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Otto Fischer and the 'Barcelona of the Baltics' -
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From my book 'Blood in the Forest - the end of the Second World War in the Courland Pocket' (Helion, 2017)
Otto Fischer was a talented Austrian international who switched to coaching when he suffered a knee injury. He came to Liepaja in Western Latvia to apply his possession-based tactics to the unfashionable side Olympia Liepaja and turned them into three times League winners. But then the Nazis invaded Latvia - and Fischer was Jewish....
I told his story in my book ten years ago about WWII in western Latvia, and a plaque commemorating his achievements has now been unveiled at the ground where Fischer and his team achieved such success. I called his team 'The Barcelona of the Baltics' because of the emphasis on passing and possession.
I told his story in my book ten years ago about WWII in western Latvia, and a plaque commemorating his achievements has now been unveiled at the ground where Fischer and his team achieved such success. I called his team 'The Barcelona of the Baltics' because of the emphasis on passing and possession.
Otto Fischer (in the suit, centre left) with his League-winning Liepaja side.
He was the Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp of his day – a visionary coach with revolutionary new methods who brought beautiful football to the Baltics and unprecedented, unexpected sporting success to his club – but he died in a hail of bullets as a victim of the Holocaust a few miles from the scene of his glory.
The story of the Austrian coach Otto ‘Shloime’ Fischer at Olimpija Liepāja on Latvia’s western Baltic coast has perhaps slipped from history because the city where this sporting transformation took place was locked behind the Iron Curtain for 50 years after the Second World War as a top secret Soviet Cold War naval base.
Fischer was a product of the golden age of Austrian football in the 1920s and early 1930s who learned his craft as a teenager and was a highly-regarded left-sided player until a knee injury cut short his career. Born in Vienna in 1901, the youngest of three brothers and two sisters from a family with roots in Moravia, he signed terms as an 18 year old at ASV Hertha Vienna before moving to Karlsbad in Germany in 1921 for two seasons. He made the first of seven international appearances in friendlies for Austria in a 2-0 defeat to Hungary in 1923.
Between 1923 and 1926 he played for First Vienna 1894, the oldest club in Austria and nicknamed the Döblinger (‘blue-yellows’). In his first season they were runners- up in the league to rivals Vienna Amateurs. The following year they reached the Cup Final where the Amateurs beat them 3-1.
The 1926 final was a repeat, except this time the ‘blue-yellows’ narrowly lost 4-3.
The story of the Austrian coach Otto ‘Shloime’ Fischer at Olimpija Liepāja on Latvia’s western Baltic coast has perhaps slipped from history because the city where this sporting transformation took place was locked behind the Iron Curtain for 50 years after the Second World War as a top secret Soviet Cold War naval base.
Fischer was a product of the golden age of Austrian football in the 1920s and early 1930s who learned his craft as a teenager and was a highly-regarded left-sided player until a knee injury cut short his career. Born in Vienna in 1901, the youngest of three brothers and two sisters from a family with roots in Moravia, he signed terms as an 18 year old at ASV Hertha Vienna before moving to Karlsbad in Germany in 1921 for two seasons. He made the first of seven international appearances in friendlies for Austria in a 2-0 defeat to Hungary in 1923.
Between 1923 and 1926 he played for First Vienna 1894, the oldest club in Austria and nicknamed the Döblinger (‘blue-yellows’). In his first season they were runners- up in the league to rivals Vienna Amateurs. The following year they reached the Cup Final where the Amateurs beat them 3-1.
The 1926 final was a repeat, except this time the ‘blue-yellows’ narrowly lost 4-3.
n 1926 Fischer’s growing reputation took him to the all-Jewish club Hakoah [Strength] Vienna. They were one of the biggest sporting clubs in Vienna and drew their players from the 180,000-strong Jewish population in the city. There were also Hakoah teams for ice-hockey, wrestling, swimming, water polo and fencing.
They made a feature of touring, especially in America, to market themselves to Jews around the world, with security provided by the wrestling team. But many could see the stormclouds of war gathering over Europe and a US tour in 1926 ended with so many players deciding not to go home that the team’s competitive edge was effectively lost.
Fischer was among the new recruits who toured North America with Hakoah in 1927, staying until the following year when he made his last international appearance and was sold in January to Wacker Vienna. When the knee injury ended his playing days, he moved into coaching. He coached through the early 1930s in Yugoslavia and Switzerland without any notable success until he was alerted to a vacancy with FC Olimpija Liepāja, one of the strongest teams in the newly-created Latvian First Division, or Virsliga. Under the leadership of their previous Austrian coaches, Olimpija had taken the League title three years on the trot and also won the Riga Football Cup three times in a row between 1928 and 1930, on one occasion beating their opponents 9-0.
