As part of the "Film im Theater" season, the StattKino initiative is showing the film "Trautmann" in cooperation with the Idar-Oberstein Cultural Office on Friday, 16 January 2026, at 7.30 pm in the Stadttheater. It is the moving film biography by Marcus H. Rosenmüller about the goalkeeping legend Bert Trautmann, who was discovered as an English prisoner of war by a local soccer coach and went from enemy to hero. Landgasthof Böß will be serving "Football Cuisine" in the theater's banquet hall at 6.30 pm to match the meal. Registration is required for this event.
When the young Wehrmacht soldier Bert Trautmann is taken prisoner of war in England in 1944, he does not believe that his life still has much in store for him. But when he stands in goal in the prison yard during a soccer match, the coach of a local soccer team discovers his great potential. He takes him out of the prison camp and takes him in.
For the rest of the team and his host family, however, Trautmann is not a new friend. He is the enemy who was partly responsible for the deaths of so many people. Only through his outstanding performance in goal, his eagerness to work and his kindness can Trautmann gradually prove himself. When the manager of Manchester City makes Trautmann an offer, it is the start of an unprecedented career.
In the film, Marcus H. Rosenmüller has not only taken on the goalkeeping legend, who is still revered in England today, but also approaches the person behind him in a respectful and sensitive way. David Kross embodies Bert Trautmann with warmth and strength as a modest man who nevertheless stands up for what he wants. Trautmann is also driven by his inner war demons, which have led him to a great debt that he can hardly live with.
Rosenmüller and his screenwriter Nicholas J. Schofield also skillfully deal with the conflict of the immediate post-war period through their characters. All the hostility and suspicion towards the former enemy is reflected in the people Trautmann meets in England. In addition to all these aspects, Trautmann never loses his dry, tongue-in-cheek humor. The film conveys a warmth that goes straight to the heart, also in the wonderful music by Gerd Baumann, the precisely composed images by Daniel Gottschalk and the authentically equipped setting.
In 1956, Bert Trautmann was one of the first players ever to be named the best player in the English league and thus became a symbol of a new German-British friendship based on trust and respect and conveying a message of reconciliation and integration.
- Admission to the movie costs 4 euros. Admission is from 30 minutes before the start of the event, there is free seating. The movie including dinner costs 19 euros. Admission to the meal is from 6 pm. The Landgasthaus Böß accepts bookings up to eight days before the event at the latest, subject to availability, by emailing info@landgasthaus-boess.de. Dinner reservations cannot be returned or exchanged. Tickets and food can only be paid for on site at the box office. Further information can be found at www.idar-oberstein.de/stattkino.