Leopold Stastny – Survivor of Nazi terror, legendary coach and founder of the school league

As manager, Leopold Stastny (Slovak spelling: Šťastný) led FC Wacker Innsbruck to the top of the National League from autumn 1965 onwards. Drawing on his expertise, he subsequently laid the foundations for Austrian football’s later successes as manager of the national team (1968–1975). In 1975, he founded the Schülerliga, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2025. Stastny was a star in his home city of Bratislava as both a player and a coach from the 1930s onwards. It remains almost unknown in Austria that, as a Jew, he survived the Nazi era only by sheer luck.

The exhibition, originally designed by the Museum of Jewish Culture in Bratislava, has now been re-curated in collaboration with Fairplay Prevention, the Innsbruck City Archives/City Museum and the Innsbruck Fan Initiative. It recounts Leopold Stastny’s eventful life, spanning Bratislava, Innsbruck, Vienna and Canada. It has been expanded to include display panels on Tyrolean football, focusing in particular on the ideological conflicts of the interwar period, as well as on Stastny’s time in Innsbruck and his tenure as team manager. QR codes provide access to clips from contemporary television reports about Stastny as well as recent interviews with his contemporaries.

Exhibition team

The exhibition ‘Leopold Stastny – Survivor of Nazi terror, legendary coach & founder of the school league’ was organised by the fairplay Initiative at the VIDC as part of the ‘fairplay prevention – Helpdesk against misanthropic ideologies’ project, in collaboration with Service Unit City Archives/City Museum and the Innsbruck Fan Initiative.

Curator of the original exhibition: Michal Vaněk

Authors of the original display panels: Tomáš Černák, Peter Bučka, Kevin Simpson, Michal Vaněk

Curators and authors of the expanded new version: Joachim Bürgschwentner, Niko Hofinger, Georg Spitaler

Production: Karim Reuß, Michael Schmied

Project manager: Kurt Wachter

Graphic design: Emanuel Tomasini

Printing: Kraus Werbetechnik

Videos: Filmkollektiv Innsbruck, fairplay prevention

Web design: Niko Hofinger

Proofreading: Esther Pirchner

Support programme and workshops: Bernd Kosta, Stefan Belabed

Educational programme: Nina Mayer

Public relations: Eva Baumgartner

English translation: Pascal Permann