THE AUSTRIAN FOOTPATH
The success of Olimpija was due in part to a succession of talented Austrian coaches working at the club from the mid-1920s onwards, and the links between Austria and Latvia would serve Olimpija Liepāja well. Fischer was the fourth Austrian trainer to move to Latvia.
The first was former Hertha Vienna player Villy Maloschek, who coached the 1924 Latvian champions RFK [from the capital Riga – Rigas Futbola Klubs, or RFK for short] and took the national squad to the Paris Olympics. In 1927 he switched to Olimpija Liepāja and won the Virsliga in its first year. He stayed only six months but re-structured the club with different age group squads all feeding into the first team.
He was succeeded by Bruno Zinger who stayed for two years and brought silver- ware and progress to the club. He did the League and Cup double, re-laid the playing surface, had seats fitted for fans, increased the capacity of the stadium and had a scoreboard installed. He also invited the leading Austrian teams to play Liepāja – Hertha visited four times in two years – and started a tradition of the city home-coming, its triumphant team welcomed back at the railway station with a brass band and flowers.
When Zinger moved on he was replaced by fellow Austrian Fritz Hiringer, but he was not able to maintain the same standards of success and, apart from a further League title in 1933, Olimpija were edged out by the dominant Riga side RFK and the Army side ASK until Fischer’s appointment.
In return for a good salary, half paid by the club and half by the Latvian Football Union, Fischer brought tactics, training and professionalism, overseeing development at all levels of the club from boys to the first team.
Importantly, he introduced a new style of football – the short passing game known as ‘Viennese Lace’. His opponents, schooled in the ‘English’ tradition of kick and rush, had no answer to this possession on the pitch, and the result was a period of footballing dominance in which Fischer’s side won the League in 1936, 1938 and 1939. In that third season they scored 45 goals in 14 games, an average of three a game.
Certainly those who witnessed Fischer’s side in action never forgot what they saw, or the pride he brought to this port city.
“They chaired him through the streets,” remembers 94 year old Zanis Musins, as he looks though the pictures I have gathered of the club he supported as a boy. He was just 13 when he first sneaked in to watch Olimpija playing in the 1936-37 season in the Latvian First Division, or Virsliga, but what he saw has stayed with him all his life.
They made a feature of touring, especially in America, to market themselves to Jews around the world, with security provided by the wrestling team. But many could see the stormclouds of war gathering over Europe and a US tour in 1926 ended with so many players deciding not to go home that the team’s competitive edge was effectively lost.
Fischer was among the new recruits who toured North America with Hakoah in 1927, staying until the following year when he made his last international appearance and was sold in January to Wacker Vienna. When the knee injury ended his playing days, he moved into coaching. He coached through the early 1930s in Yugoslavia and Switzerland without any notable success until he was alerted to a vacancy with FC Olimpija Liepāja, one of the strongest teams in the newly-created Latvian First Division, or Virsliga. Under the leadership of their previous Austrian coaches, Olimpija had taken the League title three years on the trot and also won the Riga Football Cup three times in a row between 1928 and 1930, on one occasion beating their opponents 9-0.
THE AUSTRIAN FOOTPATH
The success of Olimpija was due in part to a succession of talented Austrian coaches working at the club from the mid-1920s onwards, and the links between Austria and Latvia would serve Olimpija Liepāja well. Fischer was the fourth Austrian trainer to move to Latvia.
The first was former Hertha Vienna player Villy Maloschek, who coached the 1924 Latvian champions RFK [from the capital Riga – Rigas Futbola Klubs, or RFK for short] and took the national squad to the Paris Olympics. In 1927 he switched to Olimpija Liepāja and won the Virsliga in its first year. He stayed only six months but re-structured the club with different age group squads all feeding into the first team.
He was succeeded by Bruno Zinger who stayed for two years and brought silver- ware and progress to the club. He did the League and Cup double, re-laid the playing surface, had seats fitted for fans, increased the capacity of the stadium and had a scoreboard installed. He also invited the leading Austrian teams to play Liepāja – Hertha visited four times in two years – and started a tradition of the city home-coming, its triumphant team welcomed back at the railway station with a brass band and flowers.
When Zinger moved on he was replaced by fellow Austrian Fritz Hiringer, but he was not able to maintain the same standards of success and, apart from a further League title in 1933, Olimpija were edged out by the dominant Riga side RFK and the Army side ASK until Fischer’s appointment.
In return for a good salary, half paid by the club and half by the Latvian Football Union, Fischer brought tactics, training and professionalism, overseeing development at all levels of the club from boys to the first team.
Importantly, he introduced a new style of football – the short passing game known as ‘Viennese Lace’. His opponents, schooled in the ‘English’ tradition of kick and rush, had no answer to this possession on the pitch, and the result was a period of footballing dominance in which Fischer’s side won the League in 1936, 1938 and 1939. In that third season they scored 45 goals in 14 games, an average of three a game.
Certainly those who witnessed Fischer’s side in action never forgot what they saw, or the pride he brought to this port city.
