Matthias Strauss

Matthias Strauss was born on 24 May 1956 in Frankfurt am Main in West Germany. He started playing basketball for Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1969 to 1970 season, while still a young teenager, and stayed with the club for five years before moving to the Bundesliga.

In 1975 Strauss joined MTV Giessen, the reigning German champions, and played six seasons for the club in the Basketball Bundesliga. Giessen won the championship in 1977 to 1978 and the German Cup in 1978 to 1979. Like most players of the era, who earned little from the sport, he also trained for a profession, completing an apprenticeship as a dental technician in Giessen in 1979.

In 1981 he moved to Berlin to join DTV Charlottenburg, newly promoted to the Bundesliga, and stayed until the end of his career in 1994. After staying up in its first season, the club became one of the strongest in the country. It reached the championship final in 1985, and again in 1991 as BG Charlottenburg and in 1992 as Alba Berlin, losing all three finals to Bayer 04 Leverkusen.

Strauss made his national team debut at the end of 1975 and went on to play 116 games for West Germany, captaining the team for many years. He played at the 1981 European Championship in Czechoslovakia, where Germany finished tenth, and at the 1983 European Championship in France, where they finished eighth.

After retiring he continued to play for fun in veterans' competitions, and in 2012 won the German over 55 championship with DBV Charlottenburg, beating Jahn Munchen 62 to 42 in the final.

Strauss qualified as a dentist after his training as a dental technician. In 1995 he and his colleague Michael Melerski founded a dental practice on the Hindenburgdamm in Berlin Lichterfelde, where he worked until 2025, announcing his retirement for early 2026.

Strauss died on 25 October 2026 after a serious illness, at the age of 70. The German Basketball Federation (DBB) announced his death the following day. Its president, Ingo Weiss, said the news hit the federation hard, that Strauss had worn the national shirt for years and led the team as captain with heart, dignity and tireless commitment, and that he was simply a very fine man. Funeral arrangements were not made public.

Strauss belonged to the generation that built the Bundesliga before basketball became a professional sport in Germany, combining top level play with a full working career. As a long serving national team captain and a key player in the rise of the Charlottenburg club that became Alba Berlin, he is remembered by the German Basketball Federation as an important figure in the history of the sport in Germany.