Gretel Lambert (born Margarethe Bergmann; April 12, 1914 – July 25, 2017)
nytimes.com, July 25, 2017; accessed September 10, 2017. was a

German Jewish The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish commu ...

track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

athlete who competed as a

high jump The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. In its modern, most-practiced format, a bar is placed between two standards with a crash mat f ...

er during the 1930s. Due to her Jewish origins, the Nazis prevented her from taking part in the

1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XI Olympiad () and officially branded as Berlin 1936, were an international multi-sport event held from 1 to 16 August 1936 in Berlin, then capital of Nazi Germany. Berlin won the bid to ...

, after which she left Germany and vowed never to return. She however visited Germany in 2004 to meet with her 1930s rival Elfriede Kaun, whom she considered a friend. Bergmann turned 100 in 2014. She died in 2017 at her home in Jamaica Estates, Queens, New York.

Life and career

Margarethe Bergmann was born in 1914 in Laupheim,

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, the daughter of Edwin and Paula (née Stern) Bergmann, a businessman. She later began her career in athletics in Laupheim. In 1930 she joined Ulmer FV 1894, winning her first title in high jumping in 1931 when, during the South German Championships, she jumped 1.51 metres. She won that same title again in 1932. After the

Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

' accession to power on 30 January 1933 she was expelled from the club for being Jewish. That April her parents sent her to the United Kingdom where in 1934, where she took part in the British 1934 WAAA Championships and won the high jump event with a height of 1.55 metres. The German government wanted her to return to Germany to help portray the nation as unbiased in its Olympic-team selections. Members of her family, who had stayed behind, were threatened with reprisals if she did not return. She complied and returned to Germany, where she was allowed to prepare for the 1936 Olympic Games. She won the

Württemberg Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart. Together with Baden and Province of Hohenzollern, Hohenzollern, two other histo ...

ian Championships in the high jump in 1935 and again on 30 June 1936 when, one month prior to the opening of the Olympic Games, she tied the German record by crossing 1.60 metres. Bergmann-Lambert was banned from the Berlin Olympics despite matching the high-jump record of 1.60 metres (5 feet 3 inches) to qualify and having spent two years on the team, starting in 1934. However, two weeks before the opening of the Olympics, she received a letter from the German sports authorities that she was being removed from the national team for under-performance. She was not replaced; instead, Germany fielded only two high jumpers: Dora Ratjen, who was later revealed to be a man who had been raised as a girl, and Elfriede Kaun. Bergmann's accomplishment was stricken from the record books some weeks later. In 1937, Bergmann emigrated to the United States, settling in New York City, where she married Bruno Lambert, a

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

. That year, she won the U.S. women's high jump and

shot put The shot put is a track-and-field event involving "putting" (throwing) a heavy spherical Ball (sports), ball—the ''shot''—as far as possible. For men, the sport has been a part of the Olympic Games, modern Olympics since their 1896 Summer Olym ...

championships, and in 1938 she again won the high jump. Her sports career ended after the entry of the United States into

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. In 1942, she received United States citizenship.

Awards and recognition

Bergmann's entry into the Jewish Hall of Fame at

Wingate Institute Wingate Institute (), officially Orde Wingate Institute for Physical Education and Sports (), is a sports training institute located south of Netanya, Israel. History Wingate Institute was established in 1957. It was named after Orde Wingate. ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

in 1980 revived interest in her story. In August 1995 a sports complex in Berlin-Wilmersdorf was named after her on the recommendation of the German National Sports Federation. Bergmann, who had vowed never to set foot on German soil again, did not attend the festivities. In 1996 she was admitted to the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in the United States. In 1999, she received the for achievements in the sphere of sports and society without the prospect of material gains. The stadium in Laupheim, from which she had been barred in the 1930s, was named after her in 1999. This time Bergmann attended the dedication, saying: Bergmann added, "I ... finally came to the conclusion that people now had nothing to do with it". In 2004, a documentary based on her life in Germany, ''Hitler's Pawn – The Margaret Lambert Story'', mostly focusing on her athletic life, debuted on HBO prior to the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad (), and officially branded as Athens 2004 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 13 to 29 August 2004 in Athens, Greece. The Games saw 10,625 athletes ...

. On 23 November 2009 her German national record (1.60m) from 1936 was officially restored by the German track and field association, which also requested she be admitted to the German sports hall of fame. In September 2009 '' Berlin 36'', a film about her preparation for, and exclusion from, the 1936 Olympics, debuted in German theaters.

Honors

In August 2014, one of the streets in the Olympic Park Berlin (former Reichssportfeld) was renamed "Gretel-Bergmann-Weg" in her honor.

References

In film

* ''Die Angst sprang mit — Die jüdische Hochspringerin Gretel Bergmann'' ( SWR, 2004 (TV documentary)
Inhaltsangabe

''Hitler's Pawn — The Margaret Lambert Story''
imdb.com; accessed September 10, 2017. * '' Berlin 36 — Die wahre Geschichte einer Siegerin.'' (Germany 2009), directed by Kaspar Heidelbach, Bergmann was portrayed by Karoline Herfurth * ''Der Traum von Olympia — Die Nazispiele von 1936'' ( ARD, 2016, television

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television show, television and feature film, film, which features Drama (film and television), dramatized Historical reenactment, re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of docu ...

Inhaltsangabe
, Bergmann was portrayed by Sandra von Ruffin.

Life and career

Awards and recognition

Honors

See also

References

Further reading

In film

External links