Fritz Chicken

Fritz Huhn (born September 26, 1900 in Jena , † June 8, 1990 in Heidelberg ) was a German athlete .

Life

From 1915 on, Huhn attended the teachers' college in Weimar , which was headed by Karl Muthesius , until he was called up for military service in June 1918 at the age of seventeen. After the end of the First World War , he continued his seminar training and passed the first teaching examination in 1921. After that he made as a teacher in Wernshausen the preparatory service from which he in November 1923 of the Second State Examination graduated "with great success". He then continued to work in Wernshausen, then in Dorndorf an der Saale from 1924 , which enabled him to train as a gymnastics teacher at the State Gymnastics Institute in Jena from the summer semester 1925 to the winter semester 1926/1927 through the Thuringian Ministry of National Education - in addition to his work as a teacher was made possible.

In February 1927 he completed this additional training with the gymnastics and sports teacher examination at the university and was transferred to the West School in Jena . From the summer semester of 1927 he then worked part-time as an assistant to Hermann Eitel, who had been employed in Jena as the first full-time gymnastics and sports teacher at a German university since April 1, 1914. While Huhn worked very harmoniously and successfully with Eitel, he gave up his activity at the end of the winter semester of 1934/35 because a National Socialist had been in charge of university sports in Eitel's place since May 1934 , with whom there were differences of opinion. He was able to continue his work at the western school until the ministry transferred him to the teacher training institute in Meiningen on May 1, 1943 due to the war .

When the American troops were about to invade Thuringia at the end of March 1945, the teacher training institute was closed and Huhn returned to his hometown of Jena. There he worked in the glazier workshop, which his father, Ernst Huhn, had moved to Jena in 1900, and in 1947 he passed the journeyman's examination in the glazier trade. After his father's death in 1948, he continued the glazing business until he managed to escape to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1952. There he worked as a teacher at the school in Radevormwald from Easter 1952 , then in Geislingen an der Steige and finally from Easter 1954 to March 31, 1966 at the Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Stuttgart-Degerloch , most recently as a high school councilor.

Athletic career

Together with his older brother Ernst Huhn, who was supposed to be a candidate for the Olympic Games in 1916, which then did not take place, Fritz Huhn trained as a young student on the VfB Jena square, which was founded in 1911 and which he enjoyed lifelong with great enthusiasm attached. He himself described a jump that he made there in 1913 as an indication of his later development: With the then modern shear jump , which was freshly imported from America by the German-American Alvin Kraenzlein , he jumped about 1.45 m high, about that high like his forehead.

Huhn was one of the most outstanding German athletes in the 1920s: he was German high jump champion in 1923 and 1926 , second in 1925 and 1928, and third in 1929. During this time he also took part successfully in various international battles: 1923 in Basel against Switzerland (1st place), 1925 in Vienna against Austria (2nd place), 1926 in Basel against Switzerland (2nd place), 1927 in Frankfurt am Main against Switzerland (2nd place) and 1929 in London against England (1st place). Then in 1928 he was one of the participants in the Olympic Games in Amsterdam , the first to which German athletes were re-admitted after the First World War, and came in 17th place there.

At that time, the rule of high jump was that the feet were the first part of the body to cross the bar; the later customary techniques with which greater heights can be reached were therefore not considered. Fritz Huhn developed the technique of the Schneppersprung for himself , with which he could to a certain extent compensate for his very small height of 1.68 m for a high jumper.

From 1935 to 1943 he worked as a part-time trainer in the high jump. Here he conveyed his scooter technique , which was derived from the Western Roll and individually adapted to the individual athlete. His outstanding students included:

• Luise Lockemann (VfB Jena; German championships 2nd place 1937, 1951, 3rd place 1941; student world champion 1939, other gold medals 1938–1940),
• Gustav Weinkötz ( ASV Cologne ; German champion 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938; German championships 3rd place 1939),
• Hans Martens (Kieler TV, since 1939 Marine Kiel; German championships 2nd place 1935, 1938, 1939, 3rd place 1941),
• Günther Gehmert (SV Siemens Berlin, DSC Berlin since 1937; German champion 1939; German championships 3rd place 1935, 1936, 1937),
• Hermann Nacke (TSM Otto Schott Jena, Marine Kiel since 1943; German champion 1940, 1941; German championships 2nd place 1943, 3rd place 1942),
• Horst Schlegel ( 1st SV Jena ; German championships 2nd place 1940) and
• Karl-Heinz Langhoff (Heinkel Rostock; German champion 1942, 1943; German championships 2nd place in 1941, 3rd place in 1938).

At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Huhn was judge of the jumping court.

literature

• Fritz Huhn: Poetry and Truth , in: 1911-1986. Association for Movement Games Jena - VfB Jena, undated, undated [1986], pp. 12-16.
• Jörg Lölke: Fritz Huhn - Jena's first top athlete , in: Ostthüringer Zeitung, January 14, 1993.
• Jörg Lölke: Thüringer Sportgeschichte , Erfurt 1996. ISBN 3-931426-11-4 , p. 114.

Web links

• Athletics history of Thuringia ( Memento from October 23, 2007 in the Internet Archive )