Maxi Herber

Maxi Herber
Maxi Herber and Ernst Baier
nation	Germany
birthday	October 8, 1920
place of birth	Munich
date of death	October 20, 2006
Place of death	Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Career
discipline	Pair skating, single skating
Partner	Ernst Baier
society	Munich EV
Trainer	Günther Lorenz
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 0 × 0 × World Cup medals 4 × 0 × 1 × EM medals 5 × 0 × 0 ×
winter Olympics gold Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936 Couples  World figure skating championships bronze Helsinki 1934 Couples gold Paris 1936 Couples gold London 1937 Couples gold Berlin 1938 Couples gold Budapest 1939 Couples  European figure skating championships gold St. Moritz 1935 Couples gold Berlin 1936 Couples gold Prague 1937 Couples gold St. Moritz 1938 Couples gold Davos 1939 Couples

Maxi Herber , married. Baier (born October 8, 1920 in Munich ; † October 20, 2006 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen ), was a German figure skater who started in single and pair skating .

In the individual run, Herber, who competed for the Munich EV , was German champion from 1933 to 1935 . To this day she is the youngest German champion in history. She took part in three European championships . In 1935 and 1938 she narrowly missed a medal as fourth, and in 1936 she was seventh. She finished her only world championship in singles in 1934 in seventh place.

Herber was far more successful in pair skating with Ernst Baier . From 1934 to 1936 and from 1938 to 1941 they became German champions . From 1935 to 1939 they became European champions five times in a row . The couple made their world championship debut in 1934 . There Herber and Baier won the bronze medal behind the Hungarians Emília Rotter and László Szollás and the Austrians Idi Papez and Karl Zwack . It was overall their only participation in an international tournament in which Herber and Baier did not win. From 1936 to 1939 they became world champions four times in a row . They won the gold medal at the 1936 Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen . Herber is Germany's youngest ever gold medalist at the Winter Olympics .

Maxi Herber and Ernst Baier have revolutionized pair skating. They were the first to show parallel jumps. The couple also appeared in Leni Riefenstahl's official Olympic film . Ernst Baier had designed the freestyle and found a composer who accompanied it musically in order to create a unity between running and music.

After the Second World War , in 1951 they founded the ice revue “Ice Ballet Maxi and Ernst Baier”. In doing so, they shaped the show part of the feature film The Colorful Dream (1952).

Baier is depicted on the cover of the news magazine Der Spiegel from January 28, 1953 (caption: JUMPS ON THE ICE. A tuft of mimosa: Maxi Baier ).

They later sold their business to "Holiday on Ice". Maxi Herber and Ernst Baier married after their amateur careers in 1940 and had three children. The marriage ended in divorce in 1964. As a result, Maxi Herber lived on social assistance and moved to Oberau with the support of Deutsche Sporthilfe .

In 2000, Herber moved to the Lenzheim nursing home in Garmisch-Partenkirchen . Here she exhibited her self-painted watercolor caricatures. She suffered from Parkinson's disease and died on October 20, 2006 in the retirement home in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Her grave is in the Partenkirchen cemetery.

In an interview shortly before her death, she said about the whereabouts of the Olympic gold medal she had won in 1936, that she had once sold it and donated the proceeds to an Israeli foundation to support surviving victims of the Holocaust .

Results

Single run

Competition / year	1933	1934	1935	1936	1937	1938
World championships		7th
European championships			4th	7th		4th
German championships	1.	1.	1.			2.

Pair skating

(with Ernst Baier )

Competition / year	1934	1935	1936	1937	1938	1939	1940	1941
winter Olympics			1.
World championships	3.		1.	1.	1.	1.
European championships		1.	1.	1.	1.	1.
German championships	1.	1.	1.		1.	1.	1.	1.

literature

• Benno Wellmann (Ed.): Maxi and Ernst Baier tell ... : Droste-Verlag Düsseldorf, 1951 (166 pages)

Web links

• Maxi Herber in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cover story: How everything is transient , p. 22 ff.
2. ↑ Gerd Otto-Rieke: Graves in Bavaria . Munich 2000, p. 94.