Death and Myth
Always refusing to leave his home country, Sindelar rejected to play for Germany after the Austrian state was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938 (Anschluss), citing old age or injury as his excuse.
On 23 January 1939 both Sindelar and his girlfriend Camilla Castagnola were found dead at the apartment they shared in Vienna; the official verdict cited carbon monoxide poisoning as the cause.
Austrian writer Friedrich Torberg later dedicated the poem "Auf den Tod eines Fußballers" ("On the death of a footballer") to Sindelar. The poem suggested that he had committed suicide as a result of the German Anschluss of Austria in 1938. On the other hand, it has been thought and reported that his death was accidental, caused by a defective chimney. However, in a 2000s documentary screened on the BBC, Egon Ulbrich, a lifelong friend of Sindelar, stated that a local official was bribed to record his death as an accident, which ensured that he would receive a state funeral. "According to the Nazi rules, a person who had been murdered or who has committed suicide cannot be given a grave of honour. So we had to do something to ensure that the criminal element involved in his death was removed," he stated.
Read more about this topic: Matthias Sindelar
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