“They chaired him through the streets,” remembers 94 year old Zanis Musins, as he looks though the pictures I have gathered of the club he supported as a boy. He was just 13 when he first sneaked in to watch Olimpija playing in the 1936-37 season in the Latvian First Division, or Virsliga, but what he saw has stayed with him all his life.
"Olimpija were completely different from what we used to call ‘the long ball game’, which was before. Usually the full backs would wallop it up the field and the strikers would be on their own, chasing and dribbling if they could get it. But when Fischer came, all of a sudden the players were trained to pass the ball to a team-mate, and that of course made a difference.”
Austrian football was the gold standard of the age, and three fellow Austrians had already made their way to coach in Latvia before Fischer. The game had been introduced in 1890 in Vienna, the centre of British influence in Central Europe, and four years later the first clubs were formed: First Vienna Football Club and The Cricketers.
DAS WUNDERTEAM
The professionalisation of the leagues in 1924 ushered in a golden age between 1930 and 1934 of the legendary Austrian Wunderteam under manager Hugo Meisl. He introduced a quick passing game based on the coaching of Jimmy Hogan, a forward who played for Burnley, Fulham, Swindon and Bolton in a playing career between 1902 and 1913 then coached in Hungary, Switzerland and Austria.
Between April 1931 and June 1934, Das Wunderteam lost just three of 31 games, scoring 101 goals in that time. Their slick interplay and swift movement off the ball made them favourites to win the 1934 World Cup, but in the semi-finals they were smothered by an Italian defence making the most of a muddy pitch at the San Siro, and the winning goal came in the 19th minute when the Italians bundled both the ball and the Austrian keeper over the line.
The final of the 1936 Berlin Olympics was a repeat of this fixture, with the Austrians taking the game to extra time. Unfortunately for the Wunderteam, the Italians then scored a second to win the game 2-1 and take the gold medal. That was the last high point for the Wunderteam, which qualified for but then withdrew from the 1938 World Cup in France after the Anschluss unified both Austria and Nazi Germany. The unification of the two teams, with the emphasis on retaining German players, effectively ended the Wunderteam.
These events would certainly have been on Fischer’s radar not only as a former Austrian international but also because Latvia was the runner-up in Austria’s qualifying group and his Olimpija team was full of international players. However, Latvia was not invited to replace Austria and Sweden progressed to the quarter-finals by default. Italy won the competition, and retained the World Cup until 1950.
Austrian football was the gold standard of the age, and three fellow Austrians had already made their way to coach in Latvia before Fischer. The game had been introduced in 1890 in Vienna, the centre of British influence in Central Europe, and four years later the first clubs were formed: First Vienna Football Club and The Cricketers.
DAS WUNDERTEAM
The professionalisation of the leagues in 1924 ushered in a golden age between 1930 and 1934 of the legendary Austrian Wunderteam under manager Hugo Meisl. He introduced a quick passing game based on the coaching of Jimmy Hogan, a forward who played for Burnley, Fulham, Swindon and Bolton in a playing career between 1902 and 1913 then coached in Hungary, Switzerland and Austria.
Between April 1931 and June 1934, Das Wunderteam lost just three of 31 games, scoring 101 goals in that time. Their slick interplay and swift movement off the ball made them favourites to win the 1934 World Cup, but in the semi-finals they were smothered by an Italian defence making the most of a muddy pitch at the San Siro, and the winning goal came in the 19th minute when the Italians bundled both the ball and the Austrian keeper over the line.
The final of the 1936 Berlin Olympics was a repeat of this fixture, with the Austrians taking the game to extra time. Unfortunately for the Wunderteam, the Italians then scored a second to win the game 2-1 and take the gold medal. That was the last high point for the Wunderteam, which qualified for but then withdrew from the 1938 World Cup in France after the Anschluss unified both Austria and Nazi Germany. The unification of the two teams, with the emphasis on retaining German players, effectively ended the Wunderteam.
These events would certainly have been on Fischer’s radar not only as a former Austrian international but also because Latvia was the runner-up in Austria’s qualifying group and his Olimpija team was full of international players. However, Latvia was not invited to replace Austria and Sweden progressed to the quarter-finals by default. Italy won the competition, and retained the World Cup until 1950.
Until World War One the ice-free port of Liepāja was a cornerstone of the Tsarist economy. Connected to the vast internal market of the Soviet Union by rail, endless lines of wagons delivered timber, butter, eggs, grain and hides to the Liepāja docks for shipping abroad and returned laden with coal, machinery, cotton, rubber, tea and especially herrings. Liepāja alone accounted for 33 million roubles of imports and 48 million roubles of exports in 1913: trade that year through Riga, Ventspils and Liepāja combined accounted for 28 per cent of total Tsarist exports and 20.6 per cent of imports. Alongside the merchant vessels in the port huge warships emptied cadets into a vast barrack city built on the other side of the Trade Canal as Liepāja developed into an important naval base for the Russian Empire.
