Josef Waitzer

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Josef Waitzer (born May 1, 1884 in Munich , † March 28, 1966 in Korbach ) was a German sports teacher and athlete in the period before the First World War and a German Reich sports teacher around 1930.

Josef Waitzer (right) in the TSV 1860 jersey during relay training, around 1911

Origin and sporting career

Waitzer grew up in the Munich district of Haidhausen , was a trained bank clerk and member of TSV 1860 Munich , where he practiced various athletics disciplines, such as javelin throwing , relay races and the shot put . In 1908 he founded the athletics department ( natural team ) of TSV 1860. He took 19th place as a javelin thrower, 16th place as a discus thrower at the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912 and took part in the Pentathlon , in which he was eliminated because he was 200 -Meter run not finished.

Waitzer at the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912
Advertisement for the Waitzer model racing shoe (Start und Ziel magazine, 1927)

In 1913 he traveled to the USA as a representative of the German Sports Authority for Athletics together with Walter von Reichenau and Carl Diem in order to gain experience for the planned 1916 Olympic Games in Berlin . At Waitzer's instigation, the athlete Alvin Kraenzlein was recruited as an Olympic trainer for Germany, and Waitzer was his assistant in 1916. Due to the war, Kraenzlein resigned from this position in the same year and traveled back to the USA.

Career as an athletics trainer

After Waitzer returned from captivity in the French Alps in 1920, he first worked for Kaspar Berg's sports goods factory in Nuremberg. In 1921 he published "How do I train athletics", a highly regarded textbook. In 1924 he was the coach of the athletes for the Swiss Olympic team. In 1925 Waitzer was appointed imperial sports teacher for the German Sports Authority for Athletics. In 1926, Waitzer was awarded the Hanns Braun Memorial Prize. In 1927 he held the first training courses for the Olympics in the Frankfurt stadium . Around 1928 he was also the trainer of the wrestler Jean Földeák . Overall, Waitzer played a significant role in the period of the Weimar Republic in state sponsorship of sports, the training of coaches, the development of training methods and as a trainer for the Olympics.

Partnership with the Dassler brothers

Around this time, I also came into contact with the company founders of Adidas and Puma , the later warring brothers Adolf and Rudolf Dassler . Waitzer traveled several times from Munich to the Dasslers in Herzogenaurach to find out more about their developments for sports shoes. A long-standing personal friendship and intensive cooperation developed, in which Waitzer acted as an important advisor and business partner. The Waitzer racing shoe, reinforced with spikes and protected by a utility model , was produced exclusively by the Dassler brothers' shoe factory in various designs from 1927 to October 1943 (war-related interruption in shoe production). The rather unsuccessful German athletics teams supervised by Waitzer at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam and 1932 in Los Angeles were equipped with such shoes. The cooperation with the Reichssportlehrer Waitzer was an essential contribution to the success of the Dassler brothers. In the 1930s, the Waitzer model racing shoe was the Dassler brothers' best-selling product. Waitzer, who in 1936 also wrote the training instructions enclosed with the more expensive shoes, for his part received around 1.8% license fees from every pair of shoes sold (as in July 1942). From 1928 to 1934, Dassler shoes were also successfully exported abroad, largely through Waitzer's mediation. At the European Athletics Championships in Turin in 1934 , Waitzer's team finally won seven championship titles.

Nazi period from 1936

Although the 1936 Olympics represented the high point of Waitzer's career, he resigned from his previous offices afterwards. The reason for this were differences with the NS-Reichssportführer Hans von Tschammer und Osten , possibly due to the fact that at this Olympics the Dassler sports shoes were not only worn by German athletes through Waitzer's mediation, but also temporarily by the Afro-American athlete Jesse Owens , whose extremely successful performance at the games snubbed the Nazi officials, but was exploited by the Dassler brothers for advertising purposes. Waitzer now acted as a sports functionary in various party organizations of the NSDAP , and in December 1937 he moved from Berlin back to Munich. After Waitzer had left the Reichsbund for physical exercises , he got the post of advisor in the main office for public health as a party employee before October 1939, which he continued until the end of the war. For a few months, however, Waitzer was called up as an officer for military service. In March 1943 Waitzer temporarily trained athletes in Romania. An export of Dassler shoes there that he was able to mediate was rejected by the state examination center for the leather industry.

post war period

After the war ended, Waitzer tried to paint pictures of the Alps, which he sold to American soldiers. From 1948 to 1949 he was press secretary, presumably at the (provisional) German Olympic Committee, until the NOK for Germany was founded . From 1948 to 1950 and from 1951 to 1953 Josef Waitzer, still a member of TSV 1860 Munich, worked as an instructor for the Bavarian Athletics Association . In 1950 he was awarded the highest award, the DLV Ring of Honor , by the German Athletics Association . After 1950 he was involved in training German wrestlers. In the course of his life he wrote several textbooks on the subject of athletics. Waitzer's estate is at the German Sport University Cologne .

Works (selection)

  • How do I train athletics. Grethlein & Co., Leipzig / Zurich 1921.
  • Athlete's gymnastics as the basis for maximum performance: guidelines for clubs and schools. Grethlein & Co., Leipzig / Zurich, 1925 (1930).
  • Athletic winter training. German Sports Authority for Athletics, Munich 1926.
  • World Olympics 1928 in words and pictures. Conzett & Huber, Berlin 1928.
  • Sporty physical school. 1937.
  • Physical exercises in the company. 1938.

literature

  • Kurt Zentner (Ed.): The first fifty years of the XX. Century, a show in pictures and words. Volume 2, Franz Burda, Offenburg 1950, p. 245.
  • Adolf Metzner : Golden Years of Sport. In: The time . No. 24/1964, June 12, 1964.
  • Fitness - a shot of vanity . In: Der Spiegel . No. 30 , 1988 ( online ).
  • Volker Kluge : Summer Olympic Games. The Chronicle I. Athens 1896 - Berlin 1936. Sportverlag Berlin, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-328-00715-6 , p. 363.
  • Christine Kämmerer: Sports parks: large sports facilities from the 1920s. Tectum Wissenschaftsverlag, Marburg 2016. P. 45, ISBN 978-3-8288-6521-1 .
  • Rainer Karlsch , Christian Kleinschmidt, Jörg Lesczenski , Anne Sudrow: Company Sport: The history of adidas. ( The Waitzer era: major sporting events, the development of the sports shoe product and cooperation with government organizations. P. 317). Siedler Verlag, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-8275-0122-6 , p. 27 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Josef Waitzer on sports-reference.com
  2. ^ A b Adolf Metzner : Golden Years of Sports. In: The time . June 12, 1964 ( zeit.de ).
  3. ↑ Flickr page based on the George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress)
  4. ^ Christine Kämmerer: Sports parks: large sports facilities of the 1920s. 2016, p. 45.
  5. ^ A b Rainer Karlsch, Christian Kleinschmidt, Jörg Lesczenski, Anne Sudrow: Company Sport: The Story of adidas . Siedler Verlag, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-641-23703-5 ( books.google.de ).
  6. ^ FSVO archive
  7. ↑ Entry on blv-sport.de, accessed January 31, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Waitzer, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Waitzer, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German athlete
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH March 28, 1966
Place of death Korbach