Gottfried von Cramm

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Gottfried von Cramm Tennis player
Gottfried von Cramm
Gottfried von Cramm (left) with Irish tennis player George Lyttelton Rogers , June 1932
Nation: German EmpireGerman Empire German Empire
(1919–1933) German Empire (1933–1935) German Empire (1935–1945) Germany (1945–1949) Federal Republic of Germany (1949–1952)
Nazi stateNazi state 

German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) 

Germany 1946Germany 1945 to 1949 

Germany Federal RepublicFederal Republic of Germany 
Birthday: July 7, 1909
Date of death: November 9, 1976
Playing hand: Right, one-handed backhand
singles
Career title: 8th
Grand Slam record
Grand Slam title: 00000  2
Australian Open HF (1938)
French Open S (1934, 1936)
Wimbledon F (1935, 1936, 1937)
US Open F (1937)
Double
Grand Slam record
Grand Slam title: 00000  2
Australian Open F (1938)
French Open S (1937)
Wimbledon -
US Open S (1937)
Mixed
Grand Slam record
Grand Slam title: 00000  1
Australian Open -
French Open -
Wimbledon S (1933)
US Open -
Sources: official player profiles at the ATP / WTA and ITF (see web links )

Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm , also called the tennis baron (born July 7, 1909 in Nettlingen , † November 9, 1976 near Cairo , Egypt), was a German tennis player who came from the noble family of Cramm in southeast Lower Saxony . He played 101 times for Germany in the Davis Cup and was able to win 82 games in singles and doubles. In the 1930s he was an extremely popular athlete.

Life

youth

Gottfried von Cramm was born as the third eldest son of Burghard von Cramm and his wife Jutta, née Countess von Steinberg-Brüggen , in Nettlingen Castle . He had six brothers and grew up in his parents' castle in Brüggen . He received private tuition at the castle and graduated from high school. From an early age he wanted to make a career as a tennis player.

Athletic career

Cramm began playing tennis at the age of eleven. The loss of the right forefinger tip due to a horse bite did not affect him, because he used particularly narrow racket handles throughout his life. At the age of 15 he took part in the German Junior Championship, where he was eliminated in the first round in singles, but was German junior champion in doubles. After graduating from high school in 1928, he moved to Berlin to study law in preparation for the diplomatic career he was aiming for. His talent was recognized in tennis in the top club LTTC Rot-Weiß Berlin ; as early as 1929 he was number 10 in the German rankings and began to attract attention at international tournaments. In 1931 he won his first international title in Athens. Due to his tournament successes, he broke off his studies at the age of 21 with the consent of his parents in order to devote himself entirely to tennis. As a result, he continuously improved and became one of the world's top players. In 1934 he won the International Championships in Paris and was number 3 in the world rankings after Fred Perry from England and Jack Crawford from Australia. In 1935 and 1936 he reached the final of Wimbledon, but lost both times to Perry in the final. After the first participation in the finals, Cramm advanced to position 2 in the world rankings, which he held until 1937. During this time he was one of the most popular athletes in Germany.

In 1937 Cramm was again in the final of Wimbledon, where he was defeated by the American Donald Budge . In the same year he went on a 200-day trip around the world by ship on behalf of the German Tennis Association with other top players and played tournaments in the USA, Japan, Indonesia and Australia. In 1938 the athletes returned to Germany. However, the planned reception in Berlin by the Reichssportführer was canceled. Cramm was arrested the day after arriving, charged with violating Section 175 , and sentenced to one year in prison. After his release from prison, those responsible at Wimbledon refused to allow him, as a convicted person, to participate in the 1939 tournament, the last before the outbreak of World War II . Shortly before, he had defeated the eventual Wimbledon winner Bobby Riggs 6-0 and 6-1 in the final at the preparatory tournament at the Queens Club in London .

After the war he continued his tennis career and was voted the first athlete of the year in Germany in 1947 and 1948 . When he was almost 42 years old, he took part in an individual competition at the Wimbledon tournament again in 1951. In 1953 he reached, together with Ernst Buchholz , the quarter-finals in the doubles of the Lawn Tennis Championships at Wimbledon. He played his last Davis Cup match in 1953.

time of the nationalsocialism

His first marriage in 1930 with Baroness Elisabeth "Lisa" von Dobeneck (1912–1975), a granddaughter of the Cologne banker Louis Hagen , was divorced in 1937.

In April 1937, Cramm was interrogated by the Gestapo for offenses under Section 175 of the RStGB, which was tightened by the Nazis in 1935 . The allegations arose in the context of the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis . The denunciator, a stick boy, had testified not only against Fritsch but also against Cramm and accused him of having a homosexual affair with Manasse Herbst , a former child actor who had already emigrated with Cramm's help. On March 5, 1938, Cramm was arrested, charged and later convicted. Cramm protected himself with the accusation of blackmail against Herbst, whose Jewish origin he was also accused of. Cramm was taken to the Rollwald prison camp. The imprisonment imposed on Cramm was suspended after seven months after Cramm's mother presented to Hermann Göring and was able to successfully intervene. Göring was a club mate Cramms in the traditional tennis club LTTC Rot-Weiß Berlin . After 1945, Cramm achieved an erasure of the conviction from the criminal record, but was not awarded any compensation.

In 1940 Cramm was drafted into the Wehrmacht and sent to the Eastern Front . As a criminal record, he was denied an officer career. After severe frostbite on both legs, he was given home leave in 1942 and was then discharged from the Wehrmacht as an "unreliable element".

