Jürgen Klinsmann
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
He was fairly good.
And the other one was also playing football.
One was a judoka.
So when any kind of stuff in the sports world was happening, they tried to support, they tried to come.
So he was definitely a huge influence.
But my dad was funny.
He originally was from East Germany.
And before the war came up, basically, he left his place with a friend of him, also a baker friend from his little town.
And then they went to the western side.
They moved around and he ended up in Stuttgart in the southwest area of Germany, which was occupied by the Americans.
And he got the official papers that he's allowed to stay there.
They met my mom and they settled there.
But because of the fact that
that he left home, he was never really accepted to where he went because in the dialect, they understood he was from the Eastern side.
Every time we went back as kids to visit his family, because we were only allowed from the West German side to go to the East German side to visit family.
They from East Germany were not allowed to come to West Germany.
So it only was a one way for the rest.
So every time we went back home to his place, you know, they made him feel like crap basically because you left us, you ran away.
So I saw that over years, we children saw this until obviously we were all thrilled when the wall came down and in 89, late 89.
But he, because of his experience leaving home, trying to find his way of life somewhere else, at one point, I maybe was 12 or 13 years old, I was constantly outside, like we all were playing football, you know, the afternoons were playing football for us.