Johannes Fromming

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Johannes Frömming with the stallion Xifra

Johannes Wilhelm Arthur Frömming , called "Hänschen" Frömming (born June 28, 1910 in Berlin ; † November 8, 1996 in Hamburg ) was a German trotting athlete . In his career from 1926 to 1988 Frömming scored 5,592 racing wins, including 11 wins in the German Derby .

biography

Hänschen Frömming grew up in Berlin with his grandfather, a haulier who also owned several racehorses. As a result, Fromming was used to handling horses as a child. At the age of fourteen he began an apprenticeship as a horse manager at the trotting track in Berlin-Ruhleben . Despite his small height (as an adult, Fromming was only 1.60 m tall), he aspired to a career as a harness racing driver. In 1926 he received his driver's license and finished second in the first race. In his second race on December 16, 1926, Frömming was celebrated as the winner for the first time.

In 1931 Fromming competed for the first time in a race abroad, but had to be content with second place in Copenhagen . In 1933 he won the German Derby with the stallion Xifra. In 1934 Fromming won his first championship with 159 victories. On February 15, 1935, Frömming won all the races in seven starts in Berlin in one day, a world record that was only set by Frömming himself in 1950. In 1937, Hänschen Frömming set another world record when he achieved 246 victories within one year.

During the Second World War Fromming hid Jewish friends in stud farms and racing stables, for which he was honored by the B'nai B'rith in the United States in 1964 . After the war he continued his career as a harness racing driver and was one of the first German athletes to be invited abroad.

Gravestone "Hans" Frömming , Ohlsdorf cemetery

Hänschen Frömming celebrated his greatest international successes in the 1960s. In 1964 and 1965 he won the Prix ​​d'Amérique at the Vélodrome de Vincennes near Paris , the world's most highly endowed and most prestigious trotting race. Also in 1964 Fromming won the Challenge Gold Cup in New York City .

In 1974 Fromming won the German Derby for the eleventh time. In the same year he won the Prix ​​d'Amérique for the third time .

Hänschen Frömming ended his active career at the age of 78. He had started in more than 25,000 races and won 5592 times, making him the seventh most successful German trotting driver today. In addition to his eleven wins in the German Derby, Frömming was four times the winner in the Austrian Derby and 15 times the German Champion.

Fromming died at the age of 86 as a result of his third stroke in Hamburg, where he had lived with his wife Inge since 1958. He was buried in the Ohlsdorf cemetery in Hamburg, grid square Y 9 (south of Norderstrasse ).

Awards and honors

In 1952, Hänschen Frömming received the sports press' Golden Ribbon . Federal President Gustav Heinemann awarded Frömming with the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany on November 28, 1972 .

In memory of Hänschen Frömming, the Johannes Frömming Memorial Race takes place every year in Hamburg . In addition, a street was named after him next to the site of the former trotting track in Hamburg-Farmsen .

Frömming is one of the 40 sports personalities who were inducted into the Hall of Fame of German Sports , which was founded on May 6, 2008 .

Individual evidence

  1. Hans Froemming, Harness Driver, 86. In: New York Times . November 11, 1996.
  2. Johannes Frömming † - A man who could talk to horses. In: Sport Bild from November 13, 1996, p. 39.
  3. Celebrity Graves
  4. Announcement of awards of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Federal Gazette . Vol. 25, No. 71, April 11, 1973.

literature

  • Hans Frömming: 5000 trotting victories. A life in the sulky , autobiography, Copress-Verlag, Munich 1969

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