There are, for example, Sepp Maier’s football shoes from the 1960s, which are quite battered. There is the receipt for 5000 marks that FC Bayern had to pay for the transfer of Gerd Müller to TSV Nördlingen. Such things can be found in the FC Bayern Museum in the Allianz Arena, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. “We have over 350,000 visitors a year, making us one of the top five museums in Munich,” says Petra Leufstedt, who has been in charge of the museum since 2013. The exhibits are shown on 3500 square meters. “We have the largest club museum in Germany,” says Leufstedt.
SZ: Ms. Leufstedt, the museum has been around for ten years – what was your highlight during this time?
Petra Leufstedt: Uschi Müller, Gerd Müller’s wife, and Robert Lewandowski met here in the museum under the 101 balls (looks at the ceiling where white-red and white-black balls are hanging)after Lewandowski surpassed Müller’s goal record of 40 goals.
For those who don’t have it ready: Bayern striker Lewandowski scored 41 goals in the 2020/2021 season.
Yes, and before that, Gerd Müller had the record for 49 years.
And what about the 101 balls on the ceiling?
FC Bayern scored 101 goals in the 1971/72 season. 40 balls are red, these are Müller’s hits, the rest are black. The board invited Uschi Müller to the game against Augsburg in May 2021 because Lewandowski was able to break the record that day. After that, Uschi Müller and Lewandowski met in our museum, and that was incredibly moving. She always stood by her Gerd for 50 years and then was there live in the stadium when that record was broken for eternity – and then Robert Lewandowski stood in front of her and hugged her. It was a great honor on both sides.
In 1965 FC Bayern was promoted to the Bundesliga. In the promotion round Munich Tennis defeated Borussia (TeBe) Berlin. The museum shows, among other things, the ticket (above in the picture) and the title of the magazine “Football” at the time.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
For readers who have never been here: what can you actually see in the FC Bayern Museum?
We want to present the club’s history in an emotional way – from its founding in 1900 to the present. We divided history into periods: 1900 to 1933, 1933 to 1965 when FC Bayern got promoted to the Bundesliga…
Let’s go back to 1933, please. A study was published this year that dealt with Bavaria during the National Socialist era. The result was that the so-called Jewish club FC Bayern had not behaved better than other sports clubs, but, well, just as badly.
We commissioned this independent study to raise awareness. The role of FC Bayern was examined on the basis of over 100 biographies of players, coaches and club officials during this period – to my knowledge this is unique in the history of sports clubs in Germany. The Institute for Contemporary History received the order, and Gregor Hofmann wrote a dissertation about it, which is now being published as a book. It has been proven that FC Bayern also had victims and perpetrators earlier than previously known, i.e. there were also convinced Nazis.
Will these findings now be integrated into the exhibition?
Yes. We have already made minor adjustments, the rest is to be done during the planned renovation of the museum. After ten years we are reaching our limits in terms of capacity. The Nazi period is then shown much larger – with the researched results that we have gained about Gregor Hofmann or ourselves. We researched many Jewish biographies as part of our traveling exhibition “Revered, Persecuted, Forgotten”, which has been on show in Germany and abroad since 2016. For example, she was also in Washington.
Speaking of this planned conversion, does that mean there will also be more exhibition space overall?
Lucky for the club, the past ten years have been the most successful in FC Bayern’s history. So we have a lot of new cups. Their replicas are placed in our so-called Via Triumphalis, and due to the large number of master bowls we have space problems. The question now is: do we start building, do we enlarge the museum? Or do we summarize the periods of time according to a new system?
And?
This decision is currently up to the board of directors. Of course it would be nice if we could gain some space.
This is where the chairmen of the record champions debated: The presidium room, formerly in the office on Säbener Straße, can now be seen in the FC Bayern Museum.
(Photo: Catherine Hess)
In the museum, for example, you can see the jersey that Gerd Müller wore for his home club TSV Nördlingen. Where do you get the exhibits that are on display in your museum?
In the beginning we basically had nothing, there were a few trophies in our office on Säbener Strasse, and there was the presidium room, which is on display in the museum. In contrast to other museums, which already have a collection and then think about how to exhibit it, ours was like this: we put out an appeal in Bayern-Magazin asking all fans to see what they have. In the course of this, most of the objects were made available.
Almost everything from fans?
