Helene Mayer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Olympic medal record | |||
| Women's Fencing | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | 1928 Amsterdam | Individual foil | |
| Silver | 1936 Berlin | Individual foil | |
Helene Mayer (born December 20, 1910 – died October 15, 1953) was a world champion Olympic fencer who competed for Nazi Germany in the 1936 Summer Olympics, despite having being forced to leave Germany and resettle in the United States because of her Jewish heritage. She was born in Offenbach, Germany.
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[edit] Fencing career
Mayer was one of the top 100 female athletes of the 20th century.
[edit] German Championships
Mayer was only 13 when she won the German women's foil championship in 1924. By 1930, she had won 6 German championships.
[edit] Olympics
Mayer won a gold medal in fencing at the age of 18 at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, representing Germany, winning 18 bouts and losing only 2.
She finished 5th at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games. She then remained in the U.S. in 1933 to study at the University of Southern California, earned a certificate in social work, and fenced for the USC Fencing Club.
[edit] The Berlin Olympics & Controversy
In 1933 she learned that she had been expelled from the Offenbach Fencing Club as part of a Nazi purge of Jewish athletes. She had to leave Germany after Hitler's rise to power, shortly before World War II started, because her father was Jewish.
The AAU then voted to boycott the 1936 Olympics, to be held in Berlin, unless Jews were allowed to take part in the German trials and compete for Germany in the Olympics. As a gesture of compliance, the German Olympic Committee invited Mayer to join the national team.
She accepted, and returned to Germany to compete in the 1936 Summer Olympics, despite protests from the American Jewish community and other Jewish athletes, hoping to be accepted back into German society.
She won a silver medal. Controversially, she wore a swastika and extended her right arm in the Nazi salute on the medal stand during the medal ceremony. This rankled many, but others explained that she did this to save her family. Although her Jewish father had died in 1931, her mother and two brothers had continued to live in Germany. Mayer considered herself German and wanted to represent her country, but rumors speculated that the Nazis had threatened her family in order to get Mayer to compete. Still, she was not reaccepted into German society.
[edit] International competitions
In 1928 she won the Italian national championship.
She was the European champion in 1929 and 1931.
She was World Foil Champion in 1929-31, and in 1937.
[edit] US Championships
Ultimately, she settled in the United States and had a successful fencing career, winning the US women's foil championship 8 times from 1934-46 (1934, '35, '37, '38, '39, '41, '42, and '46).[1]
[edit] Death
She died of bone cancer after a long illness at the age of 43.
[edit] Hall of Fame
She was inducted into the USFA Hall of Fame in 1963.[2]
[edit] Accomplishments
- 1924: German Foil Champion
- 1925: German Foil Champion
- 1926: German Foil Champion
- 1927: German Foil Champion
- 1928: German Foil Champion
- Olympic Gold Metal, Foil, German Team
- Winner Foil, Italian National Championships
- 1929: German Foil Champion
- World Foil Champion
- 1930: German Foil Champion
- 1931: World Foil Champion
- 1932: German Olympic Foil Team
- 1934: U.S. Foil Champion
- 1935: U.S. Foil Champion
- 1936: Olympic Silver Metal, Foil, German Team
- 1937: U.S. Foil Champion
- World Foil Champion
- 1938: U.S. Foil Champion
- 1939: U.S. Foil Champion
- 1941: U.S. Foil Champion
- 1942: U.S. Foil Champion
- 1946: U.S. Foil Champion
[edit] References
- Helene Mayer the Fencer
- Foiled! Hitler's Jewish Olympian
- Olympic record
- Hickok Sports bio
- Jewish Virtual Library bio
- Jews in Sports bio
- Holocaust Museum photo
Categories: German fencers | American fencers | University of Southern California alumni | University of Southern California athletes | Jewish fencers | German Jews | 1910 births | 1953 deaths | Place of birth missing | Jewish sportspeople | Jewish Americans | Fencers | Olympic fencers of Germany | Olympic fencers of the United States | Fencers at the 1928 Summer Olympics | Fencers at the 1932 Summer Olympics | Fencers at the 1936 Summer Olympics | Olympic gold medalists for Germany | Olympic silver medalists for Germany
