Joachim "Jochen" Balke (September 12, 1917 – MIA January 19, 1944) was a German

breaststroke Breaststroke is a swimming style in which the swimmer is on their chest and the torso does not rotate. It is the most popular recreational style due to the swimmer's head being out of the water a large portion of the time, and that it can b ...

swimmer Swimming is an individual or team racing sport that requires the use of one's entire body to move through water. The sport takes place in pools or open water (e.g., in a sea or lake). Competitive swimming is one of the most popular Olympic ...

who won a gold medal at the 1938 London European Championship and competed in the

1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics ( German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad ( German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi- ...

. He was born in

Dortmund Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is th ...

and died during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. In 1936 he finished sixth in the 200 metre breaststroke event. In 1938 he finished first at the European Championship in London in the 200 m breaststroke event.

References

1917 births 1944 deaths Sportspeople from Dortmund German male swimmers Olympic swimmers of Germany Swimmers at the 1936 Summer Olympics German military personnel killed in World War II Missing in action of World War II European Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming People declared dead in absentia Missing person cases in Russia People with post-traumatic stress disorder German male breaststroke swimmers 20th-century German people {{Germany-swimming-bio-stub