Ernst Wilimowski - War Years

War Years

After the division of Poland, Willimowski as Volksdeutscher re-took German citizenship, like the majority of the inhabitants of the Eastern part of Upper Silesia, among them all the players of the Polish national team coming from this region. It allowed them to continue their football careers as Poles were not permitted to participate in sports under the Nazi occupation. In the early days of the war Willimowski had to hide from the Nazis because of the enmity of a local kreisleiter (ward leader) of the NSDAP named Georg Joschke who held against Willimowski the 1933 transfer from the ethnically-German club 1. FC Kattowitz to the Polish Ruch Chorzów. Allegedly, Joschke threatened that Willimowski would have to wear the letter "P" (for Pole) on his clothes. This never happened, as Willimowski was too good a player and well appreciated by other German football officials. However, his mother Paulina, was placed in Auschwitz Concentration Camp, which she survived. Wilimowski's mother was incarcerated because she got engaged in an intimate relationship with a Russian Jew, which was regarded as Rassenschande in Nazi Germany. Ernst, who in later stages of the war became friends with legendary pilot Hermann Graf, managed to save her, with Graf's help.

For propaganda purposes Nazi sports officials made 1. FC Kattowitz a model side representative of the German Upper Silesia. The region's best players were assigned to the team and besides Willimowski included Erwin Nyc, Ewald Dytko and Paweł Cyganek. "Ezi" played there until February 1940, before moving on to Chemnitz, where he took up a job as a policeman while playing for the local team Polizei-Sportverein Chemnitz (1940–1942).

Through the course of the war he also played for TSV 1860 München (1942–1944), where he was a member of the Tschammerpokal (German Cup) winning side of 1942. In the final game of the 1942 German Cup, at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, the Munich side won 2-0, with the first goal scored by Wilimowski. In final years of the war, Wilimowski became soldier of the Wehrmacht, but he was allowed to play in army football teams, f.e. LSV Mölders in German occupied Cracow.