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