DIRECT BOATS TO NEW YORK AND CANADA
In the early part of the 20th century the city was best known to Eastern Europeans by its German name of Libau, a port with a direct boat to New York and a gateway away from the violent anti-semitism of the time. From 1906 when the liners began running hundreds of thousands of Jewish families passed through its doors. In the first year alone 40,000 passengers made the trip. Demand was so great that the boats sailed non-stop for 18 years between Liepāja and New York, and then on to Halifax in Canada, until the service ended in 1924. They were days of revolution, dislocation, relocation and eventually independence for Latvia from the Tsarist Empire and the Bolshevik regime which replaced it.
Fischer was encouraged to take the job in Liepāja because friends recommended the team, blessed with stability as most of the players were local. Not only that, seven in the side he inherited had played for Liepāja since Maloschek’s League-winning team of 1927.
There was the fearless goalkeeper Harijs Lazdins, a Latvian international who stayed in the team until 1944. Defender Karlis Tils won the League six times with Olimpija and made ten international appearances for Latvia. His defensive partner Fricis Laumanis played from 1927 to 1940, including several seasons where he didn’t miss a game. Striker Voldemars Žins became the first Latvian footballer to score an international hat-trick following the country’s independence in 1918.
Lazdins, Tils, Laumanis, Žins and Stankuss, Dudanecs and Kronlaks would be the backbone of Fischer’s new Olimpija. What he brought to the club was a profes- sional attitude and football philosophy which was difficult to instil at first.
Until Fischer took over, Liepāja played physical ‘kick and rush’ football, and crowds became used to powerful clearances by defenders followed by charges by strikers en masse. The precise passing combinations of Fischer’s ‘Viennese Lace’ were at odds with this style, with possession and intelligence being more important than power. It took some time for the grumbling to die down from spectators and players alike: they complained it was boring to play that way, hour after hour. But Fischer stuck to his principles. The first phrase he learned in Latvian was ‘The team that plays on the ground never loses’. Those among the playing staff who wouldn’t adapt were sometimes slapped physically until they did, or were shown the door.
DIRECT BOATS TO NEW YORK AND CANADA
In the early part of the 20th century the city was best known to Eastern Europeans by its German name of Libau, a port with a direct boat to New York and a gateway away from the violent anti-semitism of the time. From 1906 when the liners began running hundreds of thousands of Jewish families passed through its doors. In the first year alone 40,000 passengers made the trip. Demand was so great that the boats sailed non-stop for 18 years between Liepāja and New York, and then on to Halifax in Canada, until the service ended in 1924. They were days of revolution, dislocation, relocation and eventually independence for Latvia from the Tsarist Empire and the Bolshevik regime which replaced it.
Fischer was encouraged to take the job in Liepāja because friends recommended the team, blessed with stability as most of the players were local. Not only that, seven in the side he inherited had played for Liepāja since Maloschek’s League-winning team of 1927.
There was the fearless goalkeeper Harijs Lazdins, a Latvian international who stayed in the team until 1944. Defender Karlis Tils won the League six times with Olimpija and made ten international appearances for Latvia. His defensive partner Fricis Laumanis played from 1927 to 1940, including several seasons where he didn’t miss a game. Striker Voldemars Žins became the first Latvian footballer to score an international hat-trick following the country’s independence in 1918.
Lazdins, Tils, Laumanis, Žins and Stankuss, Dudanecs and Kronlaks would be the backbone of Fischer’s new Olimpija. What he brought to the club was a profes- sional attitude and football philosophy which was difficult to instil at first.
Until Fischer took over, Liepāja played physical ‘kick and rush’ football, and crowds became used to powerful clearances by defenders followed by charges by strikers en masse. The precise passing combinations of Fischer’s ‘Viennese Lace’ were at odds with this style, with possession and intelligence being more important than power. It took some time for the grumbling to die down from spectators and players alike: they complained it was boring to play that way, hour after hour. But Fischer stuck to his principles. The first phrase he learned in Latvian was ‘The team that plays on the ground never loses’. Those among the playing staff who wouldn’t adapt were sometimes slapped physically until they did, or were shown the door.
Results improved – Liepāja didn’t lose a game in the 1936 season and scored 37 goals - and before long those watching this transformation began to back the team. Crowds of 5,000 became regular. President Karlis Ulmanis sent the team a telegram complimenting them on their ‘beautiful and masculine game’.
‘Fischer made Liepāja the pride of Kurzeme [the western Baltic region of Latvia], and the only way Liepāja could compete with [the capital] Riga and win,’ wrote veteran sports journalist Andžils Remess in his book Liepāja Sporting Legends.
Taking charge for the 1936 season Fischer successfully guided Olimpija to the league title without losing a game. The following season football was suspended, but he won the league a second time in 1938 and then again in 1939.
