Today’s laying of two stumbling stones for Jenö Konrad (and eight other victims of National Socialist injustice in Nuremberg) is in many respects exceptional. The initiative for this came from a project of the ninth class of the Sonderpädagogisches Förderzentrum Jean-Paul-Platz. In 2021, with their commemorative culture initiative, they won the Jenö Konrad Cup, a trophy which already bears the name of the man to be honoured. The artistic form of remembrance by means of “stumbling stones” is usually dedicated to those who, during the period of National Socialist rule from 1933 to 1945, were persecuted or murdered. However, Jenö Konrad, together with his wife and daughter, had already left Germany in 1932. Far-sighted, he had already perceived the impending disaster in August 1932. Twoyears earlier, when Konrad came to Nuremberg to work as Nuremberg Football Club’s trainer, the municipal stadium was no more than two years old. Although the stadium at the time was regarded as one of the most modern in the world, the “Club” continued to play in its own stadium in the “Zabo”.   

With today’s laying of a stumbling stone at Max Morlock Stadium, the past combines with the present and becomes a task for the future. Jenö Konrad left Nuremberg with the wish: “The club was number one. And it must be number one again.” The task also for us as a city is to provide the club with the appropriate framework here at its established home ground, in order to fulfil Konrad’s wish. 

My thanks go to the initiators and all those involved, especially the pupils from the Sonderpädagogisches Förderzentrum Jean-Paul-Platz, Mrs Fritsch and her team at Nuremberg Football Club, and the committed “Club” fans who, together with the club, have for years adopted an open stance to the darkest chapter in its and Nuremberg’s history. Finally, my thanks to Gunter Demnig for his decades of commemorative work for the victims of National Socialist rule. We encounter his work in our daily lives and it is thereby a constant exhortation to us to campaign tirelessly against discrimination and racism.