Günter Eberhard was the best gymnast TSV Isen has ever had.
The man from Vienna was also part of the Löwen gymnastics team.
In our ranking list he is in 57th place.
Dorfen
- Of course, Günter Eberhard is proud to be part of the TSV 1860 Munich gymnastics team.
But this time he chooses a jersey without the lion crest.
The year is 1957 and the German team championship is at stake in Landau in the Palatinate.
Halfway through the exercises, the Munich team lead and hope for the title.
But the 18-year-old from Isen takes a close look at the jury - made up of various clubs.
"I was speculating that I would get away better if I did gymnastics without the six-digit emblem," he says today.
His trainer only notices this when the exercise is already running.
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The now 81-year-old is still an avid skier.
© Georg Brennauer
“Fortunately,” says Eberhard with a laugh, “because I was actually rated significantly better than my teammates, some of whom were actually stronger”.
It is not enough to win the title, the sixties finish fourth.
Nevertheless, the now 81-year-old thinks back fondly: to this and many other competitions that made him Munich city champion, Bavarian champion and German runner-up.
Eberhard is the best gymnast TSV Isen has ever had.
On the other hand: The small market town has earned it, because it gives the young man a beautiful home for the first time.
Four days of travel in a cattle wagon
Born in Vienna in December 1939, Eberhard spent the first years in East Moravia before he was expelled with his mother Maria and grandma in 1946.
“After four days of driving in the cattle wagon, we arrived in Schwabmünchen,” he recalls.
He spends three years on a farm in the Swabian Mittelstetten.
It's not a good time.
“I don't want to think back to that,” he says today.
His grandmother died in 1947. Two years later, the boy and his mother came to Isen to swap an apartment.
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And from there everything gets better.
The toddler quickly has the respect of his classmates.
It's the sport.
Swimming, cycling, soccer - he's always there.
But nowhere is he as talented as in gymnastics.
Erwin Partsch also noticed this.
The gymnastics supervisor of TSV Isen lost both legs in the war.
“Nevertheless, he was a fun-loving man who was very popular and was excellent at motivating us children,” says Eberhard, who was only shocked once: “When Mr. Partsch took off his prostheses before bathing and crawled into the water with his short stump.
Otherwise he was on the move quickly with his prostheses. "
Partsch promoted his protégé, after a few months sent him to the first competition in Traunstein for the Upper Bavarian gymnastics festival.
“I was 48 then,” says Eberhard.
“A year later in Fürstenfeldbruck I was already third.” Before that he won the youth class at the Gauturnfest in Haag, and he was also at the top of the podium at the district youth festival in Isen.
His supreme discipline: exercises on the rings
Eberhard made an early calculation that applies to his entire career: he has better chances in pentathlon than in four-way combat, which consists of horse jumping, parallel bars, horizontal bar and floor exercise.
Because there are also the exercises on the rings, and that is his supreme discipline: “You need strength.
I've always had that, ”he explains.
“It also helped that I have a bit short arms in relation to my body.” And he is also hardworking: he trains three times a week in the Isen gym.
When it was torn down, he went to Dorfen.
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Eberhard has lived in Dorfen with his wife Martha since 1976.
The now 81-year-old grew up in Isen.
© Georg Brennauer
Success inevitably comes.
In 1956, Eberhard became the district youth champion in Mühldorf in the decathlon, in which both compulsory and freestyle exercises were performed on the five machines.
“It was one of my greatest successes,” he says today, looking back on his gymnastics career.
After all, he secured this title in the A-Class, i.e. at the highest level.
In the same year he triumphs at the district gymnastics festival in Garching and at the Schloßberg gymnastics festival in Kraiburg.
His secret of success?
“In addition to talent, you need inner enthusiasm, ambition and full concentration,” reveals Eberhard.
But also self-confidence and iron discipline.
And Eberhard already proved both in 1956 when TSV 1860 Munich knocked on his door.
At this time, the sixties are the non-plus-ultra in gymnastics in Bavaria and beyond.
Numerous German championship titles have been won by the lions, whose trainer Rupert Zircher is now asking Eberhard to perform.
Erwin Strobl from Isen, already active in 1860, gave the tip.
Now it's up to the boy himself.
TSV 1860 Munich: Two hours to get to training
Stage fright, jitters?
"I went to Munich and showed what I can do," says Eberhard.
It must have been impressive, because from now on he's a sixties.
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On the one hand, this meant that he now belongs to the best youth team far and wide.
And on the other hand: an eternal driving: every Saturday Eberhard cycles the eight kilometers from Isen to Matzbach train station.
He gets off at the Ostbahnhof and walks the three kilometers to the hall on Auenstrasse, where training begins at 5 p.m.
Two hours of travel, two hours of training, followed by a cozy get-together.
"I often didn't come home until around midnight."
And during the week Eberhard cycles the eleven kilometers to training in Dorfen, where he works on compulsory and freestyle skills together with Georg Numberger, who is ten years older, and keeps getting better.
