Inspirational Athletes – 27

At some time in everyone’s life they will have to do something that they do not want to do.

Many of us are very fortunate that these times in the main are restricted to when we were a child. Many other people are not so lucky.

Sometimes those actions taken are judged without knowing all of the facts.

Helene Mayer was born in Offenbach am Main, a suburb of Frankfurt on the 20th December 1910. Her mother was lda Anna Bertha (née Becker) who was a Lutheran, and her father Ludwig Karl Mayer, a physician, was Jewish.

Her childhood was spent in very different times and she was called the “Jewish Mayer.” This was simply to distinguish her from the “Christian Mayer”, a child who lived next door. It no doubt seemed innocent at the time, but is hard to comprehend by today’s standards. She attended a Christian school though she was excused from religious activities because of her father’s faith. Family members have said that come Christmas there was a Christmas tree in the house as the family did not identify themselves as Jewish.

As a child Mayer joined the Offenbach Fencing Club, and was only 13 years old when she won the German women’s foil championship in 1924. Her technique and talent were said to have been spectacular. Even modern day fencing experts who have seen footage of her fencing marvel at her technique. Some claim that she was so good that even today she would win Olympic Gold. By 1930, and before she was 20 years old she had won six German championships.

At the tender age of 17 she was selected to represent Germany in Fencing at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. She won 18 bouts and lost only two, but her performance won her the Olympic gold medal. She instantly became a national hero in Germany and was feted on her return, her photo was said to have been plastered everywhere. There were even little statues of her sold in shops. Interestingly the Jewish papers emphasised her background while the non-Jewish press completely ignored that aspect and she was described as “a nice blonde German girl.”

As the 1930’s dawned her life was to change dramatically. In 1931 her father died of a heart attack. She was selected again for the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, but two hours before before her final matches she found out that her boyfriend back in Germany had died in a military training mission. She finished fifth and could not repeat the success of 1928.

After the Olympics ended she stayed in California as an exchange student for two years at Scripps College in the east suburbs of Los Angeles. It has been said that she held ambitions to one day work in Germany’s diplomatic corps.

While in the USA at that time she can have had little idea as to how fast Germany was changing. As Adolf Hitler rose to power memories of her success faded further and further into the background. Her exchange was terminated, so too was her membership to the Offenbach Fencing Club.

She finished her program in Social Work at Scripps and then took a job teaching German at Mills College in Oakland, California where she would be able to continue to fence. She would later teach at San Francisco City College.

In 1935 she was stripped of her German citizenship as the new laws considered her to be “non German.”

In 1936 Berlin was hosting the Olympic Games, and never has an event been so hijacked by politics. Helene Mayer represented the complete opposite of Adolf Hitler. She was focussed on competition and her sport of fencing in a totally non-political world. Hitler was focussed on winning and Politics. Ironically Hitler had at an earlier date dismissed the Olympic Games as being “an invention of Jews and Freemasons.”

Hitler had under the Nuremberg Laws taken away the rights of Jews and barred them from holding jobs in public services, except law and medicine. The International Olympic Committee put pressure on Germany, who through Carl Diem, Secretary General of the Organising Committee of the Berlin Olympic Games, said that “the promise was that we will not make any distinction between race or religion during the Games. Jewish athletes will be received the same as others.”

In America it was reported by the New York Times that the IOC had received a message from the German Organising Committee inviting Mayer to join their team. Mayer responded by advising that she had not received any such invitation.

Having won the US Fencing Championships in 1934 and 1935 there was a great deal of interest in her story. She was even asked if the USA team should attend the Games. Her response was that it was none of her business.

Theodor Lewald who was a civil servant in the German Reich and also an executive of the International Olympic Committee, was the President of the Olympic organising committee for Berlin, he claimed publicly that he would be inviting her to the Games “all expenses paid” because they wanted Jewish athletes of Olympic standard competing and not token jews. Again she said that she had not received any communication.

Four times there were public announcements that she had been invited, all of which she denied. There was even one claiming that she had replied and agreed to compete.

Mayer it has been said then went on the front foot and thrust at the German hierarchy. She said that she would only compete if her German Citizenship was returned to her, as she had never been part of a religious community. Historians claim that much of this has been blurred in the passing of time. One report claimed that she was forced to disassociate herself from her father. One tried to claim that she was the product of an illicit affair between her mother and an Aryan father. Another report claimed a blood test had been carried out and she only had 25% Jewish blood! Her mother is said to have cabled her and said that she and her brothers were considered German, so she was too.

The overall outcome was that Mayer would compete. Her reasons we will never know, or the pressure that was brought to bear on her.

In 2016 New York filmmaker Semyon Pinkhasov who made a documentary about Mayer in 2008 called, “What if? The Helene Mayer Story,” spoke to the Guardian newspaper. The article stated that “her sister-in-law Erika Mayer told him ‘that Helene, who had already fenced in two Olympics, yearned to be in a third. She wanted to compete, she wanted to be famous again,’ Pinkhasov says Erika Mayer told him. She was so driven to be a star once more she never realized how much her country had changed, that it would never allow her to be beloved once more.”

Some believe that the only reason that she agreed to compete was because her family in Germany were under threat if she did not return. Historians have ignored that theory and agreed with her sister-in law. Yet to many Helene Mayer was a victim. They believe that she was manipulated by International Olympic Committee officials who put the Olympic Games first, and were willing to ignore the horrors of Hitler’s regime in order for their beloved Games to go ahead. As for the American Olympic Committee their head man Avery Brundage, who would become head of the IOC no doubt had one eye on that role as he was was fending off an American movement to boycott the Games which was gaining strong momentum.

To many Helene Mayer was indeed the “token Jew” on the German team. Someone who was used to try and fool the world into thinking Jewish people still had rights in Hitler’s Germany.

Mayer would be beaten in the Fencing Final. She lost to Hungary’s Ilona Elek-Schacherer in a contest that is still considered one of the great Olympic fencing duels. The last Olympic image of her is standing on the podium giving a Nazi salute. One wonders what was going through her mind at that time. The loss hurt her deeply. Everyone around her said she craved the gold medal and the adoration of her country, but it would not return.

Ironically all three women on that olympic podium it is said were Jewish or half Jewish.

A year after the Olympic Games she represented Germany in an International Fencing Federation World championships in Paris. She won. She returned to Germany afterwards expecting a celebration. So the story goes she asked a friend what was written about her victory. “Nothing,” was their reply. “Then I have to remain in America after all,” she told the friend.

Her brothers remained in Germany during the War where they were forced into hiding. They were eventually captured and forced to work in a factory. Fortunately the end of the war came and they had survived.

Helene Mayer returned to the USA in 1937 and became a citizen in 1941. She would add to her US titles finishing with nine in total.

In 1952 she returned to Germany where she married an old friend, Erwin Falkner von Sonnenburg, in a quiet May ceremony in Munich. If she had found happiness once again in her homeland it was short-lived. For two months before her 43rd birthday she passed away in Heidelberg of breast cancer.

Documentaries have been made about Helene Mayer, and a biography written. Everyone has their own opinion of her motives for participating at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. As an athlete there is no doubt that she wanted to compete against the best in the world and reclaim her crown. Just how much pressure was brought to bear on her to represent Germany we will never know, as that secret has gone with her to the grave.