Austrian Gymnastics Federation

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Logo of the ÖTB

The Austrian Gymnastics Association (ÖTB) sees itself as the umbrella organization of those Austrian gymnastics clubs that recognize the statutes and guiding principles of the ÖTB and build on the timeless foundations of gymnastics according to Friedrich Ludwig Jahn . The orientation towards Jahn is criticized by political scientists and organizations. The ÖTB is a member of the ASVÖ . Most of the ÖTB member clubs belong to the Austrian Association for Gymnastics (ÖFT). According to its own statements, the ÖTB has around 60,000 members and 8,000 volunteers throughout Austria.

history

Gymnastics father Jahn

Historically, gymnastics was founded in Germany in 1807 by "Turnvater Jahn", Friedrich Ludwig Jahn. For him, gymnastics was primarily physical education, which Jahn and his students taught and lived from 1811 as a patriotic education in preparation for the wars of liberation . The Jahnsche Gymnastics is still regarded as the basis for a variety of efforts to physical education, but not his political views.

Austria

The first gymnastics clubs in Austria were established in Salzburg , Bregenz , Dornbirn , Innsbruck in 1845 and in 1848 in Ried im Innkreis and the university gymnasium in Vienna . Many of these clubs have been banned again and again in the course of neo-absolutism .

The decree of the October diploma in 1860 brought more civil liberties to Austria, and associations were now allowed. In July 1862 there were 25 gymnastics clubs in Austria, 76 in October 1863 and 104 gymnastics clubs in 1869. Since 1868 these clubs have merged to form the district association of gymnastics clubs in German Austria , which in the same year became the 15th gymnastics group to join the German gymnastics association.

In 1889 there was a split for political reasons, and the German Gymnastics Federation was created in 1889 as the predecessor of today's Gymnastics Federation. In 1893, the German Workers' Gymnastics and Sports Association (now ASKÖ ) separated, which in 1913 became a sub-organization of the Social Democratic Party (now SPÖ ). Another split occurred in 1911, when the German-Volkische Verband alldeutscher Turnvereine Arndt separated from the Deutscher Turnerbund in 1889 . In the same year, the Christian German Gymnastics Association (today Sports Union ) was founded. All of these splits had political and ideological causes. The Turnerbund also had two gymnastics circles in Germany.

Interwar period

After the First World War , some of these associations reunited on September 2, 1919 to form the German Gymnastics Federation 1919 . In 1932, 825 clubs belonged to this gymnastics federation. Due to the Aryan paragraph , Jews, members of non-German peoples and organized workers were excluded from membership of the association. This association also had two gymnastics circles in Germany with Saxony and Lower Saxony . In 1933 there were efforts to enforce the German Gymnastics Federation as the unified sports movement in the Reich, but the NSDAP decided in favor of state sports based on the fascist model of Italy. The Austrian NSDAP was very successful in infiltrating existing organizations or in creating unsuspicious front organizations. The Turnerbund was the most important apron organization of the Austrian National Socialists and had the largest number of members. The NSDAP occupied a dominant position in the gymnastics union. The Turnerbund 1919 saw itself on the best way to become the main fighting formation of the National Socialists . In 1933 64 clubs of the Gymnastics Federation were dissolved because of camouflaged National Socialist activities, Gauturn festivals and gymnastics were generally prohibited, as was the wearing of the swastika- like association badge (hence the name Swastika gymnast ). During the unsuccessful July putsch in 1934, in which Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss was murdered, the putschists, many of them members of the Turnerbund, gathered in the Turnerbundhalle Siebensterngasse in Vienna- Neubau , where they were equipped with weapons and uniforms.

The Reichsdietwart of the German Gymnastics Association, Kurt Münch, wrote in 1935 about the Gymnastics Federation:

"As always for the völkisch-political movement up to 1918, they provided well-known pioneers for the freedom movement of the Third Reich and their clubs consistently served as camouflage for the organizations of the National Socialist Party in bad times."

