Brown ribbon from Germany
The Brown Ribbon of Germany was a horse race during the time of the National Socialist dictatorship ; The venue was the Riem racecourse in Munich . The evening highlight in the years 1936 to 1939 was the very liberal Night of the Amazons in the park of Nymphenburg Palace .
Competitions
The race for the “Brown Ribbon of Germany”, a flat race over 2400 meters for three-year-old and older horses, was part and highlight of the “International Riemer Racing Weeks” or “Brown Ribbon Weeks” with over twenty other flat races and obstacle races . From 1934 to 1944 the races were held annually in the summer. In addition to the horse racing track in Riem, the lower endowed races also took place on the Theresienwiese . A race day was reserved for races with amateur riders. The races were markedly international.
In addition to Germany, the winning horses in the annual races for the Brown Ribbon came from France and Italy. The best-known winner was Heinrich Thyssens Nereide from the Erlenhof stud , who won against the favored Corrida from France in 1936. Other big winners were Antonym (France), Bellini (Italy) and Tofanella (Italy), who won the first event for the famous Federico Tesio from Italy in 1934.
From 1937 onwards a competition for show jumping , the “Brown Band of Show Jumping ”, was announced with four jumping competitions.
Awarded prizes
The endowment for the first event was 19,500 Reichsmarks, in 1935 it was 50,000 Reichsmarks and then 100,000 Reichsmarks were awarded in the Brown Ribbon by Germany . This made it one of the most highly endowed horse races in Europe. The winner received 70,000 Reichsmarks. Honorary prizes were awarded to the first four placed. That was actually unusual in racing, because normally only the winner received an honorary award. The “brown ribbon” for the horse that came first, a sash in brown color, was probably based on the common in Great Britain, going back to Benjamin Disraeli, bon mot of the blue ribbon for the German Derby . In general, the intensive efforts of the National Socialists, especially through Christian Weber, aimed at an ideological Germanization of the English thoroughbred horse, because the strict performance selection practiced in this breed exemplified the Nazi ideology of race selection over generations. In this context, the founders of this race wanted to create an excellent “purely German” counterpart to the “English” influenced “Derby” and the “French” influenced “Grand Prix of Baden” , the two traditionally most important and highly endowed German horse races.
In the annual racing calendar it was noted who was awarded the brown ribbon. Mostly it was the owner of the winner, but the jockey or trainer also received this honorary award. The design of the volume comes from Richard Klein , later professor at the Academy of Applied Arts in Munich. Also included was the German Alpine Prize, which was run as a hunting race. In 1937 it was endowed with 30,000 Reichsmarks and from 1938 with 50,000 Reichsmarks. The Alpine Prize was thus the most highly endowed hunting race in Germany and, in terms of endowment, was in part on a par with the Grand Prix of Baden. The race was partially reserved for amateur riders and officers.
Other flat races and obstacle races were also highly endowed. In 1937, Prince Aly Khan , the son of the Aga Khan, got into the saddle himself in the “International Amateur Flat Race”, endowed with 15,000 Reichsmarks, and took 6th place.
Organization and promotion
The brown ribbon was an invention of Christian Weber . Thanks to his long-standing friendship with Adolf Hitler and his self-enrichment skills, the groom Weber was able to advance in the NSDAP and then in the NS state and reinvented himself as a “horse impressario”.
The official organizer of the International Riemer Racing Weeks was the Reich organization “The Brown Ribbon of Germany” founded by Weber for this purpose, with Weber himself at the helm as President. The board of trustees was made up of party celebrities; the members were Max Amann , Werner von Blomberg , Philipp Bouhler , Walter Buch , Otto Dietrich , Karl Fiehler , Wilhelm Ohnesorge , Franz Xaver Schwarz and Paul Wolfrum , head of tourism for Munich and southern Bavaria. The painter Albert Reich was the artistic director . Most of the funding was provided by the City of Munich. There were also donations from Munich's private sector.
Before that, the Baden Grand Prix was internationally regarded as the most important horse race in Germany. As the organizer of the Baden races, the International Club was very much influenced by the nobility and did not allow itself to be captured by the NSDAP. The aim of the Munich race was to create a “counter race” to the Baden Grand Prix and to surpass it internationally.
