The far-right terrorist who killed nine and injured six during an attack on Hanau once played football for a youth team coached by Jurgen Klopp.
Tobias Rathjen, 43, played in the youth section of Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt back in the 1980s, around the same time Klopp was managing there.
Rathjen, who killed his 72-year-old mother and then himself and the end of his gun rampage, revealed the link in a rambling online manifesto in which he also claimed Klopp was stealing his ideas to make himself a better coach.
Tobias Rathjen, the far-right terrorist who killed nine people in Hanau, played football for the youth team of Eintracht Frankfurt back in the 1980s, the team has confirmed
Eintracht Frankfurt confirmed on Friday that Rathjen had played for the youth team some time in the Eighties, but would not say if he had been coached by Klopp.
Klopp helped train the youth team in 1988, while he was playing for the senior team as a non-professional.
Rathjen was a keen an talented young footballer, according to a friend who spoke to German newspaper Bild, but was forced to give up the sport after an injury.
While playing for the team, Rathjen (pictued in 1996) claims to have met Jurgen Klopp, who he accused of stealing his ideas
‘A knee injury abruptly ended Tobias’s sporting career. That was a severe blow to him,’ a friend said.
Rathjen spoke about his time playing for Frankfurt in part of his rambling manifesto, saying only that he had played for the youth team between the ages of 10 and 15.
He boasted of playing at a high level and of having a good footballing knowledge, though did not say he left because of injury.
He goes on to claim that, starting in 2001, he devised a strategy for the German national team that he believed would lead to them winning another World Cup.
The strategy involved making Jürgen Klinsmann manager, before replacing him with Klopp after he had built up his experience at top-flight sides.
‘I knew Jürgen Klopp during the time as a youth player at Eintracht Frankfurt,’ Rathjen wrote.
However, Rathjen believes this plan was stolen from his brain by a secret service surveillance program that he believes was run by either the German or American governments.
Rathjen claims a plot to make Klopp the German national manager was stolen from his brain by a secret government agency, then fed back to the German Football Association
Rathjen shot nine people dead in attacks on two shisha bars in Hanau on Wednesday in an attack that police say was motivated by far-right ideas – including a belief in ethnic cleansing
He goes on to say that his thoughts were fed back to the German Football Association and informed the strategy that saw them lift the World Cup in 2014.
He adds that he also helped to come up with some of the ideas that informed Donald Trump’s political campaign and slogans, which were also stolen from his brain.
Rathjen’s now-deleted website, where the manifesto was originally published, revealed he was obsessed by conspiracy theories surrounding mind control, alien abduction, state surveillance programmes and ‘shadow governments’.
He also advocated various anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, as well as ethnic cleansing – wanting to wipe out various non-white groups.
The body of a man who was shot in a car is taken to a van at the crime scene at a bar in Hanau
German police officers guard the entrance of a bar where several people were killed late Wednesday in Hanau
A spokesman for Eintracht Frankfurt said: ‘We can confirm that Tobias R played in the Eintracht Frankfurt youth section for a few years in the 1980s.
‘The club has had no contact with Tobias R since then.
‘We would like to make clear that Eintracht Frankfurt does not wish to offer the alleged perpetrator a platform.
‘Eintracht Frankfurt clearly stands against any form of racism and extremism. Our thoughts are with the families and relatives of the victims and we wish all injured persons a speedy recovery.’