A fate worse than death awaited Fritz Walter, before football intervened.

Walter, a member of the paratrooper regiment of the Nazi Army during the Second World War, was captured by the Soviet forces in 1945.

He was amongst 40,000 prisoners of war, set to be sent to the Siberian gulags as human fodder—to work under minus 40 degrees Celsius with no protection against the environment and minimal nourishment, till he drops dead.

According to estimates, around 1.2 million Germans died in the Icy Siberian mountains during the Second World War. Walter was set to be a part of that statistic till football and a Hungarian intervened.

He was held up in a camp in Maramures, Romania alongside other prisoners, waiting to be shipped to Siberia.

In the camp, Soviet and Hungarian guards would play football to pass the time. One random day, Walter joined them in a friendly game, and that decision saved his life.

As soon as the German stepped onto the field, it was obvious that he was head and shoulders above the rest. Even with a war-torn physique and the imminent doom hovering over him, with the ball under his feet, Walter had transported to a different time in his life, when he was not a nameless pawn in the Nazi war machine, but the brightest football prospect in all of Germany.

During the Second World War, the Nazi Party would try to project a sense of normalcy by staging football matches against Axis members and occupied nations. It would call up players from the barracks to play games and in one such match in 1940, Walter debuted for Germany.

He announced his arrival with a hat-trick of goals and assists against Romania. Walter featured in 23 wartime games, which continued until 1942.

In one such match against Hungary in Budapest on May 3, 1942, the Germans were trailing 3-1 at halftime, staring at a defeat which would not go down well with their superiors.

But the Germans turned things around in the second half, and won the contest 5-3, with Walter leading the fightback with two goals.

It’s uncertain how much impact that come-from-behind win left in Walter’s mind. Chances are, he was perhaps relieved to avoid defeat and avoid the scrutiny of the Nazi top brass.

But his two goals left a permanent imprint on the mind of one Hungarian football fan, who just happened to be a guard at the same camp where Walter was held up in Romania.

Seeing Walter prancing around the pitch, the memory of that match came rushing back to the guard.

“I know you,” he told Walter. “Germany v Hungary, you won 5-3.”

What happened next is a bit unclear. According to some, the Hungarian guard convinced his superiors that Walter was, in fact, from Austria. Some others say that the guard told his superiors that Walter belonged to Saarland, a French Protectorate, not Germany.

Whatever he had said or did, the outcome was that Walter’s name got dropped from the list for the gulags.

Walter avoiding the Siberian gulags was a miracle, conspired through football and a kind Hungarian guard.

Nine years later, Walter would be involved in another miracle, ‘The Miracle of Bern ’, when, under his leadership, West Germany would pull off perhaps the biggest ever upset in a World Cup final, ironically, against Hungary.

Hungary’s ‘Magical Magyars’ headed into the final with a 30-match unbeaten streak – a historic run which included an 8-3 win over West Germany in the group stage.

The margin of win could’ve been much greater had Ferenc Puskas – the best player on the planet at the time – not left the field injured at the start of the second half.

But Puskas was fit and ready to seize the moment in the final for Hungary.

The writing seemed to be on the wall for West Germany, as Puskas and Zoltan Czibor struck the net once each to make it 2-0 for Hungary inside eight minutes.

This should have been the beginning of the Hungarian onslaught, but instead, it ignited West Germany’s fightback.

The final was played under heavy rain, on a muddy surface – hardly ideal conditions for football. But Walter didn’t mind, as he was actually renowned in Germany for playing his best football in wet conditions.

Under ‘Fritz Walter weather’ he marshalled his team from the midfield and just two minutes after the Hungarian goals, Maximilian Morlock halved the margin with a header and eight minutes later, Helmut Rahn levelled the scores.

Even in trying conditions, the Hungarians were the superior side on the pitch, hitting the woodwork multiple times, testing the German keeper Toni Turek repeatedly but never getting that decisive goal.

It seemed that fate had already decided who will be the victors, and no matter how much the Hungarians tried, it didn’t matter.

With six minutes left on the clock, Rahn found himself in the penalty box with some space and launched a low shot with his right foot which went past Hungary's Gyula Grosics and hit the net.

Hungary threw all its might to equalise and almost did two minutes later when Puskas found the back of the net, but the referee ruled it offside.

Finally, the referee blew the final whistle, and with it, Walter’s West Germany became world champions.

Walter – a man who was condemned to death but saved by a Hungarian guard – shattered the dreams of Hungary to lift the Jules Rimet Trophy for West Germany – irony of the most exquisite kind.