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.