In the National Socialist German Reich

On the night before the German Wehrmacht marched in on March 12, 1938, all important public buildings in Vienna were occupied by the Austrian SS , SA and Turnerbündler.

After Austria was "annexed " to the German Reich , the "German Gymnastics Federation 1919" was ceremoniously incorporated into the German Reich Association for Physical Exercise in May 1938 , which meant that its independence became extinct. The Turnerbund stated:

“We stood ... as part of the movement in the service of National Socialist education. Many leading men of the party and its branches emerged from the political physical education of our associations ... We will give our commitment in the same spirit, with the same willingness to make sacrifices as in the years in which we were champions of the National Socialist movement. "

According to the ÖTB, none of the leadership of the Turnerbund had made a party career in the NSDAP. The Gaudietwart Karl Konrad Bauer played a leading role in the Aryanization of publishers. Even in proceedings against National Socialist lawyers after the war, it was found that most of the accused had already been members of German national mass organizations such as the German Gymnastics Federation in 1919 before the Anschluss .

Post-war period and re-establishment

After the end of the war, the clubs of the former German Gymnastics Federation were banned on October 26, 1946 , dissolved and their assets confiscated in favor of the Republic of Austria. The assets were transferred to the federal states under the condition that they would only be used for gymnastics purposes.

The so-called "Committee of Seven" began in 1948 to look for real estate (gyms and places) that had been confiscated. After numerous gymnastics clubs had been re-established since 1949, Hermann Seidel drafted the statutes for an umbrella organization, which were approved on May 8, 1952. On July 6, 1952, the founding meeting took place in Pollheim Castle in Wels . The seat of the now Austrian Gymnastics Federation (ÖTB) is Linz .

According to its own information, the ÖTB had 228 clubs with around 57,000 members in 1994.

Goals and principles of the ÖTB

According to the statutes, the purpose of the gymnastics association is to maintain, improve and promote public health through gymnastics founded by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn . Jahnsches gymnastics wants to educate the body, mind and soul.

The goals are physical exercises on the broadest basis up to top performance that is justifiable in terms of health, as well as the promotion of musical activities and local customs . As far as possible, all people (gifted and less talented) should be involved. The individual person should not devote himself to individual branches, but should develop himself in all types of physical exercise, should do apparatus gymnastics, athletics, swimming, hiking and other things.

In contrast to the two other umbrella organizations in Austria, Sportunion and ASKÖ, gymnastics for money and value prizes is rejected in the ÖTB. Only oak wreaths and broken oaks are awarded as prizes in sporting competitions. The officials and the pre-gymnastics team also work voluntarily and free of charge. Direct intervention by sponsors on the clubs is also rejected, and inscriptions by sponsor companies on gym clothing, for example, are prohibited. The guiding principles of the association since 1996 emphasize, among other things: the cultivation of comradeship , the education of the members to people who are conscious of their home, the people and the state , and the commitment to ancestral nationality, the prerequisite for preserving the diversity of the ethnic groups in Austria . He stands up for the preservation, care and promotion of the German nationality and the traditional local customs.

According to the statutes, the ÖTB also advocates basic human rights and freedoms as well as a democratic constitution and the freedom, independence and indivisibility of the Republic of Austria . Party-political efforts are excluded within the ÖTB according to the statutes. The association's activities are therefore free of party politics and independent of creeds. However, a number of FPÖ politicians also hold leadership positions in the ÖTB, but also some politicians from other parties are members and functionaries.

The symbol for the ÖTB is the 4 F , which were first used in 1846 and arranged in a cross , they stand for the motto "fresh, pious, happy, free" . Turnergruss has been "Gut Heil" since 1817 .

criticism

According to the documentation archive of the Austrian resistance , "the ÖTB is not a sports organization according to its self-image, but claims a comprehensive 'education and training claim of a national-conscious völkisch club' ', referring to the gymnastics father Friedrich Ludwig Jahn and his chauvinistic-German-national anti-clerical and anti-Semitic ideas. "

Furthermore, the ÖTB is seen as a "preliminary organization of the FPÖ" , since numerous FPÖ politicians hold leadership positions in the ÖTB at the same time as their political activities and, as part of the German national milieu, is an important recruiting base for the FPÖ.