“He was doing something new, something exciting,” says Zanis Musins, as we look at pictures of Fischer in his trademark dark suit being hoisted onto the shoulders of his players at the Daugava Stadium.
“All the other Latvian teams were still playing the long ball and of course it knocked six bells out of them. With short passes it’s very difficult to stop, if you play it well.
“He was like a god around town. He really was. The local people chaired him through the streets. If he ever turned up anywhere people would be cheering him and carrying him on their shoulders. There wasn’t that much going on in Liepāja but here was the football team beating everyone. International teams were coming to Liepāja and getting beaten: that was unheard of - and so his popularity soared. That seemed to be about the only good thing that was happening in the town.”
He laughs at the memory. Mr Musins has supported Manchester United since 1949 after coming to the UK post-war to work. He fought in the Second World War in the Latvian Legion but was among the thousands of soldiers able to surrender to the Allies rather than the Red Army. He is casting his mind back 75 years here: I show him some pictures of the players.
“Do you remember this man, Fricis Laumanis?” I ask.
He laughs even louder.
“Oh yes! Everyone remembered him – he was a big man, a massive bloke, and if you got too close to him he had such a mighty swipe he’d take you and the ball as well. Boom! You didn’t joke with him. If you were fleet-footed you got away with it, but if you weren’t you’d had it.”
“And the goalkeeper Harijs Lazdins?”
“He actually worked as a cashier in a bank. I was working as a peatcutter on a marsh during summer holidays after school time. Guess who came in to pay our wages? Harry Lazdins! He was a massive bloke: 6 ft 4, 6 ft 5 (1.82 metres) ... and he was bloody agile for a man of that size.
I mention that at least seven men from this side played from 1927 to 1936 and they were all local.
“Yes, they were all locals. In Liepāja we had districts and we’d play each other. If you were a good side you’d often smash your opponents and they’d return the favour by chasing you out of their district, throwing stones and beating you up. Your life was in your feet!
“I grew up on a farm and my grandfather always tried to keep me reading and doing maths, so I got into college at 13 rather than 15, and at college I met the Zingis brothers. I already knew the younger brother Voldemars but at college I met Ernests, who was in the year in front. He was the left-footed one and he was already in the first team. I wasn’t very well off and I couldn’t afford to pay the entrance fees, so we’d sneak through the fence, but there might be guards there who chase you, and of course, where do you run – into the crowd! And the crowd is cheering and pulls you in and people hide you so the guards will never get you after that. Sometimes of course you got caught halfway under the fence and you’d get a wallop on the backside – but there wasn’t much spare money and football was a luxury. If you could sneak in, you could watch it.
“They were very good at that time. There were four big teams in Riga and they dreaded coming to Liepāja. We were very partisan and gave them a tough reception. There was one time when a Riga team were playing and beating the Liepāja team and the crowd was nearly rioting, so they closed the stadium and the Riga team got back on the bus. What happened was that by Grobina (a town about 20 kms back to Riga) the coach was stopped on the road and all the windows were smashed! So they didn’t get away with it!
‘Fischer made Liepāja the pride of Kurzeme [the western Baltic region of Latvia], and the only way Liepāja could compete with [the capital] Riga and win,’ wrote veteran sports journalist Andžils Remess in his book Liepāja Sporting Legends.
Taking charge for the 1936 season Fischer successfully guided Olimpija to the league title without losing a game. The following season football was suspended, but he won the league a second time in 1938 and then again in 1939.
“He was doing something new, something exciting,” says Zanis Musins, as we look at pictures of Fischer in his trademark dark suit being hoisted onto the shoulders of his players at the Daugava Stadium.
“All the other Latvian teams were still playing the long ball and of course it knocked six bells out of them. With short passes it’s very difficult to stop, if you play it well.
“He was like a god around town. He really was. The local people chaired him through the streets. If he ever turned up anywhere people would be cheering him and carrying him on their shoulders. There wasn’t that much going on in Liepāja but here was the football team beating everyone. International teams were coming to Liepāja and getting beaten: that was unheard of - and so his popularity soared. That seemed to be about the only good thing that was happening in the town.”
He laughs at the memory. Mr Musins has supported Manchester United since 1949 after coming to the UK post-war to work. He fought in the Second World War in the Latvian Legion but was among the thousands of soldiers able to surrender to the Allies rather than the Red Army. He is casting his mind back 75 years here: I show him some pictures of the players.
“Do you remember this man, Fricis Laumanis?” I ask.
He laughs even louder.
“Oh yes! Everyone remembered him – he was a big man, a massive bloke, and if you got too close to him he had such a mighty swipe he’d take you and the ball as well. Boom! You didn’t joke with him. If you were fleet-footed you got away with it, but if you weren’t you’d had it.”
“And the goalkeeper Harijs Lazdins?”