The brown ribbon was declared the “German Nation's Turf Prize”. On the occasion of the race, a special stamp with a surcharge was issued annually from 1936, the first two times as a stamp pad ; the designs are also by Richard Klein.
In the Olympic year of 1936 , a supposed 500-year tradition of urban horse races in Munich, as well as their uniqueness, was invented and celebrated on a grand scale for the Braune Band. For this purpose, the medieval scarlet horse races were used, but these have only been documented in Munich since 1448. The earlier Munich horse races for a valuable bale of scarlet colored cloth were labeled as the "cradle of German racing" in the advertising for the brown ribbon and claimed a period of time "that no city in the world can boast of in the field of horse racing". To this end, a parade was organized in 1936, "500 Years of the German Horse Races in Munich", at which, among other things, a moving picture was shown under the motto "Elevator to the Scarlet Race" with people in historical costumes walking through the city center. The move ended with a show race on the Theresienwiese . A specially minted commemorative medal based on a design by Hans Schwegerle contrasted a medieval rider with a modern jockey , who shook hands.
The unique selling proposition of the Munich equestrian history that was claimed did not exist. Horse races with valuable cloth as a prize did not start in Munich. They came in a variety of cities in the southern German and northern and central Italy, in Vienna since 1382. In Italy, found Palio -race ( palio : it. For cloth) since the early 13th century instead so that Munich not Was a pioneer or even inventor of the race.
Propagandistic value
The Brown Ribbon of Germany was supposed to help promote the reputation of the National Socialist regime both domestically and internationally. Among the high-ranking foreign guests around 1936 were the kings Faruq of Egypt, Leopold III. of Belgium, Peter II of Yugoslavia, Håkon VII of Norway and Gustav V of Sweden.
For the city of Munich, which saw itself as the capital of movement , the promotion of the races became a prestige project in order to present itself in tourism advertising as the “capital of equestrian sports” and thus to stimulate the city's economy.
Supporting program
In accordance with the desired athletic weight, the International Riemer Racing Weeks were accompanied by an extensive equestrian and cultural program.
According to Weber, the Riemer Rennwochen should clearly express the "harmony of folklore, equestrian sport and national community" in German equestrian sport. The Night of the Amazons , a mass spectacle that took place in the park of the Nymphenburg Palace from 1936 to 1939 , made a contribution to this . Around 2,500 participants and 700 horses were called up for a play with echoes of the Rococo and - with "slightly apron", "eternally warlike" Amazons - of antiquity .
The “International Congress for Thoroughbred Breeding and Horse Racing” was held to accompany the racing weeks.
The program was rounded off with excursions into the surrounding area, museum visits and a performance of the gypsy baron in the State Opera for the guests.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jaser 2019, p. 39
- ↑ a b Jaser 2019, p. 57
- ↑ Jaser 2019, passim
- ↑ a b Jaser 2019, p. 40
- ↑ Jaser 2019, p. 39
- ↑ Jaser 2019, p. 41
- ↑ Das Brown Band von Deutschland (advertisement brochure), Munich 1938, p. 6
- ↑ Das Brown Band von Deutschland (advertisement brochure), Munich 1937, p. 48.
literature
- The Brown Ribbon of Germany (tender brochure), Munich 1937
- The Brown Ribbon of Germany (tender brochure), Munich 1938
- Münchner Stadtmuseum (Ed.), Ulrike Heraendel and Bernadette Ott (Red.): Munich - “Capital of Movement” . Catalog for the exhibition in the Munich City Museum October 22, 1993 to March 27, 1994.
- Herbert Rosendorfer : The Night of the Amazons (novel), Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1989, ISBN 3-462-01995-3
- Doris Fuchsberger: Night of the Amazons: A Munich series of festivities between Nazi propaganda and tourism attraction , Allitera Verlag, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-86906-855-8 .
- Paul-Moritz Rabe: Capital at a gallop. The “Brown Ribbon” as an urban prestige project . In: Margit Szöllösi-Jantze (ed.): Munich in National Socialism. Image policy of the “Capital of Movement” , Göttingen: Wallstein 2017. ISBN 978-3-8353-3090-0 , pp. 169–196.
- Christian Jaser: The Munich scarlet horse race - medieval tradition and Nazi appropriation. In: »Oberbayerisches Archiv«, Vol. 143 (2019), pp. 39–57
Web links
- Brown ribbon from Germany . Gallop winner