Jürgen Nöldner

As the East German national team won the inter-national qualification matches in 1963 against the West German amateur national team by a 3-0 win in Leipzig and a 2-1 loss in Hannover, the German Olympic team at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics was an East German one. The team won the bronze medal, beating Egypt, 3-1.

Midfielder Jürgen Nöldner played 30 international matches with the former GDR national team and scored 16 goals. Among those goals was the fastest ever goal for East Germany in 1965 versus Austria, scored in the first minute.

Between 1959 and 1973 Nöldner played with ASK Vorwärts Berlin – and later with ASK Vorwärts Frankfurt on Oder when the club was moved from Berlin to Frankfurt – winning the East German Championship in 1960, 1962, 1965, 1966, and 1969, and also the East German Cup in 1970. He appeared in 285 Oberliga matches and scored 88 goals. In 1966 he was elected Soccer Player of the Year in East Germany.

His father Erwin Nöldner (1913-1944) was a communist during the Third Reich and was sentenced to death in September 1944. Two months later he was executed by the Nazis in Brandenburg when his son Jürgen was only 3-years-old. Jürgen later became a sports journalist, and head editor of the Neue Fußball-Woche (New Football Week) from 1984-90, and then head of the Berlin editorial board of kicker Sportmagazin after German reunification from 1990-2006.