One of the early members of the newly founded Turnerbund was Joseph Hieß , who had already joined the Austrian NSDAP in 1923 and had made a career in the party as a propaganda speaker and, from 1940, "Gau manager" of the "Grenzlandamt". After he was released from the camp in Glasenbach, where the Allies imprisoned National Socialists and war criminals, he became the “ Federal Diet warden ” of the ÖTB. He was also the founder of the Dichterstein Offenhausen Association , which was dissolved by the Austrian federal authorities in 1999 due to re-activism .

1980 ended a process that concerned the content of the national gymnastics newspaper. The Regional Court for Criminal Matters Vienna confirmed the "neo-fascist" and "anti-Semitic" spelling accused of the Turnzeitung as well as the "downright penetrating propaganda in the sense of National Socialism" in "almost literal consonance with Goebbels" . As a result, the ÖTB separated from its editor.

Individual evidence

  1. Contact / Imprint - Austrian Gymnastics Federation. In: oetb.at. Retrieved May 26, 2019 .
  2. ^ ÖTB - Austrian Gymnastics Federation. on voluntigenweb.at
  3. ^ R. Krammer: The gymnastics and sports movement. In: Erika Weinzierl , Kurt Skalnik (ed.): Austria 1918–1938. History of the First Republic . Verlag Styria, Graz / Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-222-11456-0 , pp. 731-743, here p. 734.
  4. Arnd Krüger : "Today is Germany and tomorrow ..."? The struggle for the sense of conformity in sport in the first half of 1933. In: Wolfgang Buss , Arnd Krüger (Hrsg.): Sportgeschichte. Maintaining tradition and changing values. Festschrift for the 75th birthday of Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Henze. ( = Series of publications by the Lower Saxony Institute for Sports History , Volume 2) Mecke, Duderstadt 1985, ISBN 3-923453-03-5 , pp. 175–196.
  5. Ludwig Jedlicka, Rudolf Neck (ed.): The July Agreement of 1936. Prehistory, background and consequences. Protocol of the symposium in Vienna on June 10 and 11, 1976. Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, Vienna 1977, ISBN 3-486-44641-X , p. 180.
  6. Circular of the Federal Gymnastics Committee of the DTB from September 25, 1927
  7. ^ Andreas Luth: The German Gymnastics Association in the First Czechoslovak Republic. From folk club operations to popular political movement. Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-486-58135-X , p. 222.
  8. ^ Gerhard Jagschitz : The putsch. The National Socialists in Austria in 1934. Styria, Graz 1976, ISBN 3-222-10884-6 , pp. 101ff.
    Heinrich Drimmel : From the murder of the Chancellor to the Anschluss. Austria 1934–1938. Amalthea, Vienna 1987, ISBN 3-85002-241-2 , p. 159.
  9. Kurt Münch: German studies about people, state, physical exercises. Wilhelm Limpert Verlag, Berlin 1935
  10. ^ Andreas Luth: The German Gymnastics Association in the First Czechoslovak Republic. From folk club operations to popular political movement. Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-486-58135-X , p. 223.
  11. ^ New Austria of July 10, 1960
  12. Wolfgang Stadler: I cannot be captured legally. The proceedings of the People's Court of Vienna against judges and public prosecutors 1945–1955. Verlag Lit, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-7000-0512-1 , p. 156.
  13. ^ Verena Pawlowsky: Property deprivation by the standstill commissioner for clubs, organizations and associations and aspects of restitution in Austria after 1945. Oldenbourg publishing house, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-7029-0498-0 , p. 121.
  14. a b Mission statement: The ten principles of the ÖTB
  15. DÖW: "ÖTB receives subsidy"
  16. ^ Anton Pelinka : The FPÖ in the comparative party research , in the Austrian journal for political science , edition 31/2002, p. 287.

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