Movie: 'Berlin 36' tells how Nazis replaced Jewish woman athlete for man in drag
She showered alone, shaved her legs several times a day and had a gruff, deep voice. It soon became clear why: the Nazis conscripted a man in drag to replace a star Jewish high jumper before the Berlin 1936 Olympics.
The film Berlin 36, which will be shown in German cinemas from next week, tells the extraordinary story of Gretel Bergmann, who was heading for an Olympic gold medal before she was bounced out of the squad. The Nazis wanted to ensure that Hitler would not be embarrassed by a Jewish athlete winning a gold medal for Germany. Her room-mate and eventual replacement, the film reveals, was Dora Ratjen — real name Horst Ratjen. “Dora”, despite his male hormones, managed to gain only fourth place.
Two years later, still posing as a woman, he set a new world high jump record for women of 1.70m — but was disqualified after a doctor discovered that he had strapped up his genitals. He was stripped of his title and was quickly conscripted into the army; his personal details disappeared from German archives.
“I never suspected anything,” Ms Bergmann, now 95 and living in the United States, told Der Spiegel news magazine. “We all wondered why she never appeared naked in the shower. To be so shy at the age of 17 seemed grotesque but we just thought: well, she’s weird, she’s strange.”
The timing of the film is particularly poignant, since officials are arguing over the gender of Caster Semenya, a South African runner who won the gold medal last month in the women’s 800 metres at the World Athletics Championship — in the same stadium that hosted the 1936 Olympics. The championships were held in the same Berlin stadium that was the venue for the 1936 Olympics.
Gender testingand hormonal and drug sampling are a relatively modern phenomenen. In 1936 it was still feasible for men to pose as women if the athlete had vaguely soft features, long hair — and if the team doctor had approved the athlete. All the indications so far are that the Nazis tried the trick only once, and did so at short notice. Horst “Dora” Ratjen survived the war, despite being sent to the Eastern Front, and later worked as a barman in Hamburg. He said that he had been pressured into the subterfuge by the BDM — the Nazi League of German Girls — to save the honour of Germany. Ratjen died last year...
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The film Berlin 36, which will be shown in German cinemas from next week, tells the extraordinary story of Gretel Bergmann, who was heading for an Olympic gold medal before she was bounced out of the squad. The Nazis wanted to ensure that Hitler would not be embarrassed by a Jewish athlete winning a gold medal for Germany. Her room-mate and eventual replacement, the film reveals, was Dora Ratjen — real name Horst Ratjen. “Dora”, despite his male hormones, managed to gain only fourth place.
Two years later, still posing as a woman, he set a new world high jump record for women of 1.70m — but was disqualified after a doctor discovered that he had strapped up his genitals. He was stripped of his title and was quickly conscripted into the army; his personal details disappeared from German archives.
“I never suspected anything,” Ms Bergmann, now 95 and living in the United States, told Der Spiegel news magazine. “We all wondered why she never appeared naked in the shower. To be so shy at the age of 17 seemed grotesque but we just thought: well, she’s weird, she’s strange.”
The timing of the film is particularly poignant, since officials are arguing over the gender of Caster Semenya, a South African runner who won the gold medal last month in the women’s 800 metres at the World Athletics Championship — in the same stadium that hosted the 1936 Olympics. The championships were held in the same Berlin stadium that was the venue for the 1936 Olympics.
Gender testingand hormonal and drug sampling are a relatively modern phenomenen. In 1936 it was still feasible for men to pose as women if the athlete had vaguely soft features, long hair — and if the team doctor had approved the athlete. All the indications so far are that the Nazis tried the trick only once, and did so at short notice. Horst “Dora” Ratjen survived the war, despite being sent to the Eastern Front, and later worked as a barman in Hamburg. He said that he had been pressured into the subterfuge by the BDM — the Nazi League of German Girls — to save the honour of Germany. Ratjen died last year...