Hosts Germany survived the second-half loss of star goalkeeper Henning Fritz to beat Poland 29-24 and win their third-ever world championship title.
After allowing just 13 goals in a dominant first half, Fritz injured his foot just four minutes into the second period of play and was taken off of the court by team staff.
Trailing 20-14 when Fritz left the court, Poland let up a critical goal to mohawked German Pascal Hens, but then exploded on a 7-1 run to close the gap to 22-21 with replacement keeper Johannes Bitter struggling to stop anything.
What was more embarrassing about the Polish run was that the Germans lost their lead with a two-man advantage on the court after two Poles were sin-binned with consecutive penalties.
Once the Polish charge hit its crescendo, the largely German audience erupted to its feet to try and motivate the hosts back into a match where they had lost their most important player and seemed to have lost all confidence on both ends of the floor.
Germany responded with back-to-back strikes from Hens, who twice found the corner of the goal to put the hosts back up by three goals.
Gregorz Tkaczyk responded with a goal for Poland, but coach Heiner Brand called Christian Zeitz into the game with less than ten minutes to play and Germany only leading by two goals.
Zeitz's entry did the trick, as the 26-year-old Kiel player quickly drew a penalty.
Torsten Jansen easily converted the penalty shot - one of a game-leading eight goals on the night for the 30-year-old Hamburg star - then scored again to spark a 5-2 run to close out the match.
It was Germany's first world title since Brand's 1978 world championship team and their third-ever gold medal at worlds.
The Germans also won in 1938.
By winning the silver medal Poland claimed their best result since the 1982 bronze-medal winning side.
Earlier on Sunday Denmark thumped European champions France 34-27 to claim this year's bronze in Cologne.
