The Frankfurt Waldstadion is 100 years old. The place has long been more than a stadium, it is a pilgrimage where people find what they are looking for: cohesion, liveliness, memories.
You don’t forget for the first time. I climbed out of my uncle’s car, my heart full of anticipation, we were already part of a stream of people who pulled it through the forest like magnetically. Behind the trees, a thousand noises, smells, an evening as a hidden object, flags, jerseys, jerseys, chants, the smoke blew from the grills. Eintracht Frankfurt would play against Waldhof Mannheim in the cup, in 1992, and in front of me the Waldstadion appeared as if it were rising out of the ground, and at that moment manifest it from my childish imagination. We went through the goals, every step a pulse strike, and when we stepped up the steps and I looked at a football stadium for the first time, it happened: I would love this sport forever.
Documentary about the Waldstadion
The HR shows a documentary with the title “In the heart of Europe – 100 years of Waldstadion Frankfurt” on Wednesday at 9 p.m. In it, HR reporter Florian Naß tells the history of the stadium from completion in 1925 to the 100th birthday on May 21, 2025. Mayor Mike Josef (SPD) and Axel Hellmann, board spokesman for Eintracht Frankfurt, have their say. The documentation can also be seen in the ARD media library.
This memory feels so exclusive, so personally, but everyone who keeps it with Eintracht Frankfurt has their own variant of this moment. The Waldstadion is now old 100 years old, opened four times on May 21, 1925, always remained the same, central, mystical place. How many people did the steps once went up for the first time and came down 90 minutes later than other people, moving life in a different direction forever, bound to this sport without rescue?
What did this stadium see?
210 meters long, 190 meters wide, an area of 110,000 square meters, 44 supports that carry a roof of 3,000 tons – that sounds so banal, so technically and inadequate, but it is the opposite. Because what did this stadium see? All the triumphs and tragedies, miracles and scandals. A 6: 1 against Glasgow 1960, Bernd Hölzenbein’s goal while sitting and Fred Schaub’s goal for the Uefa Cup victory in 1980, the bittersweet cheers of Jürgen Grabowski, now in the stadium himself immortalized with his own grandstand.
In the middle it is Jan Aage Fjörtoft, who sets the excessive, Alex Schur, who goes to the header against Reutlingen, a few years later, the Waldstadion construction site in the background. Champions League and audience records among the Eintracht soccer players, a transformation of the men that is not considered possible. The stadium, the stories that the sport writes there and the people who see them – in this triangle there is not only the history of a place, the nature of a club, magic arises.
A place that becomes alive through people
In the forest, Eintracht plays … it says in a song, but not only. The stadium has experienced boxing matches, legendary international matches, the water battle in 1974, the leak in the roof in the roof 2005, football, ice hockey, bike race, FSV Frankfurt, which loses the final for the German championship in 1925, in the first sold out game in the history of the stadium, two weeks after the opening. The stadium is a museum for itself, the memories of the people are the exhibits. Walkable, tangible history, continued and continued, every week.
Just through the people who are pilgrimage there, follow the electricity, behind the trees the magical glow that now shimmers red when the harmony plays. A place that comes to life through these people. At the same time a place where people feel that they live. All the emotion, the passion, all these moments naked, pure existence, these precious, weightless seconds, when this or that player runs alone, the game ends in a few seconds, this one, last, damn corner. Hope, fear, fall into your arms or not: the Waldstadion is a place that makes all other places disappear, you are there and look there. Nothing else is important, the time goes by for 90 minutes only here, and even if that is not true, it is so.
A little magic
What has something comforting: In the forest, the one is playing, it has been playing for 100 years and maybe, maybe in 100 years, if you are no longer and the world is different. Certainly again in a few weeks, and then again and again, so you spend your life there, a place as a constant, a piece of a home.
Even today, the first look at the Waldstadion has remained a magical moment. A thousand noises, flags, jerseys, chants, part of an hidden object to be part of an hidden object, the heart full of anticipation on what comes: triumph, tragedies, miracles and scandals. Or just a game, 90 minutes with friends, cohesion. A little magic, either way.
