German and Austrian Fencing Federation

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The German and Austrian Fencing Federation (DÖFB) , founded in 1897, was the first national umbrella organization for sport fencing in German-speaking countries. From 1897 to 1899 he was the host of the German championships . The association was dissolved again in 1902. It was not until 1911 that a successor organization emerged with the German Fencing Association , which has been responsible for fencing in Germany ever since, only interrupted by the time of National Socialism and the subsequent ban on sport fencing in post-war Germany. In Austria, today's Austrian Fencing Association was founded in 1929 .

Establishment of an association and the history of the DÖFB

In Germany at the end of the 19th century, fencing, which was then still practiced with a fixed scale (see illustration), was modernized.

In the second half of the 19th century, sports fencing developed as an independent discipline in Germany alongside military and student fencing . In 1862 the first German fencing club was founded with the Hanover fencing club from 1862 , although it was still heavily influenced by military fencing. The Offenbach fencing club followed in 1863, the Cologne fencing and gymnastics club in 1865 and the Hermannia Frankfurt fencing club in 1873 . By 1898, 27 fencing clubs were established in Germany with around 1300 members. Competition weapons at that time were the heavy saber, "bat" and foil with a fixed scale. Only later did the light saber and the foil in a loose measure come in: In 1888, at the first "Fencing Congress" in Offenbach, it was decided to fencing with foil and a light saber in a loose measure . That means that, in contrast to fencing with a fixed scale, as is still common in student fencing today, leg movements were also possible on the fencing piste. Under the influence of Offenbacher Erckrath de Bary , the first president of the later German Fencing Federation, the Italian fencing school was introduced and Italian fencing masters were employed in German fencing clubs. These decisions made it essential to distinguish sport fencing from the other types of fencing.

On May 2, 1880, a regional umbrella organization was founded for the first time with the Gauverband Mittelrheinischer fencing clubs . The competitions of this association could be seen as the first forerunners of national championships. In 1887 the first international fencing tournament on German soil took place in Mannheim, in which fencers from Austria also took part. On the initiative of the Viennese fencing master Hartl, a German fencing association was founded, whose activities were limited to rather subordinate activities such as mutual congratulations at foundation festivals. Without ever being formally dissolved, however, the association apparently soon ceased operations. On September 23, 1896 , there was a first attempt in Berlin to host national German championships, but mainly fencers from the Rhineland and Berlin took part. With the American consul Edward Breck , the first German master in foil was an American citizen. At the first modern Olympic Games in the same year , the Austrian Adolf Schmal took fourth place in the foil competition, but there was not a single German participant.

While in Austria, where sport fencing was more widespread in the armed forces and clubs in Vienna than in Germany, there were further attempts in the 1880s to found associations or to work together with individual clubs, in the German Reich it was only after the first German championships in 1896 The aim is to form a general fencing association. For this purpose a preparatory committee was established in November. It consisted exclusively of Reich Germans, although the Austrian fencers should also be represented in the association. Members included the first German master Edward Breck and Willibald Gebhardt , who would later become the first chairman of the new association. The committee worked out a draft for the association's statutes and invited all interested Austrian and German clubs to Berlin on March 7, 1897 to found the German Fencing Association .

The DÖFB 1897–1902

Early years

Willibald Gebhardt , the first chairman of the German and Austrian Fencing Federation
At the Olympic Games in 1900, German fencers took part for the first time, but they were eliminated early. The most successful Austrian fencers Flesch (picture) and Neralić each won a bronze medal.

