Guido von Mengden

Guido von Mengden ( born November 13, 1898 in Düren, † May 4, 1982 in Göttingen ) was a German sports official.

His role under the Nazis is controversial. The historian Hajo Bernett referred to him as one of the main culprits for the politicization of German sport during the "Third Reich". Others, however, believe him at that time the preservation of the German sports clubs would have to owe. For his work after 1950 he is regarded as the spiritual father of many sports programs, and Carl Diem calls him " one of the greatest sports leaders of Europe ".

Life

Guido von Mengden was born in 1896 in Düren and comes from an old noble family from Westphalia. In his youth, played football at the Bonn Mengden FV. In 1914, he passed the matriculation examination at a grammar school in Bonn and volunteered for military service. After being seriously wounded in June 1916 at Verdun, he was discharged from the army in 1917 and began the study of geodesy at the University of Bonn. From 1919 to 1924 he practiced his profession as a surveyor.

In 1924 Mengden of the profession and became a journalist. He edited the Rheydter Tageblatt the departments of art and sports. In 1925 he became Managing Director of the West German game association and editor of the association organ " football and athletics ." In 1928 he took part in the Summer Olympic Games in Amsterdam / Holland as a press representative. In the Great Depression, he was unemployed and lived as itinerant physical education teacher of introduction and placement of different sports, such Hockey.

In May 1933, he joined the Nazi Party. In June 1933 he went as Press Secretary (Press and Young People's Unit ) at the German Football Association to Berlin. From 1935 he was press officer at the German Reich League for Physical Exercise ( DRL, from 1938 NSRL ) and 1936, he was appointed general officers of the Reich sports leader. At this time he was chief editor of the "NS -Sport", the official organ of the NSRL.

When the war ended, he was drafted into the Volkssturm, and later used by the Russians as a land surveyor in the land reform. In 1948, the relocation to Krefeld, where he became director of CSV Marathon in 1910 and has been classified by the Krefeld denazification committee as a hanger in March 1949.

In 1951 he became managing director of the German Olympic Society and from 1954 to December 31, 1963 Chief Executive of the German Sports Federation. In retirement, he was more active in its 's Scientific Advisory Board. In 1964, he was chief editor of the standard work of the Olympic Winter Games in 1964 in Innsbruck and the Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 1964. Later he worked as a consultant for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, a position he had held already at the 1936 Summer Olympics.

Bibliography

• Dealing with history and with people. A contribution to the history of the takeover in German sports by the NSDAP. Publisher Bartels & Wernitz, Berlin / Munich / Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-87039-013-1