After the Second World War

Gottfried von Cramm experienced the end of the war in May 1945 and the first post-war period with his family in Bodenburg . His international fame created trust among the occupying powers and enabled him to make a significant contribution to the reconstruction of the German tennis association. In 1948 he was one of the co-founders of the German Tennis Federation ( DTB ); in 1950, his commitment was instrumental in ensuring that the DTB was re-accepted into the International Tennis Federation ( ITF ). On April 9, 1946, he was the first German athlete to receive permission from the British occupation to travel abroad. In 1948 he became the owner of the Wispenstein manor near Alfeld , where he took up residence. The Cramms had divided their property to the seven sons, because they feared loss of property through a land reform . Cramm managed the estate and spent little time there because of his sporting career.

In 1951 Cramm founded an import company for Egyptian cotton in Hamburg. In the same year he met the Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton , whom he had already met before the war, and married her in 1955. However, the spouses were often separated for business reasons and the marriage failed two years later, but only ended in 1960 divorced. In the biopic Poor Rich Girl - The Story of Barbara Hutton , which was created as a mini-series for US television in 1987, Cramm is portrayed by Sascha Hehn .

Gottfried von Cramm died in a car accident near Cairo in 1976 while on a business trip . A path in Berlin where the tennis facility of the LTTC Rot-Weiß Berlin club , to which Cramm belonged, is named, is named after him . His grave is located at the von Cramm family chapel in Oelber on the white road near Oelber Castle . Posthumously in 1977 he was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame as the first German . In 1987 furniture, paintings, weapons, porcelain and other items from his legacy were auctioned by his brother Ernst Wilhelm Freiherr von Cramm at the art and auction house Kastern . The total proceeds amounted to about 250,000 DM .

fair play

As the most popular German tennis player of his time, Cramm was a great exponent of fair play . The press described him as a dignified loser and as the most elegant and graceful player of all time. After his final defeat at the US Championships in Forest Hills in 1937, the victorious Donald Budge praised him: "He played beautiful, simply enviable tennis, that was more important to him than victory!"

Greatest successes

Cramm was a three-time finalist in the men's singles at Wimbledon (1935, 1936, 1937); In 1933 he won mixed with Hilde Krahwinkel . He won the French Open twice (1934, 1936) and six times (1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1948, 1949) the tournament at Hamburg's Rothenbaum . In 1937 he won the men's doubles competition at the French Open and the US Open together with his compatriot Henner Henkel .

Honors

literature

  • Egon Steinkamp: Gottfried von Cramm. The tennis baron. A biography. With documents. Herbig, Munich a. a. 1990, ISBN 3-7766-1631-8 .
  • Andreas Pretzel : Nazi victims with reservation: homosexual men in Berlin after 1945. LIT-Verlag Münster 2002. ISBN 3-8258-6390-5
  • Marshall Jon Fisher: A Terrible Splendor - Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played. Crown / Archetype 2009.
  • Marshall Jon Fisher: I play for my life. Gottfried von Cramm and the best tennis match of all time. Osburg-Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-940731-31-9 .
  • Dirk Boettcher . In: Klaus Mlynek , Waldemar R. Röhrbein (Hrsg.): Stadtlexikon Hannover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 119.
  • Elizabeth Wilson: Love Game - A History of Tennis, from Victorian Pastime to Global Phenomenon. Serpent's Tail 2014

Web links

Commons : Gottfried von Cramm  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cramm, Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von - Gedächtnis Berlin. Retrieved November 30, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Tennis baron under the swastika . from: spox.com, accessed March 16, 2016
  3. ↑ Danger to life in flannel pants . In: Der Tagesspiegel of December 13, 2009, at: tagesspiegel.de, accessed on March 16, 2016
  4. ↑ Short biography of Gottfried von Cramm : from the perspective of Roland Kernchen, a citizen of the hometown of Cramms, Wispenstein.
  5. ↑ Melatenfriedhof - Newsletter, issue 5, June 2019. p. 25.
  6. ↑ Elizabeth Wilson: Love Game - A History of Tennis, from Victorian Pastime to Global Phenomenon . Serpent's Tail 2014, p.
  7. ↑ Intact among Nazi zombies . In: Die Tageszeitung from September 8, 2009, at: taz.de, accessed on March 16, 2016
  8. ↑ Tennis baron under the swastika . from: spox.com, accessed March 16, 2016
  9. ↑ Tennisbaron von Cramm: Triumph of Character , on: ndr.de, accessed on March 16, 2016
  10. ↑ Game, jail - and no victory . In: Der Spiegel from July 3, 2009, at: spiegel.de, accessed on March 16, 2016
  11. ^ Andreas Pretzel, p. 103
  12. ↑ ( 100 years of the German Tennis Association )
  13. ↑ "Review - That was going on in sport ...", Sport-Bild from April 9, 1997, p. 46.
  14. ↑ Poor Rich Girl - The Story of Barbara Hutton on IMDB
  15. ↑ Joachim Baier: Legacy of the tennis baron sold. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . March 23, 1987. Retrieved October 11, 2016 .
  16. ↑ Tennisbaron von Cramm: Triumph of Character , on: ndr.de, accessed on March 16, 2016
  17. ^ Report of the Federal Government to the Bundestag of September 29, 1973 - Printed matter 7/1040 - Annex 3, pages 54 ff., Here page 80
  18. ^ Hall of Fame / Ehrenportal , Lower Saxony Institute for Sports History
  19. ↑ Baron Gottfried Von Cramm - Class of 1977. In: tennisfame.com. Retrieved June 9, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Portrait, data and biography of Gottfried Freiherr von Cramm in the Hall of Fame of German Sports
personal data
SURNAME Cramm, Gottfried von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cramm, Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von (full name); Tennis baron
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German tennis player
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Nettlingen , Germany
DATE OF DEATH November 9, 1976
Place of death near Cairo , Egypt