To put the Goodwill Tour in figures, in the space of 25 days Eintracht played eight matches in front of a total of over 70,000 spectators, winning six of them and generating 50,000 dollars in donations. Alfred Pfaff and his team-mates scored 42 goals, with three of the games being played in New York. Eintracht became the second German team after the end of the war to visit the USA, and the money raised was put towards a significant improvement in the infrastructure of the club’s home stadium, with the Riederwald Stand being rebuilt as a consequence. As current board member Axel Hellmann explained at the opening of the club’s New York office a little over a year ago: “without those 50,000 dollars, we would not have been crowned German league champions in 1959 and we would not be where we are today.”
50,000 dollars for the Riederwald Stand
Sport Magazine reported on 24 January 1951 that “a meeting of delegates of the German-American Football Association (DAFB) decided after much deliberation that Eintracht Frankfurt should receive the invitation to play in the USA in May of this year”. The news was warmly received by Eintracht – as well as the considerable prestige that it entailed, a tour of the USA would first and foremost be a financial success. Money was something that Eintracht desperately needed. The old Riederwald Stadium had been destroyed in the War, and since 1949, the city of Frankfurt had been building a new sports complex near to the former stadium as a replacement. The club needed to finance the new stand themselves however, and even back then, this kind of structure was a costly business.
But how exactly did SGE come to get the coveted invitation from the DAFB? Before the War, the association – which featured a number of expatriates – had already held various ‘International sports days’ in the USA, with athletes from the old country invited to take part. During the War and in the post-War period, these popular events could not take place, but in 1950, the DAFB decided to revive the tradition, as a means of giving the German Football Association – which remained isolated from the international sports scene as a consequence of the Second World War – a helping hand.
The first German team to cross the Atlantic was Hamburger SV, who went on a ‘Goodwill Tour’ to America in summer 1950. A year later, Eintracht were invited – due in no small fact that they had a prominent voice to speak up on their behalf. The honorary president of the DAFB, August Steuer, was born in nearby Grossheubach bei Miltenberg and had had links with Eintracht since his childhood. The DAFB also featured Max Behrens, a Jewish sports journalist who had fled Frankfurt for the USA during the Nazi era. Behrens had ties with Eintracht but was also a big FSV Frankfurt fan, which must have made the decision a tough one for him, as FSV were also on the shortlist for the invitation.
And so it was that Eintracht set off on 2 May 1951 on their big trip to the States that was to last until early June and feature eight matches. Those who got one of the coveted plane tickets were Christian Kiefer (vice-chairman), Willi Balles (match committee chairman), Kurt Windmann (coach) and players Adolf Bechtold, Helmut Henig, Ernst Kudrass, Heinz Kaster, Herbert Kesper, Werner Heilig, Friedel Reichert, Joachim Jänisch, Hubert Schieth, Alfred Kraus, Kurt Krömmelbein, Pfaff, Walter Giller, Ludwig Kolb and Hans Wloka. In their suitcases, the travellers took brand-new training kit and a set of new jerseys, with the rest of the space being taken up by copious gifts. These included 400 commemorative brochures from the club’s 50th anniversary in 1949, 3,000 club badges, a hundredweight of illustrated books about Frankfurt and 15 cans of Frankfurters to be distributed among their hosts. Little did they know that those sausages would cause more than a few problems on their arrival in New York.
When the team landed in the Big Apple on the morning of 3 May, they were warmly welcomed not only by the DAFB’s Steuer but also by customs officials, who found the 15 cans of Frankfurters in coach Windmann’s suitcase. These were classed as forbidden items, and only after lengthy discussions was the suitcase – which a Frankfurt sausage and preserves factory had donated “for distribution to a US team of your choice on our behalf and in honour of our home city of Frankfurt” – allowed through customs. Eintracht obviously had better negotiators back in 1951 than they did in 2013, when their local speciality cider did not make it through customs in Tel Aviv.
20 pounds heavier?