“He actually worked as a cashier in a bank. I was working as a peatcutter on a marsh during summer holidays after school time. Guess who came in to pay our wages? Harry Lazdins! He was a massive bloke: 6 ft 4, 6 ft 5 (1.82 metres) ... and he was bloody agile for a man of that size.
I mention that at least seven men from this side played from 1927 to 1936 and they were all local.
“Yes, they were all locals. In Liepāja we had districts and we’d play each other. If you were a good side you’d often smash your opponents and they’d return the favour by chasing you out of their district, throwing stones and beating you up. Your life was in your feet!
“I grew up on a farm and my grandfather always tried to keep me reading and doing maths, so I got into college at 13 rather than 15, and at college I met the Zingis brothers. I already knew the younger brother Voldemars but at college I met Ernests, who was in the year in front. He was the left-footed one and he was already in the first team. I wasn’t very well off and I couldn’t afford to pay the entrance fees, so we’d sneak through the fence, but there might be guards there who chase you, and of course, where do you run – into the crowd! And the crowd is cheering and pulls you in and people hide you so the guards will never get you after that. Sometimes of course you got caught halfway under the fence and you’d get a wallop on the backside – but there wasn’t much spare money and football was a luxury. If you could sneak in, you could watch it.
“They were very good at that time. There were four big teams in Riga and they dreaded coming to Liepāja. We were very partisan and gave them a tough reception. There was one time when a Riga team were playing and beating the Liepāja team and the crowd was nearly rioting, so they closed the stadium and the Riga team got back on the bus. What happened was that by Grobina (a town about 20 kms back to Riga) the coach was stopped on the road and all the windows were smashed! So they didn’t get away with it!
When the Soviets occupied Latvia in 1940-41, Olimpija Liepāja was disbanded. In June 1941, the Nazis replaced them as occupiers. Now the Holocaust would begin.
“Otto Fischer,” Ilana Ivanova says almost absent-mindedly, leafing through the pictures as we talk in her office at the Jewish Heritage Foundation in Liepāja, on the southwestern tip of Latvia’s Baltic coast.
“My mum knew him. He was a small man, well-dressed in elegant suits. My mum was training as a track and field athlete at the Olimpija stadium. He held regular training sessions for his Olimpija Liepāja football teams at the same time. When the Nazis occupied Liepāja in June 1941, the extermination of the Jews started a few days later.”
The local stories are that Jewish refugees from Europe were the first to be killed. They were rounded-up, held in overcrowded conditions in jails and then systematically murdered: in town parks, on the beach, sometimes in small groups, sometimes in larger numbers.
Ilana points at the picture of a small man in a suit, surrounded by footballers. Everyone looks happy, and no wonder. This is the team Fischer coached to the Latvian League championship three times in four years.
Perhaps fearing for their future, on 10 June 1941 Otto married his Latvian bride Anna Lemkina who came from Pāvilosta, a short distance up the coast from Liepāja. Two weeks later the Nazis invaded Latvia. Two weeks after that, Fischer was dead. “The football team leaders went to the Nazis to ask them not to shoot him,” says Ilana. “He was not a refugee but an invited guest coach from Austria.”
Despite his status as an invited guest and regardless of the protests by his club, Fischer was arrested and shot in the mass executions of the Holocaust in Latvia, sometime after September 1941. Anna was murdered in the massacre of thousands of Jews in the sand dunes at Šķēde as Nazi death squads and their Latvian auxiliaries systematically wiped out almost all of Latvia’s 70,000-strong Jewish population. Fischer’s older brother Hugo would die the following year, having been deported from Vienna to Auschwitz.
Ilana Ivanova’s father, David Zivcon, was the man who discovered photographs of the slaughter at Šķēde beach in a German officer’s flat he was working in. He hid them and then went into hiding, recovering the pictures when the war ended. They were subsequently used as evidence at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals.
Olimpija Liepāja continued during the war years until 1944, when the city was the focus of repeated military onslaughts by the Red Army in efforts to break the Nazi supply lifeline through the port to the Baltic and so to Germany. Battered by endless bombing and shelling for six months, Liepāja was a ruin at the war’s end. It became a secret city under the Soviets, sealed to outsiders for nearly half a century with even locals needing passes to move around.
But Fischer’s legacy and methods lived on. Many coaches applied his philosophy of possession and passing and players referred to ‘Fischer’s time’.
POST WAR
After the end of the war nine of Olimpija’s players joined Daugava Liepāja, coached by former Fischer defender Karlis Tils. With Voldemārs Sudmalis and another Fischer player in the team, striker Ernests Zingis, they won the Latvian Soviet League in 1946. Sudmalis, who began his playing career with Olimpija in 1942, is considered one of Latvia’s greatest footballers of all time.28
Merging with another Liepāja team and taking the name Sarkanais Metalurgs [the Red Metalworkers, after the famous Liepāja metalworks] they won the League seven times in 10 years between 1948 and 1958, a dominance greater than their time under Fischer.
