Kurt Gies

Kurt Helmut Gies ( born May 18, 1921 in Mülheim an der Ruhr, † November 23, 1943 in the Soviet Union ) was a German tennis player.

Life and work

He was born as the youngest son of the manager of the municipal sports facilities on the Kahlenberg Henry Gies. Although himself never active as a tennis player, the father felt the tennis connected and made Kurt as well as his three older brothers familiar early on with the game. At the age of four years, Kurt made ​​under the guidance of his father and his brothers, the first blows with a converted specially for him bat.

1934 Kurt Gies joined the Mülheim Tennis Club and was there three weeks later already top players in his age group. In 1936, he immediately won the city championship, in 1938 German youth champion and repeated this success a year later. In 1939 he moved to KTHC Stadium Rot-Weiss Cologne. Here he was able to develop its performance potential under his new coach Hans Nüsslein full and compete in training with top German players.

In 1940 he took together with the German champions Henner Henkel as German youth players on a trip to Japan in part and denied four international matches as well as several exhibition matches. In 1941, he won the Danish championship Hall, fought with great success to countries struggles against Hungary, Croatia and reached its sporting highlight at the German Championships in Braunschweig. There he beat in the final of the Davis Cup competition single player Adam Baworowski and won the doubles competition together with his partner Henner Henkel. However, his title in mixed doubles from the previous year, he could not defend. 1942 was his participation in the championships must fail because he served as a soldier in the Army since 1941 and was given no leave for the tournament. In 1943 he was able to repeat his triumph at the German Championships in both the single and double.

That was his last major appearance as a tennis player. Only a few weeks after the attainment of the league title, he fell at the age of 22 years as a soldier on the Eastern Front in Russia.

In Mülheim district hot a street named after him on 31 January 1957.

Swell

• Willi Rueter: Mülheim in the national jersey - Kurt Gies. In: Neue Ruhr Zeitung of 13-14. Mai 1955.
• City Archives Mülheim an der Ruhr, 1550 stock # 177