Gustav Felix Flatow

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Gustav Felix Flatow
Memorial plaque in Berlin-Kreuzberg for Alfred and Gustav Felix Flatow

Gustav Felix Flatow (born January 7, 1875 in Berent , West Prussia , † January 29, 1945 in Theresienstadt concentration camp ) was a German gymnast and Olympic champion .

Life

After attending school, Flatow completed a commercial training in Berlin between 1890 and 1893. He then worked in business until 1899.

Flatow was there from 1893 member of the gymnastics club 1850. At the Olympic Summer Games in Athens in 1896 , he took part as one of ten German gymnasts just like his cousin Alfred Flatow and won silver with the team (gold was only available from 1904) on bars and on Horizontal bar . Flatow could not repeat this success at the Summer Olympics in Paris in 1900 and withdrew completely from the sport to devote himself to the management of the textile company Edmond Leon, which he took over in 1899. In addition, he was involved in the Dutch textile company "Brandel" in Rotterdam from 1925 and founded his own textile company in the later 1930s.

As a result of the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Flatow, who was a Jew , emigrated to the Netherlands . There he was initially able to hide from the National Socialists after the German occupation in 1940. New Year's Eve 1943, he, his wife and his son but was arrested in February 1944 in the Theresienstadt concentration camp deported , cousin Alfred Flatow was killed in 1942 in the be. In January 1945 Gustav Flatow, who had meanwhile been emaciated to 20 kg, died in Theresienstadt.

When the family was arrested, their daughter Anni (Amalie Beatrice Sara) Flatow managed to escape and go into hiding in Bennekom . There their trail is lost. Since she had evacuated from hiding several times, it is suspected that she was either killed by members of the resistance and her body buried in an unknown location because her behavior endangered the numerous other people in hiding in Bennekom, or that she was by relatives of the SD was shot while trying to escape. Her mother Margarete and her brother Stefan , who had survived the Holocaust, pulled in vain after the war to find out about their fate.

Gustav Flatow's urn was discovered by journalists in 1986 and buried in what is now Terezín .

Alfred and Gustav Felix Flatow on a West German postage stamp

In 1997, the city of Berlin honored Alfred and Gustav Flatow by renaming Reichssportfeldstrasse near the Olympic Stadium to Flatowallee . Years of disputes preceded this renaming. On the Lohmühleninsel on the Landwehr Canal in the Kreuzberg district , the Flatow sports hall also reminds of the two Flatows with its name and a plaque. The German Post AG was the 100th anniversary of the Olympic Games, a series of four stamps out; one of them shows Gustav and Alfred Flatow.

In Berlin-Köpenick, the sports-oriented Flatow Oberschule bears the name of the two cousins. In 1989 he was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame .

On July 24, 2012, stumbling blocks for him and his family were laid in front of his former home in Berlin-Charlottenburg , Schlüterstraße 49 . A stone was also laid there for the daughter Anni Flatow.

Commemoration of Schlüterstrasse. 49

  • Memorial plaque for Gustav Flatow

  • Stumbling block for Margarete Flatow

  • Stumbling block for Amalia Flatow

  • Stumbling block for Stefan Flatow

literature

  • Lorenz Peiffer : From Olympic champions to "Reich enemies" - The cousins ​​Alfred and Gustav Felix Flatow , in: Diethelm Blecking , Lorenz Peiffer (ed.) Sportsmen in the "Century of the Camps". Profiteers, resistors and victims. Göttingen: Die Werkstatt, 2012, pp. 255–261

Web links

Commons : Gustav Felix Flatow  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ad Nooij: Een ondergedoken Jodin verdwijnt Spoorloos in Bennekom. (No longer available online.) Historische Vereniging Oud-Bennekom, p. 13 , archived from the original on October 6, 2016 ; accessed on October 6, 2016 . 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.oudbennekom.nl
  2. ↑ Ad Nooij: Een ondergedoken Jodin verdwijnt Spoorloos in Bennekom. (No longer available online.) Historische Vereniging Oud-Bennekom, pp. 13–20 , archived from the original on October 6, 2016 ; accessed on October 6, 2016 . 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.oudbennekom.nl
  3. ↑ Reichssportfeldstrasse is now called Flatowallee: Charlottenburg is reminiscent of two Olympic champions. In: berliner-zeitung.de. October 6, 2016, accessed October 6, 2016 .
  4. ^ Gustav Flatow in the International Sports Hall of Fame
  5. ↑ Stolpersteine ​​in Berlin - Places & Biographies of the Stolpersteine ​​in Berlin. In: stolpersteine-berlin.de. September 13, 2012, accessed October 6, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Flatow, Gustav Felix
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German gymnast and Olympic champion
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH Kościerzyna
DATE OF DEATH January 29, 1945
Place of death Theresienstadt ghetto