On the first evening after their arrival, Eintracht were greeted by a banquet in New Jersey, and over a thousand guests were forced to wait for over two hours before all of the speeches were finally finished. The generous portions made up for the delay, and were a foretaste of what Eintracht could expect over the coming four weeks. Every day featured at least one invitation to a restaurant, and in addition, there were receptions organised at consulates, city halls and clubs, not to mention all of the various tourist attractions to be visited. “If it carries on like this,” said Windmann of all of the meal invitations, “our players will all have put on at least 20 pounds by the time we head back on 1 June.”
On 6 May Eintracht finally got down to the matter in hand, with the DAFB hosting a sports festival in front of 24,000 spectators at Randall Island Stadium. The highlight of the day was a match between Eintracht and a DAFB XI, which the visitors duly won 5-2. The defeated hosts did not come away empty-handed, however, with Windmann presenting the American team with the contents of his suitcase that he had previously defended tooth and nail from the eager customs officers.
After a few days in New York, the travel element of the tour around the States began in earnest on 9 May. The first stop was Buffalo, with Eintracht again afforded a warm welcome. The next match on the programme was on 11 May against the Western New York All Stars, with SGE running out 13-1 winners in front of just 4,000 spectators. The team then had little time to catch their breath before heading off to Toledo, where they defeated the Ohio/Michigan All Stars 5-1 on 13 May in the Glass Bowl Stadium.
The following day, Eintracht took on the “Zenthoefer”, and slipped to their first defeat in their fourth match of the tour, going down 2-1 at the Public School Stadium in St. Louis. After spending two more days in St. Louis they moved on to Milwaukee and saw off the Midwest All Stars 5-0, but in the review of the tour, which filled some 11 pages of the club newspaper, the result seemed to be of secondary importance. Instead, the reporter chose to focus on Windmann’s dealings with the local media, saying: “In Milwaukee, our coach spoke to a television broadcaster, and it was a real experience for us to observe the way he spoke.”
Coach Windmann on TV: “A real experience”
The team returned from Milwaukee to New York on 21 May, with plenty more dates and receptions on the agenda for the last 10 days of the trip. They also found time to record another two wins, 5-1 over a German/Hungarian side from Brooklyn on 24 May and 7-0 over a DAFB team from New Jersey on 27 May.
The final match of the tour took place on 30 May back at Randall Island Stadium, against Scottish Cup winners Celtic. What should have been the culmination of the trip unfortunately went downhill quite rapidly. After Wloka gave SGE an early lead, the players quickly realised that the Glasgow side had a different definition of what a friendly constituted. Celtic played an unnecessarily physical brand of football and parlayed that into a 3-1 win, with five Eintracht players injured by the time the final whistle blew.
Despite that reversal, the team were given a big send-off the following evening as the DAFB bade a fond farewell to Eintracht. Match committee chairman Balles described the trip in his speech as “the greatest and most wonderful result in the long and storied history of Eintracht”. Board member Christian Kiefer, meanwhile, was busy collecting addresses from the hosts. Once again, it turned out that many Frankfurt natives who had fled National Socialism and sought refuge in the United States were delighted to see their home club once again and had made the journey to the various receptions and the parties, and Kiefer was happy to publish the updated addresses of the former residents in the Eintracht journal.
5,000 fans on the team’s return
After the reception in New York, there was an even bigger crowd back in Frankfurt as more than 5,000 people turned out to see the battered and bruised players on their return to German soil. In his speech, Lord Mayor Kolb underlined the fact that Eintracht had fostered mutual understanding between America and Germany. The players, meanwhile, were busy handing out presents that they had brought back with them from the “New World” as they were reunited with their nearest and dearest. The greatest gift, however, came a few weeks later in the form of a cheque from America for over 50,000 dollars courtesy of ticket revenue and donations, to be put towards the building of the new stand.
In 1952, that stand was duly erected at the Riederwald Stadium, having been financed with help from the income generated by the trip around the United States. Seven years later, Eintracht were crowned German league champions, and Steuer from the DAFB was on hand to see them lift the trophy in Berlin, having already attended a small celebration at the Riederwald five years previously.
In July 1954, a commemorative board was placed in his honour at the entrance to the stand, stating: “The cornerstone of this stand was laid thanks to donations from the German-American Football Association and is a tribute to the commitment of its honorary president August Steuer.” The board now hangs in the Eintracht Museum.
