Milwaukee Turners

Gym in the federal gymnasium in Milwaukee around 1900. Second from left: George Brosius .

The Milwaukee Turners ( German: Milwaukee Turner) are a still existing gymnastics club in Milwaukee , Wisconsin in the USA . The association is based in Milwaukee's Turner Hall . The four-storey building, built in the historicism style in 1882 and occupied in 1883, was planned by the architect Henry C. Koch.

history

The association is considered the oldest civil organization in Milwaukee and was u. a. Founded by German refugees who fled to the USA from the state repression in the late 1840s (see: European Revolutions 1848/1849 ).

The club was founded in Milwaukee in 1853 as a socialist gymnastics club (as a German-American gymnastics association ) and has its roots in the German gymnastics movement founded by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn . The association was recognized by the state of Wisconsin in 1855. Thanks to this gymnastics club, Milwaukee was known in the 19th century as the “German Athens of America” and the club formed the central element for a vital German artistic, political and civic culture. The main concern of the club members was

the protection of freedom, against all oppression;
Tolerance, against all fanaticism;
Reason, against all superstition;
Justice, against all exploitation.

Club members formed the personal bodyguards of President Abraham Lincoln as he toured the United States. At least six club members served as generals on the side of the northern states in the Civil War . B. Carl Schurz .

Several Milwaukee Mayors, such as B. Emil Seidel (1910–1912), Daniel Hoan (1916–1940) and Frank Zeidler (1948–1960) were members of the association.

In 1903, an event with more than 3,000 participants was held in Turner Hall for “clean government” and against corruption and nepotism.

The members of the association also made a decisive contribution to women's suffrage and equal rights and were one of the first German-American organizations to publicly denounce the crimes of National Socialism and Hitler's regime in Germany .

Even today, the members of the association are critical of current political developments in the USA.

organization

The association is headed by the president, Arthur Heitzer (lawyer), who can be represented by two vice-presidents. To support the Presidium, there is a Board of Trustees, which is headed by Patrick Earle (lawyer), and an office (secretariat).

Web links

Commons : Historical pictures of the association - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Official website (English)

literature

Horst Ueberhorst, “ Turners and Social Democrats in Milwaukee: five decades of cooperation (1910–1960); lecture to the discussion group 'Politics and Science' at the Research Institute of the Friedrich-Ebert-Endowment in Bonn ”, March 1980, Verlag Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung 1983.

Individual evidence

^ Henry C. Koch has the Golda Meir School in a similar style and the Webster County Courthouse in Iowa in the Beaux Arts style . He also planned Milwaukee's famous City Hall and the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee .

↑ The management had u. a. Victor L. Berger . He was an American journalist and politician and a founding member of the Socialist Party of America . See also: Mardee Gruen, Milwaukee Turners, local Jews go back 141 years in Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle April 29, 1994; p. 6, col. 1.

^ Principles of the National Gymnastics Charter.