For a while during the Soviet occupation they reverted to the name Olimpija Liepāja and even made the qualifying rounds of the Europa Cup in 2011-12 with an almost entirely Latvian playing squad, but went bankrupt in 2014. City council sponsorship revived the team, and they play today as FK Liepāja.
The Liepāja Jewish Heritage Foundation marked the 75th anniversary of Fischer’s death in 2016 with an exhibition about him produced in collaboration with the Austrian Embassy in Latvia. But there was no statue of Fischer around the town he brought such pride to, nor any mention of him at the stadium by the beach where those glorious seasons were played out. Until 2025, that is - when Ilana Ivanova organised an international conference to remember him, bringing his great nephew 'Bobby' Beig and an Austrian diplomatic mission to the town to celebrate Fischer's memory and launch a new football tournament for children: the Otto Fischer Cup.
Otto Fischer has not entirely been forgotten by football. The First Vienna FC 1894 ’Dream Team’ of pre-1945 players includes him as their left winger - and now new generations of footballers can learn about how he made Olimpija 'the Barcelona of the Baltics'.
“Otto Fischer,” Ilana Ivanova says almost absent-mindedly, leafing through the pictures as we talk in her office at the Jewish Heritage Foundation in Liepāja, on the southwestern tip of Latvia’s Baltic coast.
“My mum knew him. He was a small man, well-dressed in elegant suits. My mum was training as a track and field athlete at the Olimpija stadium. He held regular training sessions for his Olimpija Liepāja football teams at the same time. When the Nazis occupied Liepāja in June 1941, the extermination of the Jews started a few days later.”
The local stories are that Jewish refugees from Europe were the first to be killed. They were rounded-up, held in overcrowded conditions in jails and then systematically murdered: in town parks, on the beach, sometimes in small groups, sometimes in larger numbers.
Ilana points at the picture of a small man in a suit, surrounded by footballers. Everyone looks happy, and no wonder. This is the team Fischer coached to the Latvian League championship three times in four years.
Perhaps fearing for their future, on 10 June 1941 Otto married his Latvian bride Anna Lemkina who came from Pāvilosta, a short distance up the coast from Liepāja. Two weeks later the Nazis invaded Latvia. Two weeks after that, Fischer was dead. “The football team leaders went to the Nazis to ask them not to shoot him,” says Ilana. “He was not a refugee but an invited guest coach from Austria.”
Despite his status as an invited guest and regardless of the protests by his club, Fischer was arrested and shot in the mass executions of the Holocaust in Latvia, sometime after September 1941. Anna was murdered in the massacre of thousands of Jews in the sand dunes at Šķēde as Nazi death squads and their Latvian auxiliaries systematically wiped out almost all of Latvia’s 70,000-strong Jewish population. Fischer’s older brother Hugo would die the following year, having been deported from Vienna to Auschwitz.
Ilana Ivanova’s father, David Zivcon, was the man who discovered photographs of the slaughter at Šķēde beach in a German officer’s flat he was working in. He hid them and then went into hiding, recovering the pictures when the war ended. They were subsequently used as evidence at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals.
Olimpija Liepāja continued during the war years until 1944, when the city was the focus of repeated military onslaughts by the Red Army in efforts to break the Nazi supply lifeline through the port to the Baltic and so to Germany. Battered by endless bombing and shelling for six months, Liepāja was a ruin at the war’s end. It became a secret city under the Soviets, sealed to outsiders for nearly half a century with even locals needing passes to move around.
But Fischer’s legacy and methods lived on. Many coaches applied his philosophy of possession and passing and players referred to ‘Fischer’s time’.
POST WAR
After the end of the war nine of Olimpija’s players joined Daugava Liepāja, coached by former Fischer defender Karlis Tils. With Voldemārs Sudmalis and another Fischer player in the team, striker Ernests Zingis, they won the Latvian Soviet League in 1946. Sudmalis, who began his playing career with Olimpija in 1942, is considered one of Latvia’s greatest footballers of all time.28
Merging with another Liepāja team and taking the name Sarkanais Metalurgs [the Red Metalworkers, after the famous Liepāja metalworks] they won the League seven times in 10 years between 1948 and 1958, a dominance greater than their time under Fischer.
For a while during the Soviet occupation they reverted to the name Olimpija Liepāja and even made the qualifying rounds of the Europa Cup in 2011-12 with an almost entirely Latvian playing squad, but went bankrupt in 2014. City council sponsorship revived the team, and they play today as FK Liepāja.