But that also has something to do with his teaching profession.
Eberhard becomes a blacksmith with long-time TSV gymnastics warden Georg Reiter.
Even if he has more to do with agricultural machinery repairs than blacksmithing, Eberhard describes his apprenticeship as a stroke of luck, "because I was able to strengthen the strength and agility necessary for gymnastics".
The power of the blacksmith
Nine hours of back-breaking work followed by training - “yes, in the evening I was already tired when I wanted to read something,” he says today.
Professionally, he went to the MAN company in Munich-Allach, where he made a huge profit as a skilled metal worker.
“As a journeyman in Isen, I earned one mark an hour, and then suddenly 2.40 marks,” he says.
"I was amazed, and then a colleague said to me: 'You are paid like a laborer." As a result, he negotiates 2.75 marks,
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The picture on the left shows Eberhard (kneeling, left) with the Sechzger youth team as Bavarian champion.
© Private
A year later he switched to the Kässbohrer company in Freimann.
"I earned less again, but the work was much more demanding." The company, to which he will remain loyal for a lifetime, provides him with an apartment.
However, he keeps his primary residence in Isen.
There are practical reasons for this: “Visiting an office in Munich is terrible.
In Isen, my mother knew everyone in the community office.
Everything went much faster. "
In terms of sport, everything is now taking place in Munich.
Eberhard is one of the five-man squad of the Löwen youth, who became Munich city champion in 1957.
In the individual, he takes second place, behind team-mate Axel Geißbeck.
"He was our best gymnast", Eberhard admits without envy.
Under coach Zircher, the Lions become Upper Bavarian and Bavarian champions, which means they qualify for the German team championship mentioned above.
Munich city champion
The Isener also masters the jump from youth to junior team.
He continues to win team titles.
In 1959 he even won the individual title at the Munich City Championships.
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Actually, nothing can stop him.
But then the military service begins, which he performs in Freising, Erding and Neubiberg.
Sport is out of the question during basic training, and then he is assigned to a wax squad of all things.
That means: another quarter of a year without training,
Nevertheless, he took part in the Bavarian Gymnastics Festival in Schweinfurt in 1961 in the senior decathlon.
At times he is even sensationally in the lead.
But then he has to get off the pommel horse - not his favorite device anyway, because the short arms are a disadvantage here - twice.
“That took me away from the window,” he says.
The fall from the bar
Another exit will keep him busy for longer.
At the Bavarian Championships in Bamberg in May 1962, he fell from the horizontal bar.
After the brief shock, he feels a certain stiff neck, but he doesn't care.
"I didn't have much pain,"
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In 1966 the Löwen became German runner-up with Eberhard (3rd from right).
© Private
It was only three years later that a specialist made him aware that he had broken a cervical vertebra.
“If I turn my head left or right, it cracks like you're breaking a stick.
That's still the case today, ”says Eberhard.
Now and then the lion Eberhard also starts for other clubs.
“You didn't see it that closely in the past,” he says.
In the district match between Inn-Salzach and Munich in Waldkraiburg, he took first place in the rings for TSV Isen.
In 1964 he was in a match with the Pasinger gymnasts in Bonn ("We had a lot of fun with the very funny Rhinelander").
He would also have liked - after finishing fifth in the city championship - to go to the comparison match between Munich and its twin city in Bordeaux.
“As I later learned from the trainer and top gymnast Lohmann, the organizer of the selection team preferred gymnasts from his squad.
That really annoyed me, ”he says today.
"I was good enough again for the rematch in Munich."
German runner-up
But his greatest success was yet to come.
In 1966, the Isener and TSV 1860 in Minden became German runner-up with the mixed team.
Only the Berlin OSC was a bit better in the disciplines floor, horse jump, parallel bars and horizontal bar.
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Whether in the youth or with the seniors - “we were always a committed team”, enthuses Eberhard.
The fact that he, the Isener, is the only one to come from the country, has never been shown to him.
“We were all athletes.” It made him proud to compete with great gymnasts like Olympian Heinz Häusler.
At the Bavarian championship in Schongau in 1967 he won bronze on the rings.
A year later he also manages that at the Munich city championship.
In 1969 Eberhard broke into a vortex in a black ice accident with his car.
He's in bed for nine weeks.
"That was the end of my career," he says and adds dryly: "Actually, things go downhill at 25 or 26."
Günter Eberhard has lived with his wife Martha since 1976
in Dorfen, where he and his friends Schorsch Numberger (†), Norbert Präbst, Karl Rauscher and Ferdinand Wessely (†) competed in a few more competitions in the Turngau Inn-Salzach.
But those times are long gone.
There is also no longer his Schafkopf round.
But there is one thing Günter Eberhard cannot take away.
He has also been skiing since 1949.
“Until last year I always had a season ticket,” he says.
"At the moment there is a standstill due to Corona, but when it works again, I'll be back."
Dieter Priglmeir and Georg Brennauer
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