The shock turned to mourning on Sunday as tens of thousands of fans gathered in a football stadium in Hanover for the funeral of goalkeeper Robert Enke. Many of those attending the memorial service wept openly for the footballer whose suicide has shaken Germany.

"Robert Enke will never again come to this stadium, the place where he conquered our hearts," Martin Kind, president of the Hanover 96 club, told the crowd of over 45,000. The fans sat silently in the huge stadium, paying their respects to the 32-year-old soccer star who threw himself in front of a train on Tuesday.

"Last Sunday we saw Robert Enke play here, now he is no longer with us," said Christian Wulff, the governor of the state of Lower Saxony.

Enke's coffin was covered in white roses and placed in the center of the pitch. Many fans wore black and wore the club's green, white and black scarf. As Enke's wife Teresa walked up to the coffin, the crowd stood and applauded. Several members of the German national team approached Enke's coffin to bid their teammate farewell. Enke had been set to travel to South Africa next year with the German squad to play in the 2010 World Cup.

Secret Condition

The day after he took his own life, his wife told a press conference that Enke had been suffering for depression for years. His death has prompted a debate in Germany about the pressure that professional players are under. His wife said that he had kept his condition secret from the public because he feared losing his place on the national team. He was also worried that the couple might lose their eight-month-old daughter Leila, whom they adopted after their two-year-old daughter Lara died in 2006 after being born with a serious heart defect.

Enke's father told SPIEGEL that his son had suffered for a long time. "I think that his disease did not arise from something inside of him, but was triggered by his life's circumstances," said Dirk Enke, a psychotherapist who tried to get his son to open up to him about his depression. Enke revealed that his son had been more affected by his daughter's death than many realized. Although the hospital staff told him there was nothing he could have done, Dirk Enke says his son felt that he had failed. "It took him a very long time to get away from that."

Enke had suffered some setbacks in a career that started with great promise with his debut as keeper for Borussia Mönchengladbach at the age of 22. Following a period at Benefica Lisbon, his stints at Barcelona and Fenerbahce Istanbul were not particularly successful, but after signing with Hannover 96 in 2004 his career seemed to be back on track.

'Doubts and Weaknesses'

German Football Federation (DFB) President Theo Zwanziger, speaking at Sunday's ceremony, appealed to fans to have more understanding for the pressures soccer players face. "Football must not be everything in life," he said. "Think not only of glory. Think about what is in a person, about doubts and weaknesses."