Franz Dusika

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Franz Dusika Road cycling
To person
Nickname Ferry
Date of birth March 31, 1908
date of death February 12, 1984
nation AustriaAustria Austria
discipline Road / train
End of career 1942
Last updated: April 26, 2020

Franz "Ferry" Dusika (born March 31, 1908 in Vienna ; † February 12, 1984 there ) was an Austrian cyclist and national champion in cycling .

Childhood and youth

Ferry Dusika grew up in an orphanage after his parents divorced. Because of his sickly constitution, the doctor advised him against cycling. Nevertheless, Dusika began his career as a racing cyclist at the Wiener Sport-Club . He preferred to sprint on the track .

Cycling career

In 1928 Ferry Dusika started at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam in two disciplines, in the 1000-meter time trial and in the tandem race (together with August Schaffer ), but without taking a place in the front. He achieved his first major international success in 1932 at the UCI Track World Championships in Rome . Since he was inferior to the eventual master Schaffer in the national elimination and the association was only able to finance the trip for one driver, he made his way there at his own expense and finished fourth in the amateur sprint after beating the later in the semifinals World champion from Cologne, Albert Richter , had lost.

Between 1933 and 1937 Dusika won ten Austrian championship titles, and he also won numerous national and international races, including the 1934 Grand Prix in Copenhagen and Zurich , the following year in those of Germany and Great Britain and in 1935 the European Grand Prix in Vienna. In 1936 he took part in the Olympic Games a second time , in the sprint and again in tandem with Alfred Mohr , again without medal success. Of the few sprint tournaments held during the Second World War , he won the Grand Aviator Award of Vienna in 1942 in front of the Olympic champion Carl Lorenz .

He was later banned for violating the amateur regulations, but then rehabilitated, and in July 1940 he celebrated a successful comeback as a professional on the Vienna stadium track.

After cycling

After the end of his active career in 1942, Dusika appeared as an organizer and sponsor of Austrian cycling and initiated, among other things, the Dusika youth tour . As early as 1935 he ran a bicycle shop in Vienna's Fasangasse and was the chief editor for an Austrian cycling magazine.

Dusika published several books, partly together with Max Bulla , on the subject of cycling. He is also considered a pioneer of whole foods, which he propagated with a book ( Fat Eats Too Little ), which Hademar Bankhofer wrote for him as a ghostwriter. In 1978 he was the best man at the marriage of actress Dagmar Koller and the later mayor of Vienna, Helmut Zilk . After Dusika's death, Zilk took over his villa in Portugal .

After his death, the Vienna Hallenstadion was renamed the Ferry-Dusika-Hallenstadion . In 1993 the Dusikagasse in Vienna- Donaustadt (22nd district) was named after him.

His honorary grave is in the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 40, number 119).

Dusika's role in the Nazi era

After taking over the bicycle shop of a Jewish fellow citizen in 1939, Dusika came under fire as an " Aryan " in the late 2000s .

In July 2013 a commission of historians presented the final report on the project street names of Vienna since 1860 as “political places of remembrance” . In it, the historian Peter Autengruber writes : “In January 1939, Dusika received permission from the 'Vermögens-Verkehrsstelle' to 'take over' the shop from Abraham Adolf Blum at Brünner Strasse 45. Blum was a bicycle dealer and in 1938 was considered a Jew . The NSDAP issued Dusika a 'political certificate' and confirmed that he was a member of the NSDAP and SA-Oberscharführer . ”According to these findings, Dusika was an“ illegal ”member of the NSDAP, which was then banned in Austria, before 1938 . According to the report, Dusika had expressly put the cycling magazine Österreichischer Radsport , which he directed , at the service of the new rulers after the annexation of Austria , who commented on the replacement of a previous cycling official: "Schlesinger is a mixed race of Jews and therefore impossible in the new Germany." December 1938 the magazine was named Ostmark Radsport . In the following articles, among other things, the attack on Poland in September 1939 was justified as a “defensive struggle for the most just cause in the world”, an exuberant nationalistic tone was cultivated and the “Führer” was honored: “Only one person knew it: our Führer! His genius outshines everything. ”(Ostmark Radsport, July 1940, 3) After the war, Dusika denied being a staunch National Socialist, also because he had Jewish relatives who had been murdered.

As a consequence of this report on Dusika's past, there have been considerations since then to rename the street named after him and the indoor stadium. While the Austrian Cycling Association sees no need for a change, the City of Vienna wants to promote the renaming of the stadium.

Works

  • The successful cyclist , 1951
  • Cycling manual , 1952
  • Fat people eat too little , 1982

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Association of German cyclists (ed.): Radsport . No. 44/1962 . Deutscher Sportverlag Kurt Stoof, Cologne 1962, p. 16 .
  2. ^ Fritz Neumann: That was Ferry Dusika, that is Austria. derStandard.at, March 25, accessed on March 26, 2014 .
  3. ↑ Green Initiative: Vienna Chamber of Commerce commemorates the victims of the Anschluss in 1938 on APA / ots.at , December 2, 2008
  4. ↑ Oliver Rathkolb , Peter Autengruber et al .: Final research report : Street names of Vienna since 1860 as “Political Places of Remembrance” , (PDF; 4.4 MB) , ed. Association for the scientific processing of contemporary history. Vienna 2013. pp. 82–83
  5. ↑ Oliver Rathkolb, Peter Autengruber et al .: Vienna 2013. pp. 85–86
  6. ↑ Oliver Rathkolb, Peter Autengruber et al .: Vienna 2013. P. 88
  7. ↑ Oliver Rathkolb, Peter Autengruber et al .: Vienna 2013. P. 90
  8. ↑ Dusika Stadium: Renaming checked to wien.orf.at , October 11, 2012
  9. ↑ That was Ferry Dusika, that was Austria. Der Standard, March 25, 2014, accessed July 20, 2014 .
personal data
SURNAME Dusika, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dusika, Ferry (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian cyclist
DATE OF BIRTH March 31, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 1984
Place of death Vienna