Enlarge image
Heinz Kerz (2nd from right) in the swimming pool with friends in the 1930s
Photo:
Nieder-Olm city archive
A visit to Nieder-Olm, a community with 10,000 inhabitants near Mainz. In the Old Town Hall, city archivist Anuschka Weisener has laid out historical photos on a table. In one picture, six young people are standing at the edge of a swimming pool and smiling. In another, young footballers look confidently into the camera. The first motif comes from the early 1930s, the second probably from the fifties. Seen on both: the black footballer, coach and swimming instructor Heinz Kerz. “It is remarkable that Heinz Kerz returned to Nieder-Olm after the war,” says Weisener. "Even though they wanted to destroy him."
But for better understanding, the story should be told from the beginning. After the First World War, the victorious powers occupied large parts of the Rhineland, including French soldiers who came from African colonies. In the German Reich, politicians revolted against this “black disgrace”. A satirical magazine showed a gorilla wearing a French military cap carrying a white statue of a woman. In “Mein Kampf,” Hitler wrote that the stationing of black soldiers was a strategy used by the “Jews” to use the “inevitable bastardization” to destroy the white race they hated, to fall from their cultural and political heights and to become their masters themselves «. Racism and anti-Semitism went hand in hand.
Many of the more than 500 children fathered by French soldiers and German women experienced racism at an early age. This is probably what happened to Heinz Kerz, born in 1920. Archivist Anuschka Weisener would also like to emphasize that Kerz was well integrated in Nieder-Olm. In football he scored many goals as a center forward; spectators referred to him as the “Black Bomber”. He often went to the swimming pool with friends.
After the Nazis came to power, Heinz Kerz was expelled from the football club. In 1937, at the age of 17, he was taken to a hospital in Darmstadt and forcibly sterilized. More than 400 black people had to endure this procedure following a “leader’s order”. Kerz was later arrested without charge and interned in the Dachau concentration camp for two years. He had to do forced labor and was sent on one of the “death marches” in 1945. Kerz survived, but around 2,000 people of African descent were murdered in the concentration camps.
After the war, Heinz Kerz built a new life for himself in Nieder-Olm, reports Anuschka Weisener: "He apparently looked without resentment at those who had once humiliated and driven him away." Kerz worked as a coach in the football club and taught children to swim at. He sat on the local council for the SPD and looked forward to the carnival every year. There were whispers in the community about his childless marriage, but Kerz didn't want to talk publicly about the forced sterilization.
Weisener points to another photo from 1980. It shows Heinz Kerz, now 60, being given early retirement by the mayor. He had suffered from heart problems since being imprisoned in a concentration camp, but in the picture he appeared satisfied and proudly presented his certificate of honor. Just six months later, Heinz Kerz died of a heart attack.
A few decades had to pass before the people of Nieder-Olm remembered their popular football coach again. A large sports hall now bears his name. And every now and then students discuss Heinz Kerz in history class. Anuschka Weisener gave a lecture about Kerz on Holocaust Remembrance Day 2023. The crowd was so large that the event had to be moved to the large council chamber. Weisener works as a sports trainer herself. She thinks it would be great if more clubs looked at history with empathy.
This text is an excerpt from the book »Playground of the Master Men. Colonialism and Racism in Football” by journalist Ronny Blaschke, which is now published by Die Workshop.