Jimmy Hartwig

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William "Jimmy" Hartwig (b. October 5, 1954 in Offenbach) is a retired German soccer player. He played for Kickers Offenbach, TSV 1860 München, Hamburger SV, 1. FC Köln and FC Homburg of the Bundesliga and for Austria Salzburg of Austria. The son of an African-American soldier and a German mother was one of the first colored players in German and Austrian soccer.

Hartwig won the Europa Cup I in 1983 with Hamburger SV, and was three times German champion in 1979, 1982 und 1983 and triple vice champion with the Hanse club. He also earned 2 caps for the German national soccer team, making him the first non-white player to achieve this feat.

After his player career, Hartwig unsuccessfully worked as a coach at Sachsen Leipzig in 1990. He entered the TV business, where he has been working ever since.

[edit] Personal life

In his 1994 autobiography, Hartwig described his tough childhood in the city of Offenbach. He recounted a childhood full of poverty and anti-black racism, with only his mother as support; his biological father never took care of him. He {Jimmy?) married a German woman and had a child called Daniel Hartwig (an actor), and after divorcing her, he remarried and fathered a daughter.

In the 1990s, Hartwig's life deteriorated, as he became addicted to drugs and was often spotted in red-light districts.^{[citation needed]} After getting his act together, he suffered the next blow when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, but managed to defeat his illness. However, in 2007 he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.