The Keeper - Trautmann film Sunday 5th Sept on BBC

Gary James said:
Err… I tried to point out all the errors and inconsistencies but they decided what story they’d tell so I wouldn’t take this film (or any dramatisation of a life) as being factually correct I’m afraid. It’s a good film and if it gets people interested in Bert’s story then it‘s done it’s job. Personally I’d read Trautmann by Alan Rowland for something closer to the facts. Anything after that relies on Trautmann’s own recollections which, how can I put this, altered as he got older.
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Yes, Bert was a much more complicated character than this film showed, as evidenced for example by his real love life as opposed to this version. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the film. The actor playing his missus was the best thing in it. The brawl by the graveside was unconvincing and I didnt see any need for it.
Love your way, @Gary James, of putting the inconsistencies in his telling. At least he came clean at the end about his nazi youth.
As for the facts, what are facts? Good film, though.
 
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KS55 said:
Yes, Bert was a much more complicated character than this film showed, as evidenced for example by his real love life as opposed to this version. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the film. The actor playing his missus was the best thing in it. The brawl by the graveside was unconvincing and I didnt see any need for it.
Love your way, @Gary James, of putting the inconsistencies in his telling. At least he came clean at the end about his nazi youth.
As for the facts, what are facts? Good film, though.
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Regarding the Nazi youth, they really didn't have any choice and I know this first hand from my German sister in law's mum
 
I enjoyed the film as did my wife, who has no interest in football at all! Bert was my hero as a lad and I remember well in the summer of '56 playing on the local park with my friends and unusually everyone wanted to be in goal! It was not long before whoever was "the keeper" crumpled to the ground with the palm of their hand caressing an injured neck! I remember also his comeback game at home to Leicester City, a 4-3 win, in which Bert got his usual ecstatic welcome from behind the goal and gave us all the wave of appreciation we had not seen for so long. Such was the change from the threats made and hostility expressed when City wanted to bring a "bloody German/Nazi into the dressing room. On the whole the film chronicled this evolution quite faithfully, though it didn't touch on the hostility, to the extent of death threats made in City's cup runs of '55 and '56.

The film was, however, to my mind a sanitised version of Bert's career rather than his life in Lancashire, though it deals, very inaccurately, with the tragic death of his son. What for me marks Bert out as a truly remarkable individual is his own personal evolution. The idea that he had no choice about going into the army, fighting etc is not true and is the application of the "only obeying orders" defence to Bert. Bert Trautmann had grown up in Germany in the inter-war years and from the age of 9 had been subjected to the full force of Nazi education, propaganda and the Hitler youth. He was an excellent sportsman and this meant the positives of the Nazi regime were more apparent to him than others. By 1945 he was classified by the Brits as a hardened Nazi to be subjected to the denazification programme far more rigorously than the other PoWs. This was the real Bert, not the ordinary lad trying to make his way in a bitter, resentful Lancashire through the redeeming force of football. This was the Bert who came to love Manchester and its people and Britain and its people and who worked tirelessly for reconciliation and good Anglo-German understanding. This is a truly compelling and heroic story. "The Keeper" is an excellent story of a footballer in a real historical setting but it is based on events in Bert's life. It is not a full or even accurate record of his life, very watchable as it is.
 
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