated starting price of the auction is probably out of the question.”
© dpa / Bernd Thissen
Meanwhile, Dagmar Eckel emphasized: “Everything goes the way my father wants. Dad said, ‘Objects are objects and people are people’. It’s regarding securing my mom’s future.”
She named the necessary renovation work on the parental home and care costs as major items of expenditure: “It’s well thought out and the right way for the family. Every financial background disappears at some point. It won’t be enough anymore. The money from the auction ends up in my account Mother.”
Like Horst Eckel, Hannelore Eckel became a nursing case
Her father “always took care of the family,” emphasized Dagmar Eckel. “But they didn’t assume that they would both become nursing cases.”
According to Dagmar Eckel, he has the German Football Association (DFB) and informed the FCK in advance. “I wanted an honest way,” Eckel said. The auction items also include Eckel’s final shirt from 1954 (3:2 in Bern once morest Hungary), which is currently still on display in the German Football Museum in Dortmund. Eckel has terminated the loan contract with the football museum, which runs until 2025.
FCK and Sepp Herberger Foundation as surprised as the DFB
According to a spokesman, Eckel’s long-standing club 1. FC Kaiserslautern “never received a request or even an offer to buy the estate.” Managing Director Tobias Wrzesinski of the Sepp Herberger Foundation of the German Football Association (DFB), under whose umbrella the Horst Eckel Foundation is located, said the foundation had “not been told that Hannelore Eckel was in need”: “Of course we would have been willing to consider such support.”
According to Dagmar Eckel, “pieces of the heart”, such as letters from the then national coach Sepp Herberger, are not going to be auctioned. (dpa/SID/hau)
Nine years following the end of the Second World War, Germany is reborn on a rain-soaked and heavy lawn in Bern. The victory in the World Cup final over the big favorites Hungary is more than a piece of sporting history. This is also due to the unforgettable commentator Herbert Zimmermann.
