Walther Bensemann

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Walther Bensemann (13 January 1873, Berlin, Germany – 14 November 1934, Montreux, Switzerland) was a German pioneer of football and founder of the country's major sports publication Kicker.

Bensemann was the son of a Jewish banker. During his time at private school in Montreux he learned about the new sport of football. When he moved to Karlsruhe in order to complete his school-leavers' exam, he began to spread the sport around Germany.

There, in September 1889, he founded the International Football Club, the first football club in Southern Germany, and two years later he was instrumental in the founding of Karlsruher FV, one of the first champion clubs in Germany. He was also involved in the creation of Karlsruher Kickers. In 1900 he belonged to the founding-fathers of the German Football Association, the DFB.

Bensemann thought of football as a means of international understanding, so he started to organize international matches such as the ones between selections of Lausanne and southern Germany in 1893. Consequentially this also led to the five historical matches between selections from and Germany England between 1899 and 1901, which albeit not having any official status, are considered the historically first international matches of any German natuional side.

In 1920 Bensemann founded the Kicker, which evolved soon to Germany's leading football magazine, a status which it retains unassailedly until today.

In 1933 political events in Germany compelled Benseman to move to Switzerland where he died soon, relatively unnoticed and without means.