February 2025 BAYERN FAMILY
The Munich City Archive , near the Nordbad swimming pool . Bayern fan Dr Michael Stephan , who spent a long time as head of the archive and is helping us with our research , is sitting in the archive ‘ s reading room , bent over a form filled out in old handwriting . The archive staff have collated all the police registration forms they could find matching the names we ‘ re looking for . There ‘ s none relating to August Evers . But there is one for the name Gottschalk that might fit : Erich Gottschalk , a medical student born in 1879 , although according to the registration form he was only registered in Munich from May 1902 , two years after FC Bayern was founded . So he ‘ s unlikely to be a match . But then , we have a hit . Stephan holds the registration form of a Wilhelm Hirsch in his hand : born in 1879 in Schwarzenbach near Hof , a student , resident in Munich from 1897 , first in Veterinärstraße and later in Wilhelmstraße . “ So he lived near the first football pitch Bayern owned in Schwabing ,“ says Stephan . Could this Wilhelm Hirsch be our man ? In the following weeks , we searched through many more documents . The address books of the city of Munich from 1900 and 1901 , the student directories of the Ludwig Maximilian University , the Technical University and the Academy of Fine Arts . We were still unable to locate an August Evers . The man , who was probably called Erich or Ludwig Gottschalk , also remained a mystery . As for Wilhelm Hirsch , he first studied maths at Ludwig Maximilian University , then philosophy , then maths again . He lived in Schwabing and left Munich as early as 1904 . But we at least now have a solid lead . And then , suddenly , two surprising developments emerge from our research .
Wild theory : document forgery ?
Pierre Meinig , the Leipzig handwriting expert , has scrutinised the signature once again and has come to a new conclusion : The first name is definitely “ Ludwig “, he declares . He now has a hunch the surname could be “ Gottscheck “. The “ l “ before the “ k “ is missing for the “ schalk “ variant , he explains . Once again we search through registration forms , address books and registers , looking for Ludwig Gottscheck this time . Again to no avail . How is it possible that August Evers and Ludwig Gottschalk / Gottscheck left no trace in the Munich archives ? “ Many documents were lost over the decades and during the two wars ,“ explains Dr Stephan . “ And anyone who only lived as a lodger for a year , for example , was not necessarily recorded on a police registration form .“ But there could be another reason why the names do not appear anywhere : They could be pseudonyms . This theory is put forward by Thomas Staisch , a journalist and sports historian from Karlsruhe . He ’ s also researching the founding members for the FC Bayern Museum . “ It wasn ’ t uncommon for footballers at the time to use pseudonyms or aliases ,“ he explains , “ for example to protect themselves from institutions that did not approve of football , such as schools or universities . Or to be able to play anonymously for a second club .“ This had been officially forbidden since the founding of the South German Football Association in 1897 .
” We already know a lot about some of our founders - others are still a mystery . But we ‘ ll keep searching ”
Dr Michael Stephan , former city archivist
And here ’ s something that would fit Staisch ‘ s theory : First , shortly before FC Bayern was founded , Franz John received the “ most extensive support “ from Gus Manning , secretary of the South German Football Association , in the founding of the new club . Secondly , four players from Freiburger FC – the club that Manning himself had co-founded three years earlier – moved to FC Bayern . So did one , two or even three of these players use an alias when adding their names to John ‘ s list of signatures ? “ I think that ‘ s absolutely conceivable ,“ says Staisch , “ but I can ‘ t prove it yet .“ We meet again in the Allianz Arena in the spring of 2024 . A progress report : How realistic does Alexa Gattinger from the FC Bayern Museum think the theory with the aliases is ? “ I would say that nothing is impossible , but I ‘ m sceptical . Franz John took the whole thing very seriously . Signatories with aliases don ‘ t fit in very well with that .“ Michael Hellstern and Dr Michael Stephan nod in agreement . Their opinion on “ Erich Gottschalk “: “ Handwriting expert Meinig is right ; the first name is more likely to be Ludwig . As for the surname , in addition to Gottscheck , Gottschalk and Gottschall , they also consider a surname beginning with “ Ga …“ to be possible . “ I wouldn ‘ t want to rule anything out ,“ says Gattinger . That leaves the man for whom we at least have a solid lead : Wilhelm Hirsch . Is the student we ’ ve found really the man who signed the founding charter ? With the help of historians from the historical-biographical reference work “ Neue Deutsche Biographie “, ( New German Biography ) we find out a little more about him : the son of a teacher , he went to grammar school in Hof , studied in Munich and later possibly worked as a maths teacher in Berlin . His name is nowhere to be found in the archives of SpVgg Hof , which was the first football club in the town at the turn of the century . Creativity and meticulous attention to detail will be required to find out more . The research goes on . The founding charter of FC Bayern continues to harbour its secrets .
FC Bayern Magazine 123