Absolutely a lot from fans! For example, there was a fan who had Franz Beckenbauer’s 1965 promotion shirt. We then invited him and Beckenbauer to a Bundesliga game. The gentleman handed the shirt to Beckenbauer on the pitch before the game, and he gave it to the museum. It was a unique experience for the exhibitor: that the jersey finds its way to us and how it finds its way. That’s our philosophy: Let’s create stories for the top exhibits that are priceless for the fan, but we don’t actually want to spend any money on it for non-material reasons. We usually work on a loan or donation basis. We would also like to buy any jerseys from non-commercial jersey collectors. We only very rarely spent money. For example with the Sanyo bin …
… which Bayern striker Jürgen Klinsmann kicked in anger on the sidelines so that his foot got stuck?
Exactly. We really wanted to have this exhibit. The man who had the bin gave it to us – on condition that we donate a certain amount to a foundation every year. Once we also bought a watch, and just now we are working on a work of art. Many important men in the early days around 1900 were artists, both players and officials at FC Bayern. The Schwabing bohemian. From time to time we come across works of art from this circle, currently it is a bronze figure. These are of course top properties for us.
It was mainly artists who founded FC Bayern in 1900. The association honored them in 2019 with the special exhibition “Between the studio and the soccer field”. Uli Hoeneß (right) and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge at the opening of the exhibition.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
In addition to the permanent exhibition, you also do special exhibitions. Which one is currently showing?
Uli Hoeneß. He turned 70 in January. His wife was also interviewed, and she gave a very personal interview, so people don’t get the 98th story that everyone knows anyway. The exhibition is called “Human Uli. A life for FC Bayern.” And we also have a small special exhibition: “50 years of the Olympic Stadium. FC Bayern under the tent roof”. The stadium is now 50 years old.
Before that, there were special exhibitions on Maier, Beckenbauer and Müller…
We have agreed with the board that we would like to do a large, new special exhibition every year, if possible, in order to set priorities. You can also use it to advertise to get visitors to the permanent exhibition. Our first special exhibition – that was in 2014 for Sepp Maier’s 70th birthday – was called “Goalkeeper, inventor, jack of all trades”. We have often managed to procure extra exhibits for these special exhibitions. Our colleague Hans-Peter Renner is incredibly helpful because he knows all the old hands. The doors are opened, he goes into the basement of Franck Ribéry, Arjen Robben, Sepp Maier and comes back with incredible treasures.
What can you find in Maier’s cellar?
For example, we found old ski gloves in Sepp Maier’s tennis park. Maier peeled off the rough surface of a table tennis bat and glued it onto the gloves he wore in the game to have a better grip in wet and snowy conditions.
Hence the “tinkerer” in the title of Maier’s special exhibition.
We also cleared out the showcase in the living room at Beckenbauer (laughs). When you get these exhibits, the exhibition becomes very familiar. The result is that visitors here get to know FC Bayern and its protagonists in a way that is very human and personal; this makes the players feel familiar. We don’t want to glorify heroes, we want to make the people behind them visible.
But there were also special exhibitions on themes.
Yes, I remember, for example, the exhibition “Professional footballers. Dream and reality.” The point was to show how many children start playing football and what is the probability of making it to the top. We constructed a pyramid with a staircase: the path to success. Where you then go up the individual steps. At the top, the last step, was: luck. Then you are in. That appealed to many youth players. I think there were a few that came out who were a bit more thoughtful or realistic. And some parents too.
Back to the exhibits. When a special exhibition is over, let’s say Sepp Maier’s, will the gloves be integrated into the permanent exhibition or will they go back to Maier?
partly, partly. With everything we get, we try to make an agreement with the lender or donor that we can keep the things in the archive. We currently have about 7000 objects there. At first we had about half. However, the lenders also want some of the exhibits back – Franz Beckenbauer, for example, wanted the boxing gloves he had received from Muhammed Ali back. Incidentally, we’ve also had our women’s soccer department in the museum for about two years. For example, the Mariposa service from Villeroy and Boch is shown, which the German national players received as a bonus for their European Championship title in 1989.
In 1989 the German Football Association gave women another service…
(laughs): Yes, without any additional cash bonus. There were big discussions. Rosi Bindl, the only Bayern player in this EM squad from 1989, made the service available to us.