Helene Mayer

Helene Falkner von Sonnenburg, nee Mayer ( born December 20, 1910 in Offenbach am Main, † October 15, 1953 in Munich) was a German -American fencer and Olympic champion.

Life

The doctor's daughter learned the fencing at the " Cavaliere " Arturo Gazzera in Offenbach am Main, Offenbach Fencing Club. Mayer won the 1925 German Championship in Fencing and won six national titles until 1930. 1928 won the blonde Hey, so her nickname, at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam and won the gold medal at the European Championships in 1929 in Naples and in 1931 in Vienna. Since 1929, she studied international law in Frankfurt am Main, 1930/31 at the Sorbonne in Paris. Later, she received a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service for the California Scripps College and peaked at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles fifth place, having previously coached little. After the seizure of power by the National Socialists the tall, blond and blue-eyed Mayer was the scholarship for "racial reasons " removed (she was after Nazi jargon half Jewish because her father was a Jew ) and the Offenbach Fencing Club was urged that she had to leave the club.

At the urging of the American public and on intervention by the International Olympic Committee ( IOC) Mayer in 1936 started in the Olympic Games in Berlin for Germany. Mayer, who was still living at that time in America, this decision also brought a criticism. However, they stressed that it was for them an honor to fight for Germany. Mayer won the silver medal and showed at the presentation ceremony at the Olympic stadium the Hitler salute. Hitler is then at a reception at the Chancellery have called " best and fairest female athlete in the world".

The following year, Mayer in Paris celebrated the victory in the World Cup. Meanwhile, an American citizen, Mayer returned to the United States. Here she was several times national champion and was a lecturer in German and Sports at Mills College, and later taught at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1952 she returned to Germany. In Munich, she married the flight engineer Erwin Falkner von Sonnenburg.

On October 15, 1953 Helene Mayer died of breast cancer. She is buried in the Munich Forest Cemetery. The Helene- Mayer-Ring in the Olympic Village in Munich in 1972, named for the Olympic Games in their honor.

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