Ernest Otton Wilimowski (German: Ernst Otto Wilimowski, born Ernst Otto Prandella; 23 June 1916 – 30 August 1997), nicknamed "Ezi", was a footballer who played as a forward. He ranks among the best goalscorers in the history of both the Poland national team and Polish club football. After re-taking German citizenship following the invasion of Poland, he also played for the Germany national team.

Wilimowski was the first player to score four goals in a single FIFA World Cup game. According to RSSSF, Wilimowski scored over 1077 total goals in at least 688 total matches, making him the 14th greatest goalscorer of all time.^[1] He is the most prolific goalscorer in official matches in one season in recorded history according to RSSSF, with 107 goals scored in 45 matches.^[2]

Wilimowski also occasionally played ice hockey for the team Pogoń Katowice.

Born in Kattowitz (Katowice), Prussian Silesia, German Empire, Wilimowski was raised in a Silesian family, typical of the Upper Silesian Polish-German borderland. After eastern Upper Silesia became part of Poland in 1922, he became a citizen of the Second Polish Republic.

His parents, Ernst-Roman and Paulina, were German. His father, a soldier for the German Empire, died on the Western Front in the First World War. His mother sent him to a German kindergarten, a German primary school^[3] and, when he was nine years old, to the German football team 1. FC Kattowitz. At the age of 13, he was legally adopted by his stepfather, who was Polish,^[4] and took on the surname Wilimowski. At home, he spoke German for the most part, while in public he often spoke a Silesian dialect of the Polish language. Officially a citizen of Poland, he referred to himself as an Upper Silesian ("Górnoślązak" - Oberschlesier).

After the invasion and occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany, Wilimowski as Volksdeutscher re-took German citizenship, like the majority of the inhabitants of the Eastern part of Upper Silesia, among them all the players of the Poland national team coming from this region. It allowed them to continue their football careers as Poles were not permitted to participate in sports under the Nazi occupation. In the early days of the war Wilimowski had to hide from the Nazis because of the enmity of a local Kreisleiter (county leader) of the NSDAP named Georg Joschke who held against Wilimowski the 1933 transfer from the ethnically-German club 1. FC Kattowitz to the Polish Ruch Chorzów.^[5] Allegedly, Joschke threatened that Wilimowski would have to wear the letter "P" (for Pole) on his clothes. This never happened, as Wilimowski was too good a player and well appreciated by other German football officials. However, his mother Paulina, was placed in Auschwitz concentration camp, which she survived. Wilimowski's mother was incarcerated because she got engaged in an intimate relationship with a Russian Jew, which was regarded as Rassenschande in Nazi Germany. Ernst, who in later stages of the war became friends with legendary pilot Hermann Graf, managed to save her, with Graf's help.^[5]

For propaganda purposes, Nazi sports officials made 1. FC Kattowitz a model side representative of the German Upper Silesia. The region's best players were assigned to the team and besides Wilimowski included Erwin Nyc, Ewald Dytko and Paweł Cyganek. "Ezi" played there until February 1940, before moving on to Chemnitz, where he took up a job as a policeman while playing for the local team Polizei-Sportverein Chemnitz (1940–1942).

Through the course of the war, he also played for TSV 1860 Munich (1942–1944), where he was a member of the Tschammerpokal (German Cup) winning side of 1942. In the final game of the 1942 German Cup, at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, the Munich side won 2–0, with the first goal scored by Wilimowski. In the final years of the war, Wilimowski became a soldier of the Wehrmacht, but he was allowed to play in army football teams, f.e. LSV Mölders in German-occupied Kraków.^[6]

After the war, Wilimowski, who was regarded by the Polish government as a traitor, was not allowed to visit his Silesian homeland during the Communist regime.^[8] He was with SG Chemnitz-West in 1946-47 and had a short spell with RC Strasbourg in 1949.^[9] After that, he settled in the Karlsruhe area, opening a restaurant there. Even though he was already in his 30s when organized playing resumed, he continued a career that lasted until 1959 and age 43. During this period he played for, or had talks with, several German club teams including TSV Detmold (in between seasons, no league appearances), FV Offenburg (as a player-coach), BC Augsburg for a short spell in the autumn of 1948, Singen 04, where he had a good comeback scoring 16 Oberliga goals in 1950-51, and VfR Kaiserslautern (including 70 goals in 89 Oberliga Südwest appearances for the latter, all scored when he was over 35 years old). After retiring, together with wife, Wilimowski for a while ran a restaurant, then worked in a Pfaff sewing machine factory, to retire in 1978.^[5]

At the 1974 FIFA World Cup in Germany, Wilimowski allegedly wanted to pay a visit to the Poland national team that stayed in Murrhardt near Stuttgart, but was refused permission by PZPN officials. In 1995, he was invited by Ruch Chorzów to come to Upper Silesia and celebrate club's 75th anniversary. Wilimowski, according to his oldest daughter, Sylvia Haarke, wanted to come to Poland, saying that had it not been for the war, he would never have left Katowice. However, his wife Klara (née Mehne) was sick then and he had to stay with her. Wilimowski died in Karlsruhe, Germany, leaving behind four children - three daughters (Sylvia, Sigrid and Ulle) and a son, Rainer.

Sylvia Haarke who lives in Hamburg, and in May 2007 visited Tarnowskie Góry with her husband Karl-Heinz Haarke (author of Wilimowski's biography), presented some interesting facts about her father. She said that Wilimowski was a devout Roman Catholic, always emphasizing the role of religion in his life. After the famous Poland v Brazil (1938) game, Brazilian officials wanted to acquire his services. Wilimowski had signed a preliminary contract, but it did not work out. According to Haarke, one of her father's biggest disappointments was not having been a member of the German team which won the 1954 FIFA World Cup.

Legendary coach of the Poland national team, Kazimierz Górski, met Wilimowski at a hotel in Murrhardt during the World Championship in Germany in 1974. Gorski immediately recognized Ezi, because in the interbellum period, Wilimowski was one of his idols. Whenever Ruch Chorzow came to play in Lwów (now Lviv), Gorski always attended the games, watching Wilimowski. However, being observed by an agent of the Polish secret police SB, the Polish coach greeted his idol very coldly: Mr Wilimowski, if you had not done anything wrong, perhaps you should have come back to Poland, and explain your behavior, cleanse yourself of all charges - said Górski. I was afraid - answered Wilimowski.^[10]

• Karl-Heinz Harke, Georg Kachel; Fußball – Sport ohne Grenzen. Die Lebensgeschichte des Fußball-Altnationalspielers Ernst Willimowski., Dülmen, Laumann-Verlag 1996, ISBN 3-87466-259-4
• Thomas Urban: Schwarze Adler, weiße Adler. Deutsche und polnische Fußballer im Räderwerk der Politik. Göttingen 2011, pp. 28–48.

• List of men's footballers with 500 or more goals