Tragic — Schalke 04
Rudi Assauer: Rudolf “Rudi” Assauer played 307 Bundesliga matches between 1964 and 1976 for Borussia Dortmund and Werder Bremen – not Schalke.
Tragic
Rudi Assauer: Rudolf “Rudi” Assauer played 307 Bundesliga matches between 1964 and 1976 for Borussia Dortmund and Werder Bremen – not Schalke.
Rudi Assauer: Rudolf “Rudi” Assauer played 307 Bundesliga
Rudi Assauer: Rudolf “Rudi” Assauer played 307 Bundesliga matches between 1964 and 1976 for Borussia Dortmund and Werder Bremen – not Schalke.
Rudi Assauer: Rudolf “Rudi” Assauer played 307 Bundesliga matches between 1964 and 1976 for Borussia Dortmund and Werder Bremen – not Schalke. After unsuccessful attempts as a coach, he became manager at Werder and Oldenburg before finally arriving at Schalke, where he worked in two separate spells. His second spell marked a high point in club history. It began on 1 April 1993, and brought the 1997 UEFA Cup and the DFB-Pokal titles of 2001 and 2002. On 17 May 2006, Assauer stepped down as manager after the supervisory board withdrew its confidence. He later revealed in his autobiography that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. He died from its effects on 6 February 2019.
Bernd Tönnies: on 7 February 1994, Bernd Tönnies
Bernd Tönnies: on 7 February 1994, Bernd Tönnies was elected new Schalke president at an extraordinary general meeting.
Bernd Tönnies: on 7 February 1994, Bernd Tönnies was elected new Schalke president at an extraordinary general meeting. He was only 41, hugely successful in business, but already physically weakened by a heart attack. The club statutes had to be changed first because he had not yet been a member for 12 months. Tönnies died on 1 July 1994, aged 42, after complications following a kidney transplant. A full-blooded entrepreneur, he had left the family farm at 16, founded his first company a year later, and 25 years on had become the “cutlet emperor” of Westphalia. He stabilised Schalke at a key moment. Three years later, the club won the UEFA Cup. Bernd was also the older brother of Clemens Tönnies, who was still Schalke’s supervisory board chairman in December 2019.
Stan Libuda: Reinhard “Stan” Libuda was a legend
Stan Libuda: Reinhard “Stan” Libuda was a legend in the Ruhr, a kind of German Garrincha – both at Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund.
Stan Libuda: Reinhard “Stan” Libuda was a legend in the Ruhr, a kind of German Garrincha – both at Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund. He began at Schalke, became a crowd favourite, then moved to the arch-rivals in Dortmund in 1965, where his famous looping strike helped BVB win the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1966. Two years later he went back to Schalke and captained the side to the 1972 DFB-Pokal. The great mistake of his life came in the 1970/71 Bundesliga match-fixing scandal, when he and several Schalke team-mates took money to throw a game. Initially banned for life, he was pardoned in 1973 after a year at Racing Strasbourg. Life after football was less kind: illness, hardship, a job in a paper-finishing company thanks to Rolf Rüssmann, a tobacco kiosk once owned by Ernst Kuzorra, then throat cancer. He died in 1996 at just 63, after a stroke. His popularity remained so deep that even his move between bitter rivals never erased it. The famous fan addition to the evangelist’s slogan still says it all: “No one gets past God … except Stan Libuda.”
Tragic — Update 2020–2026
Charly Neumann, the club’s old warhorse and long-time kit man who embodied Schalke’s soul, was dismissed in the power struggles around Rudi Assauer.
Charly Neumann, the club’s old warhorse and long-time
Charly Neumann, the club’s old warhorse and long-time kit man who embodied Schalke’s soul, was dismissed in the power struggles around Rudi Assauer.
Charly Neumann, the club’s old warhorse and long-time kit man who embodied Schalke’s soul, was dismissed in the power struggles around Rudi Assauer. He had been a darling of the fans, and his departure hurt many supporters.
Amine Harit, the gifted attacking player, went through
Amine Harit, the gifted attacking player, went through a tragic period after being involved in a traffic accident in his home country Morocco in the summer of 2018 in which a pedestrian was killed.
Amine Harit, the gifted attacking player, went through a tragic period after being involved in a traffic accident in his home country Morocco in the summer of 2018 in which a pedestrian was killed. The event weighed on him for a long time, both personally and in his sporting life at Schalke.
Klaus “Boxer” Tauber, a crowd favourite of the
Klaus “Boxer” Tauber, a crowd favourite of the 1980s and a sharp-shooting striker, suffered severe health problems after his career and died in 2023....
Klaus “Boxer” Tauber, a crowd favourite of the 1980s and a sharp-shooting striker, suffered severe health problems after his career and died in 2023.
Willi Koslowski, part of the legendary championship-winning ...
Willi Koslowski, part of the legendary championship-winning side of 1958 — Schalke’s last title-winning team — died in 2024.
Willi Koslowski, part of the legendary championship-winning side of 1958 — Schalke’s last title-winning team — died in 2024. His death marked the loss of one of the last heroes of Schalke’s great tradition.
Fahrudin Jusufi, one of the best defenders ever
Fahrudin Jusufi, one of the best defenders ever to wear the Schalke shirt, also died in this period....
Fahrudin Jusufi, one of the best defenders ever to wear the Schalke shirt, also died in this period.