Günter Hirschmann (8 December 1935 – 28 December 2023) was a German footballer who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

, spending almost his entire senior career at 1. FC Magdeburg and its predecessors.

Career

Hirschmann began his footballing career at Einheit Burg, but in 1955 moved to BSG Motor Mitte Magdeburg where he soon established himself as a regular and also received his nickname ''Mücke'' (German for midge). In 1957 his team joined SC Aufbau Magdeburg and in 1965 became 1. FC Magdeburg, the first stand-alone football club in East Germany. Until 1969 when he ended his playing career, Hirschmann appeared in 330 league matches for his club, scoring 113 goals. Of these 162 matches were in the DDR-Oberliga,

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

's top flight, where he scored 47 goals. In addition, Hirschmann played in 25

FDGB-Pokal The FDGB-Pokal (Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund Pokal or Free German Trade Union Federation Cup) was an elimination football tournament held annually in East Germany. It was the second most important national title in East German football af ...

matches, scoring 11 goals, and in 5 matches on European level. His greatest successes were the cup wins with SC Aufbau Magdeburg in 1964 and 1965 as well as the cup victory with 1. FC Magdeburg in 1969. In the 1965 final Hirschmann scored the deciding goal, converting a penalty in the 89th minute to make it 2–1 to Magdeburg. On 16 April 1961, Hirschmann won a call-up to the

national team A national sports team (commonly known as a national team or a national side) is a team that represents a nation, rather than a particular club or region, in an international sport. The term is most commonly associated with team sports, for exa ...

when manager Heinz Krügel used him in a match against

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

. The 2–0 defeat remained his only appearance for East Germany.

Later life and death

After his playing career Hirschmann became a youth coach with 1. FC Magdeburg and worked as a metal worker in Magdeburg's '' Schwermaschinenbaukombinat Ernst Thälmann'', a heavy engineering company. Later, he lived as a pensioner in Magdeburg. Hirschmann died on 28 December 2023, at the age of 88.

Honours

'1. FC Magdeburg *

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarc ...

, 1965,

1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hirschmann, Gunter 1935 births 2023 deaths People from Burg bei Magdeburg East German men's footballers Footballers from Saxony-Anhalt Men's association football midfielders East Germany men's international footballers 1. FC Magdeburg players