Unsuccessful theft?
Statue of German World Cup heroes sawed
04.10.2025 – 7:39 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
In 1954 Helmut Rahn shot Germany to the World Cup title. Unknowns now apparently wanted to steal a statue of him. Rahn’s ex-club and his family react.
Trouble on Hafenstraße in Essen: Unknowns have apparently tried to steal the bronze statue of the German World Cup hero Helmut Rahn. The “WAZ” reports. The sculpture at the stadium of third division Rot-Weiss Essen therefore has clear saw and flexible tracks on the legs.
Vandalism had already noticed on Friday, the report said. The club is said to have filed a complaint with the police on the same day against unknown. RWE press spokesman Henrik Lerch clearly: “The fact that someone damages the sculpture of a football legend to steal it is a difficult to expect.”
The family is also horrified. Uwe Rahn, son of the striker, who died in 2003, told the “WAZ”: “I’m just on vacation and received photos. I hope that the crime will be informed.” The repair of the damage will “certainly be very complex.”
Helmut Rahn was born in Essen in 1929, played for RWE between 1951 and 1959. He became world champion with the German national team in 1954. In the final in Bern against Hungary (3-2), Rahn initially equalized for his team in the first half and shot the DFB selection a few minutes before the end of the game with a distance goal for the first World Cup title in German history.
The statue on Hafenstrasse is the work of the sculptor Inka Uzoma. It was first unveiled in 2004, initially at the Georg Melches Stadium. Six years later she came to an exhibition in the Henrichshütte industrial museum in Hattingen. Since 2014 it has been located at its current location, in front of the entrance to the standing grandstand of the west curve of the stadium on Hafenstrasse. The place where it stands is called Helmut-Rahn-Platz since October 2018.