From March 6th to 7th, 1897, a fencing day finally took place in Berlin, on which the association, initially known as the German Fechterbund , was founded. 29 clubs and eleven individuals took part, representing a total of 1381 fencers. The participant with the highest number of votes was Franz Vogel from the Gauverband Mittelrheinischer fencing clubs, who represented a total of 76 of the 164 delegate votes. Franz Vistini, the representative of the German national associations from Austria, was the second strongest MP with 22 votes. The founding of the association was followed by long deliberations on the statutes. A controversial question was the application by Vistini of an Aryan paragraph in the statutes that would have expressly excluded Jews from the German Fencing Association. The application was judged negatively in several speeches, since the new association was to be established on a purely sporting basis, and was ultimately not accepted. Willibald Gebhardt assured, however, that the new federation would raise no objections to the establishment of a “Gauverband” established “on a German national basis” in Austria. Another controversial question was the name of the association, which was finally set to the German Fechterbund - also with the support of the Austrian-German national associations .

Willibald Gebhardt was elected chairman of the DÖFB. The demand for an Aryan paragraph did not prevent the delegates from appointing the American Edward Breck, a foreigner, as fencing warden . The board of directors consisted exclusively of Reich German members, only two Austrians, Johann Hartl and Hans Kufahl, were represented in the technical commission . The seat of the association became Berlin, the "International Fechtsport-Nachrichten" published by Hartl in Vienna were designated as the federal organ.

From June 5 to 7, 1897, the first German championship organized by the newly founded association , the so-called federal tournament , took place in Berlin . In addition to the internationally customary swords, foils and light sabers in a loose scale , competitions with the heavy (or "German") saber and a competition with foil in a fixed scale were held. The patron was Albrecht zu Schleswig-Holstein , Vice President of the German Committee for the Olympic Games in Athens.

At the request of the Viennese fencing club Haudegen , the name was changed to the German and Austrian Fencing Association on the second fencing day from June 5 to 7, 1897 in Dresden . This should underline Austria's equal partnership and encourage other Austrian associations to join. For the first time, three Austrians were also elected to the board. After the Dresden Fechtertag, other Austrian clubs actually joined the DÖFB. At the end of 1897 there were about 2000 fencers, 400 of them from Austria. In Austria and Northern Germany, it was planned to found their own regional associations based on the model of the regional association of Middle Rhine fencing clubs, and German-Swiss fencers were also negotiating accession with the board. At the second federal tournament, which was held in Vienna from November 13 to 15, 1898 , German fencers competed for the first time in a tournament in Austria. While the Austrians dominated the disciplines of foil and epee, the German fencers were able to win the internationally unusual competitions in foil with a fixed length and with the heavy saber.

Late years and dissolution of the covenant

In 1898 the third German fencing day took place on November 15th as part of the German championship. It was decided that the DÖFB would participate in the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris. Furthermore, an application to introduce an Aryan paragraph into the statutes was again rejected. These two resolutions led to several German national fencing clubs from Austria leaving the DÖFB. Nevertheless, the Austrian influence within the DÖFB continued to grow. Camillo Müller , who just won the double championship with foil and saber at the national tournament, succeeded Willibald Gebhardt as first chairman in 1899, and Hans Kuhfal became secretary. The majority of the technical commission, which, among other things, set up the rules for the next federal tournament, was also made up of Austrians. As a result, the “completely unsporting” competitions in foil with a fixed scale and heavy saber were deleted from the program of the German championships.

Further championships followed in Dresden in 1899 , which were completely dominated by Viennese fencers. After the Dresden federal tournament there were longer, public disputes between the supporters of the Italian fencing school who were successful at the Dresden championships and representatives of the more traditional, German-French or German-Austrian fencing style. At the fourth fencing day, also held in Dresden, mostly Austrians were again elected to the board. However, the Gauverband Mittelrheinischer fencing clubs no longer took part in the fencing day, only representatives from clubs from Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Prague and Vienna as well as several individual fencers took part.

In 1900 the German championships were canceled because of the Olympic Games in Paris in the same year. For the first time, a fencer from the German Empire took part in the Olympic Games. Alfons Schöne (Saber) was sent to Paris as a German athlete by the DÖFB . However, he dropped out early. The Austrian fencers ( Rudolf Brosch , Heinrich Rischtoff and van der Stoppen in the foil, Fritz Flesch , Heinrich von Tenner , Camillo Müller and Harstein in the saber competition, and Milan Neralić and Horváth in the saber competition for fencing masters) were more successful. Flesch and Neralić were even able to win bronze medals in their discipline.

