Germany coach Joachim Low and football federation officials have joined the widow of former Germany goalkeeper Robert Enke in a private ceremony at his tomb on Wednesday to mark the first anniversary of his death.
Enke, who was Hannover’s captain, suffered from depression and took his own life by stepping in front of a train on November 10, 2009.
From early morning, fans filed through a tent outside Hannover’s stadium to look at an exhibit of Enke memorabilia and write their thoughts in a “book of remembrance.”
The city of Hannover plans to name a street next to the stadium after Enke.
Low, federation president Theo Zwanziger, national manager Oliver Bierhoff and Hannover president Martin Kind joined Enke’s widow Teresa at the cemetery outside Hannover to pay respects to her late husband.
The German football federation (DFB) and Teresa Enke have established a foundation that seeks to make the public more aware of the illness that drove her husband to kill himself.
In a video message on the DFB website, Zwanziger paid tribute to Enke as “a strong national team goalkeeper, but he had a weakness.”
“We have got to be prepared not to make such a weakness into a taboo and allow it to be kept secret, but to try and bring it out of its silence,” Zwanziger said.
“The mourning, the pain and above all the question ‘why?’ continue to accompany us to this day. We have got to remember that that question still must be answered,” he said.
