A ‘Keeper’ of all faiths
IN English and German comes “The Keeper,” a true story movie about a Hitler follower who became an English soccer star.
Bernhard Trautmann, born Germany 1923. A Hitler Youth member. A Nazi paratrooper in the Luftwaffe. Captured. Noting his agility in Britain’s POW work camp, a soccer team co-opts his participation. The local rabbi, whose family was killed by the Nazis, preached forgiveness to protesters. He wrote in the newspaper: “If this footballer is a decent fellow, I would say no harm in it.”
Eventually awarded Footballer of the Year and Order of the British Empire, Trautmann — who died at 89 in 2013 — is played by David Kross. Calling from Hamburg, Kross said: “We shot this in Munich and Ireland. This movie is about two countries coming together. I didn’t know the man’s story but I read the book about him. Fortunately, I played soccer when I was younger and always wanted to be a football player. Also, they gave me a goalkeeper’s coach.”
Where did he perfect his English?
“My first two films were in German. 2008 I made my English language debut in ‘The Reader’ with Kate Winslet. I had a dialect coach. It was difficult. I spent three months learning English.
“But this story’s about forgiveness. World War II he fought on the Eastern Front. A prisoner of war in a work camp, Trautmann went through his own guilt. Eventually he fell in love with and married the daughter of the man who first discovered him as a
POW in 1950, the football trainer’s daughter who was initially against him. It’s a film about overcoming hate. And sport became a tool for integration. Team spirit proved stronger than political differences. Those values should still be fought for in sports today.”
“The Keeper” opens in virtual and live, in-person cinemas on Friday of this Jewish Holy Week.