The Liepāja Jewish Heritage Foundation marked the 75th anniversary of Fischer’s death in 2016 with an exhibition about him produced in collaboration with the Austrian Embassy in Latvia. But there was no statue of Fischer around the town he brought such pride to, nor any mention of him at the stadium by the beach where those glorious seasons were played out. Until 2025, that is - when Ilana Ivanova organised an international conference to remember him, bringing his great nephew 'Bobby' Beig and an Austrian diplomatic mission to the town to celebrate Fischer's memory and launch a new football tournament for children: the Otto Fischer Cup.
Otto Fischer has not entirely been forgotten by football. The First Vienna FC 1894 ’Dream Team’ of pre-1945 players includes him as their left winger - and now new generations of footballers can learn about how he made Olimpija 'the Barcelona of the Baltics'.
Notes
1 <https://www.worldfootball.net/player_summary/otto-fischer/>.
2 Austrian playing career: National Football Teams website [Austria] <http://www.national-
football-teams.com/player/43292/Otto_Fischer.html>. International career. <http://www.
worldfootball.net/player_summary/otto-fischer/>.
3 Bowman, W. D. Hakoah Vienna and the International Nature of Interwar Austrian Sports, p.654,
paper for the Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical
Association, 2011 doi:10.1017/S0008938911000677
4 <https://www.worldfootball.net/player_summary/otto-fischer/>.
6 Latvian historic football league tables at foot.dk website at <http://www.foot.dk/Letstilling.
asp?SeasonID=24?> (accessed 25.12.2019).
7 Liepāja Sporting Legends by Andzils Remess. (Translated)
8 Liepāja Sporting Legends by Andzils Remess. (Translated)
9 List of Latvian champions from <http://www.rsssf.com/tablesl/letchamp.html> by Almantas
Lauzadis, Hans Schöggl and RSSSF.
10 Figures from Latvian football league standings <http://www.foot.dk/Letstilling. asp?SeasonID=24> (accessed 25.12.2019).
11 Interview with author, November 2017.
12 Goldblatt, D. The Ball is Round, p.139.
13 BBC Sport article By Chris Bevan 24 April 2013: Jimmy Hogan: The Englishman who inspired
the Magical Magyars (accessed 24.12.2019).
14 Goldblatt, The Ball is Round, pp.258-259 and Fifa.com <https://www.fifa.com/worldcup/
matches/round=3492/match=1107/index.html#overview#nosticky> (accessed 24.12.2019).
15 Wallechinsky, D and Loucky, J. The Complete Book of the Olympics [2008 edition] p.656.
16 Fifa.com: FIFA World Cup draw details at <https://www.fifa.com/mm/document/fifafacts/ mcwc/ip-201_10e_fwcdraw-history_8842.pdf> (accessed 25.12.2019).
17 FIFA.com: 1938 World Cup in France: Double joy for Pozzo’s men at <https://www.fifa. com/worldcup/matches/round=3487/match=1174/classic-match/index.html> (accessed 25.12.2019).
18 Karnups, V.P. ‘Latvia as an Entrepôt Prior to WWI: Effects of Trade and Industrialisation’ (Humanities and Social Sciences Latvia) Volume 21, Issue 1 (Spring–Summer 2013), pp 18-30.
19 Special Economic Zone website: <http://www.Liepāja-sez.lv/en/Liepāja-port/history/>.
20 Player biographies from Miķelis Rubenis, History of football in Latvia, 2002.
21 Liepāja Sporting Legends by Andzils Remess. (Translated)
22 Liepāja Sporting Legends by Andzils Remess. (Translated)
23 Final Tables of Latvia Championships (Arvids Stashans) at <http://web.archive.org/ web/20020816042350/>, <http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Loge/8133/lat-meistars. html> (accessed 25.12.2019).
24 Interview with author, Coventry, November 2017.
25 From <http://www.Liepājajews.org/ps12/ps12_151.htm>.
26 Nollendorfs, V. (ed) (2012) 1940-1991. p.61.
27 From Liepāja Jewish Heritage website <http://Liepājajewishheritage.lv/en/otto-schloime-
fischer/> (accessed 27.12.2019).
28 Miķelis Rubenis, History of Football in Latvia, 2002.
Bibliography
Goldblatt, D. (2006) The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football Penguin Books, London.
Nollendorfs, V. (ed.) (2012) 1940-1991, published by the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, Riga.
Remess, A. Liepāja Sporting Legends Kurzemes Vārds, 1996 (Translated) Wallechinsky, D and Loucky, J. (2008) The Complete Book of the Olympics [2008 edition] Aurum Press.
Other sources:
Drawn from A. Remess Liepājas sporta leģendas, Kurzemes Vārds, 1996, and from I.G. Körner Lexikon jüdischer Sportler in Wien 1900–1938, courtesy of Ronald Gelbard at SC Hakoah, Vienna.
Author correspondence with Latvian Football Federation.
EU football website.
Player biographies from Miķelis Rubenis, History of Football in Latvia, 2002. Thanks to Kristine Zuntnere at the Latvian Football Federation.