Gerda Daumerlang

Gerda Daumerlang (born May 2, 1920 in Nuremberg ; † March 16, 2006 in Tettenweis ) was a German diver . In jumping from the 3-meter board, she was five-time German champion , vice european champion and Olympic participant .

Life and athletic career

As a sixteen-year-old Gerda Daumerlang, who trained with the Bayern 07 swimming association , took part in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin as a diver. In the Olympic discipline artificial jumping she just missed the medal ranks. The audience in the stadium had celebrated her as a bronze medalist prematurely , while the jury decided that her American competitor Dorothy Poynton could repeat her last jump and thus came third. Gerda Daumerlang came fourth among the sixteen participants from nine countries. Decades later she gave away her consolation prize, which she and a few other “unlucky fellows” from the Berlin Olympic Games had received from sports official Hans von Tschammer und Osten , to a collector. It was a bronze statue about 37 centimeters high with a base , a scaled-down version of Max Kruse's most famous work with the title Der Siegesbote von Marathon ; the base bore the inscription "Ehrengabe des Reichssportführer v. Tschammer und Osten Olympic year 1936 ”.

In 1937 Gerda Daumerlang became the first German champion in jumping from the 3-meter board. A year later she won the silver medal in this discipline at the European Swimming Championships in London in 1938 . In the same year she was again German champion, as well as in the following years from 1939 to 1941.

Like many successful top athletes of her time, Gerda Daumerlang was a popular motif of the Austrian sports photographer Lothar Rübelt (1901–1990) during her training and competition jumps , whose works are now in museums and collections and are sold at high prices at auctions. Eight of his photos by Gerda Daumerlang from 1935 to 1940 are now part of the photo collection of the Austrian National Library and are available online.

Since the early 1940s Gerda Daumerlang lived in Vienna and studied medicine there . During her student years, she continued to take part in national competitions and show jumping in the Dianabad as a diver for the First Vienna Amateur Swimming Club (EWASC) . Newspapers such as the Illustrierte Kronenzeitung reported on her successes, for example in November 1941 on her two-time victory in the city competition "Vienna against Budapest". Her upcoming doctorate on January 25, 1944 in the Auditorium Maximum of the University of Vienna was also mentioned the day before in the high-circulation Neue Wiener Tagblatt . A good month later, Das kleine Volksblatt reported under the heading Kleine Sportnachrichten :

"Miss Dr. Gerda Daumerlang, the master of tower and art diving, met in Vienna with Dr. Hans Richthammer married. "

- Das kleine Volksblatt, February 22, 1944

Gerda Daumerlang-Richthammer settled down as a general practitioner in the Lower Bavarian village of Tettenweis in the Passau district after the end of the war . There she ran her own doctor's practice from 1945 to 1982, which is now being run by her descendants in the third generation. Until 1962 she also worked as a surgeon at the hospital in Griesbach im Rottal . There and in Bad Füssing she also worked as a spa doctor .

In retirement in 1988 Gerda Daumerlang published her autobiography under the title “So it must have been. Memories of an Olympian and a country doctor. ”At an unknown point in time, she entered into a second marriage and subsequently went by the family name Kastner.

Gerda Kastner died on March 16, 2006, a few weeks before she turned 86 in Tettenweis.

Publications

• It must have been like that. Memories of an Olympian and a country doctor. Jahn & Ernst, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-925242-69-4 .

Web links

• Gerda Daumerlang in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Film recordings of Gerda Daumerlang at the 1936 Olympics , film archive of the Karl Höffkes agency, material no.1723, Gerda Daumerlang from around 10:15:44 to 10:16:17

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Olympedia - Gerda Daumerlang. In: olympedia.org. March 16, 2006, accessed May 23, 2020 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Frank Scheffka: VEL Museum . ( Memento of the original from September 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) 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. In: Leichtathletik-INFORMationen, Heft Nr. 3/2011, .pdf, S. 23. (with a picture of the statue) 
3. ↑ Antje Rickmeier: In the footsteps of the sports icons , Weser-Kurier , February 23, 2014, weser-kurier.de, accessed on September 15, 2016
4. ↑ Image of a statue of honor ( Memento of the original from September 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) 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. , Auction catalog, hermann-historica.de, accessed on September 15, 2016.  
5. ↑ Diving - German Championships (women), 3-meter jumping board , sport-komplett.de, accessed on September 15, 2016.
6. ↑ Medalists on gbrbrathletics.com, accessed September 15, 2016.
7. ↑ Photos by Gerda Daumerlang in the archive of the Austrian National Library , bildarchivaustria.at, accessed on September 15, 2016. (Search term: "Daumerlang")
8. ^ Austrian National Library: ANNO, Kleine Volks-Zeitung, 1941-10-31, page 6. In: anno.onb.ac.at. October 31, 1941, accessed September 27, 2016 . 
9. ^ Austrian National Library: ANNO, Illustrierte Kronen Zeitung, 1941-11-10, page 4. In: anno.onb.ac.at. November 10, 1941, accessed September 27, 2016 . 
10. ^ Austrian National Library: ANNO, Neues Wiener Tagblatt (daily edition), 1944-01-24, page 5. In: anno.onb.ac.at. January 24, 1944, accessed September 27, 2016 . 
11. ^ Austrian National Library: ANNO, Das kleine Volksblatt, 1944-02-22, page 6. In: anno.onb.ac.at. February 22, 1944, accessed September 27, 2016 . 
12. ↑ ^{a b} Website of the former Daumerlang-Richthammer medical practice , history, praxis-busse.com, accessed on September 15, 2016.
13. ↑ Seniors . In: Schwimmerbund Bayern 07 (Ed.): Members' magazine pulvermagazin . No. 1 , February 2007, p. 47 ( online - notification of death from Dr. Gerda Kastner in the club magazine of her swimming club).