After the Olympic Games, the last fencing day of the DÖFB took place in November, during which Müller was confirmed as chairman. At this point in time, according to the Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung , the association was forecast to end soon, even if those responsible were still confident that the association would be more firmly anchored, especially in Germany. The next federal tournament was to take place in Vienna in March or April 1901. In February 1901, at the suggestion of Willibald Gebhardt, four world exhibition prizes were donated with excess funds from the 1900 Olympic Games , which were intended to finance challenge cups for national championships. The German department of the DÖFB was among the winners. It is not known whether a trophy was actually obtained with the prize money; in any case, the championship of 1901 no longer took place. Several associations from Berlin, Hanover and Prague left the federal government. In November 1901, Camillo Müller resigned as chairman who, according to the Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, had only a representative function. In January 1902, the Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung announced the end of the DÖFB for the same month; on January 16, the Austrian clubs decided to leave at a meeting in Vienna, with the result that the federal government finally ceased to exist.

aftermath

After the dissolution of the DÖFB, the organization of fencing in Germany was taken over again by the Gauverband Mittelrheinischer fencing clubs under the direction of Erckrath de Bary, who organized almost all trips to international tournaments up to the establishment of the German Fencing Federation. At the Olympic Intermediate Games in 1906 , Gustav Casmir won the first Olympic medals for Germany. At the instigation of FC Offenbach, a circular was issued in November 1911 calling for the establishment of a new association. In the same year, on December 17, 1911, the German Fencing Association was founded in Frankfurt am Main , to which 14 clubs had joined by 1913; in 1925 there were already 37 clubs with over 1200 members. A connection with Austrian fencing organizations was expressly excluded after the bad experience with the DÖFB. The German Fencing Association hosted its first German championships in 1913 and, after being re-established in 1949, still exists today.

