Gustav Schäfer (rower)

Gustav "Gummi" Schäfer (born September 22, 1906 in Johanngeorgenstadt , † December 10, 1991 in Munich ) was a German rower and Olympic champion.

Life

Born in the Ore Mountains , he moved to Dresden in 1911 , where his father opened a cabinet-making shop and was supplier to the royal Saxon court. After finishing elementary school, he went to apprenticeship with master confectioner Wachendorf on the Weißen Hirsch . Schäfer initially practiced various sports such as water polo and hockey; he also played football with Helmut Schön at times .

His real sporting career began when he joined the Dresden swimming club. It was during this time that his nickname "Gummi" was born. At the Gau swimming festival in Großenhain , the short-distance swimmer had to start as a substitute on the 1,500 m course and beat the favorite, which he stubbornly followed in order to pass in the last meters. The victim commented on this with the words: "The dog was tough as rubber."

When the Dresden rowing club made its boathouse in Blasewitz available to the swimmers for dancing in 1929 , Schäfer also accepted the rowers' invitation to take a test drive on the Elbe . The trainer Wurtmann recognized his talent and in March 1929 Schäfer started rowing.

His first success was the title in the single at the German rowing championships in Mainz in 1934 . In the same year Schäfer switched to the rowing department, Skullerzelle Berlin. Under the new trainer, the Englishman Cordery, who was considered a "tough dog", Schäfer became a top rower. Also in 1934 he and Willi "Bubi" Kaidel took first place in the double scull at the European Championships in Lucerne . The duo Schäfer / Kaidel became German champions in Berlin-Grünau in 1936 , Schäfer again won the single title.

On August 14, 1936, Schäfer won the gold medal in one at the Olympic Games in Berlin-Grünau. He covered the distance of 2,000 m in 8: 21.5 minutes and crossed the finish line with a lead of three boat lengths. After the Olympic Games, he ended his active sports career and worked as a ministerial employee in Dresden until 1945.

Together with Georg von Opel from Rüsselsheim , who also moved to Skullerzelle Berlin in 1936 and was his substitute at the Olympic Games, "Gummi" Schäfer was one of the founders of the German Olympic Society .

After the war, "Gummi" Schäfer went to the West and between 1949 and 1952 was active and very successful with the senior citizens of the Flörsheim-Rüsselsheim rowing community . In 1961 Gustav Schäfer moved to Munich with his wife . At that time he was already pronounced dead in the GDR . The June 18, 1961 edition of the daily newspaper “ Der Morgen ” stated that “Gummi” Schäfer had perished in the war. In 1988 the well-known Dresden rower was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit by Richard von Weizsäcker .

In 2008 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of German Sports .

Web links

• Gustav Schäfer in the Olympedia.org database (English)
• Review of the Rüsselsheim rowing club on the occasion of the award of the Federal Cross of Merit to "Gummi" Schäfer
• Portrait, dates and biography of Gustav Schäfer in the Hall of Fame of German Sports

Footnotes

1. ↑ Erich Kamper and Bill Mallon were the authors of the Who's Who of the Olympic Games 1896–1992 in 1992. Who's Who at the Olympics. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 1992, ISBN 3-928562-47-9 , in this book the date of death is given as December 12, 1991. This date is also shown in the Sports-Reference Olympic database, which is maintained by a team led by Bill Mallon. December 10th is mentioned in the German Hall of Fame of Sports ; Munzinger Sport also uses this date . The age of the site speaks for the more recent Hall of Fame, so the date December 10th is given as the more likely date of death.