“Everyone knew him”
Memory of Nagelsmann’s father: Confidant struggles with tears
Updated May 29, 2026 – 3:42 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
Julian Nagelsmann suffered a severe blow of fate early in his life. This had a lasting influence on his development and his environment.
Julian Nagelsmann already had to cope with a drastic experience at the age of 20. He was informed about his father’s suicide during a coaching course in 2007.
It was also a heavy blow for Alexander Schmidt. He trained Julian Nagelsmann in his youth, was friends with his father and enabled the current national coach to take his first steps into coaching.
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When he was asked about it in the t-online podcast “Julian Nagelsmann – The Youngest One”, his eyes glazed over. He struggles for the right words. “That was very difficult. For everyone. It was a shock for the entire youth department because everyone knew him.”
- Julian Nagelsmann: This is the brother of the DFB coach
But what very few people knew at the time was that Julian Nagelsmann’s father worked for the German secret service, the Federal Intelligence Service (BND). The current DFB coach said this in a “Spiegel” interview in 2024 and said that his father let him in on the family secret about his job relatively early on. Nagelsmann says that he noticed the professional pressure on his father and that it had put a lot of strain on him that he had not been able to share professional concerns.
Nagelsmann supports his mother on all levels
In the “Spiegel” interview he also reported that his father had not left a farewell letter. “But the way he took his life made it clear that his decision was absolutely made for him. It feels really bad for the family, but it helped me to know that he really wanted to die and it wasn’t about a cry for help or a signal.” Therefore, such a decision must be respected.
As early as 2018, he said in the “Bild” podcast “Phrasenmäher” that together with his mother and his two siblings they had “a super intact family” that “had great vacations and a lot of other things together.” Therefore, “the worst moment was when I hugged my two siblings and my mother. That was the first time I really cried.”