In Austria, after the dissolution of the DÖFB, fencing was represented by the academy of fencing art founded by Luigi Barbasetti in 1904 . However, the dispute over the amateur status of the fencers represented in it led to a conflict with the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime , so that in 1929 the Austrian Fencing Association was founded.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b Andreas Schirmer (Ed.), En Garde! Allez! Touchez! 100 Years of Fencing in Germany - A Success Story , Meyer & Meyer Verlag, Aachen 2012. P. 21 f.
  2. ↑ Henner Huhle , Helma Brunck, 500 years of fencing master in Germany: oldest privileged profession , Historisches Museum Frankfurt am Main, 1987. p. 107.
  3. ↑ Andreas Schirmer (Ed.), En Garde! Allez! Touchez! 100 years of fencing in Germany - a success story , Meyer & Meyer Verlag, Aachen 2012. p. 31.
  4. ↑ Michael Wenusch, History of the Viennese fencing sport in the 19th and 20th centuries (= dissertations from the University of Vienna 3 ), WUV - Universitätsverlag, Vienna 1996. pp. 257f.
  5. ↑ a b Heiner Gillmeister: Edward Breck, Anglo-Saxon Scholar, Golf Champion and Master Spy , in: Mayami Sawada, et al., Eds., Language and Beyond. A Festschrift for Hiroshi Yonekura on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday , Tokyo: Eichosha Co., Ltd. 2007, pp. 33-56.
  6. ↑ Michael Wenusch, History of the Viennese fencing sport in the 19th and 20th centuries (= dissertations from the University of Vienna 3 ), WUV - Universitätsverlag, Vienna 1996. pp. 258–260.
  7. ↑ Michael Wenusch, History of the Viennese fencing sport in the 19th and 20th centuries (= dissertations from the University of Vienna 3 ), WUV - Universitätsverlag, Vienna 1996. pp. 260–262.
  8. ↑ Michael Wenusch, History of the Viennese fencing sport in the 19th and 20th centuries (= dissertations from the University of Vienna 3 ), WUV - Universitätsverlag, Vienna 1996. p. 262.
  9. ↑ Andreas Schirmer (Ed.), En Garde! Allez! Touchez! 100 Years of Fencing in Germany - A Success Story , Meyer & Meyer Verlag, Aachen 2012. P. 22. Michael Wenusch, History of Viennese fencing in the 19th and 20th centuries (= dissertations from the University of Vienna 3 ), WUV - Universitätsverlag, Vienna 1996 P. 262f.
  10. ↑ a b Michael Wenusch, History of the Viennese fencing sport in the 19th and 20th centuries (= dissertations from the University of Vienna 3 ), WUV - Universitätsverlag, Vienna 1996. p. 264.
  11. ↑ J. Müller: Fencing . In: E. von Schenkendorf and FA Schmidt (eds.): Yearbook for Volks- und Jugendspiele 1898 , R. Voigtländer's Verlag, Leipzig 1898, pp. 239–242.
  12. ↑ Michael Wenusch, History of the Viennese fencing sport in the 19th and 20th centuries (= dissertations from the University of Vienna 3 ), WUV - Universitätsverlag, Vienna 1996. pp. 264–266.
  13. ↑ Michael Wenusch, History of the Viennese fencing sport in the 19th and 20th centuries (= dissertations from the University of Vienna 3 ), WUV - Universitätsverlag, Vienna 1996. P. 266f. Camillo Müller, Hans Kufahl: Protocol of the fencing day in Dresden , Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung from January 6, 1900 p. 17.
  14. ↑ a b On the history of associations in Austria , Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung of December 1, 1901, p. 1376.
  15. ^ A b Fencing at the 1900 Paris Summer Games: Men's Saber, Individual. sports-reference, accessed October 20, 2013 .
  16. ↑ According to Andreas Schirmer (ed.), En Garde! Allez! Touchez! 100 years of fencing in Germany - Willy Sulzbacher was also nominated by the DÖFB as a success story . However, since Sulzbacher was born in Saint-Cloud , France and was the editorial secretary of the newspaper L'Escrime Française in Paris from October 1900 , this information is probably incorrect.
  17. ^ Fencing at the 1900 Paris Summer Games: Men's Foil, Individual. sports-reference, accessed October 20, 2013 .
  18. ^ Fencing at the 1900 Paris Summer Games: Men's Saber, Masters, Individual. sports-reference, accessed October 20, 2013 .
  19. ↑ German and Austrian Fencing Federation , Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung of December 2, 1900, p. 1316.
  20. ↑ The best known of the trophies donated by this award was the Viktoria , the trophy of the German soccer championship from 1903 to 1944.
  21. ↑ Irene Salomon, The Long Way of Victoria , Contributions to Sports History 1, 1995, pp. 3–21.
  22. ↑ Michael Wenusch, History of the Viennese fencing sport in the 19th and 20th centuries (= dissertations from the University of Vienna 3 ), WUV - Universitätsverlag, Vienna 1996. P. 267f. Notes , Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung dated December 1, 1901, p. 1376.
  23. ^ From the German and Austrian Fencing Association , Neues Wiener Abendblatt from January 18, 1902, p. 6.
  24. ↑ Andreas Schirmer (Ed.), En Garde! Allez! Touchez! 100 Years of Fencing in Germany - A Success Story , Meyer & Meyer Verlag, Aachen 2012. pp. 26–29.
  25. ^ History of the Academy of Fencing Art. Academy of Fechtkunst of Austria, accessed on October 30, 2013 .
  26. ^ The history of the ÖFV. (No longer available online.) ÖFV, archived from the original on December 6, 2014 ; Retrieved October 20, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oefv.com