German national soccer goalkeeper Robert Enke. Photo / AP Expand

German national soccer goalkeeper Robert Enke. Photo / AP

HANNOVER - The German goalkeeper who was struck and killed by a train left a suicide note, police said, and Robert Enke's widow says he had been suffering from depression.

Speaking at a news conference called by his club, Teresa Enke said her 32-year-old husband was afraid their adopted daughter would be taken away from the family if his illness became public knowledge. The couple's biological daughter died three years ago from a heart problem she had from birth when she was 2.

"I tried to be there for him," Teresa Enke said, choking back tears. "When he was acutely depressive, it was a difficult time. We thought we'd manage everything. We thought with love, we could do it. But you can't."

Mrs. Enke said her husband had been afraid that he would lose "his sport, our private life," if his illness had become known. In May, the couple adopted a girl who is now eight months old.

Enke died Tuesday evening when he threw himself before a train near his Hannover home. Police said Wednesday they had found a suicide note, with no indications the death was anything but a suicide.

Valentin Markser, a doctor who treated Enke, said the goalkeeper first sought treatment in 2003, when he lost his starting place at Barcelona and developed anxieties and fear of failure.

Enke again sought treatment in early October, after developing a mysterious illness. Doctors took several weeks to determine that he had been suffering from a bacterial intestinal infection.

In a suicide note, Enke apologized to his family and the staff treating him for deliberately misleading them into believing he was better, "which was necessary in order to carry out the suicide plans," Markser said.

"Despite daily treatment, we did not succeed in preventing his suicide," the doctor said.

Enke had declined to stay at a clinic, Markser said.

Enke, who had a good chance of being Germany's top goalkeeper at next year's World Cup in South Africa, is the second Germany player known to have suffered from depression. Talented Bayern Munich midfielder Sebastian Deisler quit football in January 2007 after several bouts of depression and five knee operations.

"I can assure you - we owe Robert Enke that - German football will use all its capabilities to find an answer to the question of how a young athlete celebrated by so many as an idol could land in such a situation," German football federation president Theo Zwanziger said at a news conference in Bonn.