The Forgotten Jewish Soccer Star from Vienna: Who Was Otto Fischer?

Der Standard, January 16, 2025
German original: https://wwo.derstandard.at/story/3000000252454/der-vergessene-juedische-fussballstar-aus-wien-wer-war-otto-fischer

Author and historian Alexander Juraske has written a biography of the footballer Fischer and the Jew Fischer – and with it a life on the eve of the Holocaust.

Andreas Hagenauer

It almost seems as if Otto Fischer had a hunch. On March 2, 1932, the then 31-year-old wrote in the autograph book of his niece Alice Tichy: “May the cuckoo get you, with thunder and pistols, if you forget who your Uncle Otto is. In memory of your Uncle Otto Fischer.”

Around ten years later, he was already dead. Murdered by the Nazis in the course of mass shootings in the Latvian port city of Liepāja. The memories of the brilliant left winger, the darling of the Vienna crowd, faded, lost in the vastness of football history. As a footballer, Fischer was celebrated during his lifetime, but as a Jew, he was repeatedly the target of anti-Semitism.

The cuckoo

The Viennese historian and author Alexander Juraske asked himself exactly this question: “At an event, contact was made with Fischer's great-nephew Robert Beig. On the one hand, the fact that Fischer was very well known during his active years and has now been almost completely forgotten was exciting for me. He is also the Jewish player with the most international appearances for Austria,” Juraske tells Der Standard.

In his biography Otto 'Schloime' Fischer – A Jewish Football Star from Vienna, Juraske focuses on Fischer the footballer, but also on Fischer the Jew, who was repeatedly subjected to anti-Semitic clichés and hostility. “Anti-Semitism was always there. It had different faces, different forms: a stereotype here, a joke there. But it was always there,” says Juraske. So in his biography of Fischer, he not only tells the story of Fischer's life and the rise of Austrian football, but also puts it all in a social context, that is, the ”tension between Jewish participation and anti-Semitism on the eve of the Holocaust.”

Gasse gegen Gasse

Otto Fischer was born into a Jewish family in Vienna's Favoriten district on January 1, 1901. His parents, Heinrich and Netty Fischer, came from Moravia. Heinrich worked as a representative for a spirits company, while Netty ran the household. Otto was the youngest of four children.

The family's center of life was Buchengasse 44, an apartment building typical of the working-class district. The Fischer family took their Jewish heritage for granted; they practiced Judaism without being orthodox. Holidays were observed, Yiddish was frowned upon. Favoriten was a melting pot even then, with immigrants from Bohemia and Moravia shaping the character of the neighborhood.

After the First World War, football experienced a major boom in Austria, with returning soldiers bringing the sport into the country. Football, previously a middle-class pastime, became a mass phenomenon. The boys of Vienna organized themselves into “wild teams” and played against each other in the streets of the district. Fischer played for Buchengasse, while Matthias Sindelar, who was two years Fischer's junior, represented Quellenstraße, another team from Favoriten.

The clubs were also interested in the wild teams, which were seen as an important source of young talent for Viennese football. Juraske says: “Floridsdorf and Favoriten were the breadbaskets of Viennese football.” At that time, Otto Fischer may have been called “Schloime” by his friends, a nickname that stuck. However, the anti-Semitic Austrian satirical magazine Kikeriki also frequently used the Yiddish variant of “Solomon” to spread anti-Semitic stereotypes.

Star in Vienna

Fischer was known for his speed, technical skills and dribbling abilities. Although he was rather small and slender, he was later to delight audiences as a left winger. At that time, football was dominated by the “Danube football”, a style of play that developed in the interwar period in the football metropolises of Budapest, Prague and Vienna. It was based on the Scottish short-passing game, was shaped by MTK Budapest and, according to Juraske, was more of a “label from outside Austria”. However, it ultimately ensured that Austrian players and coaches were in high demand. Football also became a driver of transnational migration.

As a teenager, Fischer joined the Hertha sports club, the Favoritner club, which was also rooted in the Jewish population: some players and officials were Jews. In 1920, he transferred to the Karlovy Vary FK in Czechoslovakia to play as a professional footballer. After a brief stint with Hagibor Prague, he returned to Vienna in 1922 to join the Vienna team, where he celebrated his greatest successes. “Schloime” was a star. In later photos, Fischer also appeared somewhat melancholy, and the media compared him to Charlie Chaplin. In September 1923, Fischer was called up to the national team by Hugo Meisl for the first time. He played a total of 173 championship games in the top division, scoring 52 goals. He played for Austria seven times. In 1928, he suffered a serious knee injury that ended his career.

A star in Latvia

After retiring from playing, Fischer switched to the coaching bench, initially in Serbia, the Czech Republic and Croatia, before accepting an offer from the Latvian club Olimpija Liepāja in 1936. Latvia was still a safe third country and became one of the last places for Jewish refugees to enter without a visa. With his offensive playing style, he won the Latvian championship in 1936 and 1938. In 1940, the Red Army invaded Latvia. The Nazi occupation of Latvia in 1941 abruptly ended Fischer's life. The master trainer was arrested, and Olimpija club officials tried in vain to intervene with the occupiers. Fischer was murdered in a mass shooting. Like most of his family members, his wife Anna also fell victim to the Nazis.

Only his sister Ernestine and her two children Paul and Alice survived the Holocaust. By remembering Fischer the footballer, but also Fischer the Jew, Juraske paints a picture of the times that shows the rise of football, but also how increasingly difficult life became for the Jewish population. So the cuckoo has nothing to catch. (Andreas Hagenauer, 16.1.2025)