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Heinrich Ratjen (20 November 1918 – 22 April 2008), born Dora Ratjen, was a German athlete who competed for Germany in the women's
Heinrich Ratjen (20 November 1918 – 22 April 2008), born Dora Ratjen, was a German athlete who competed for Germany in the women's 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 ...
at 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-sp ...
at Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, finishing fourth, but was later determined to be male and/or intersex. In some news reports, he was erroneously referred to as Hermann Ratjen and Horst Ratjen.
Life
A file containing the findings of an investigation conducted in 1938 and 1939 into Ratjen's life was made public by ''Der Spiegel
''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'' in 2009.
Ratjen was born in Erichshof, near Bremen
Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...
, into a family described as "simple folk". The father, Heinrich Ratjen, stated in 1938: "When the child was born the midwife called over to me, 'Heini, it's a boy!' But five minutes later she said to me, 'It is a girl, after all. Nine months later, when the child, who had been christened Dora, was ill, a doctor examined the child's genitalia and, according to Heinrich, said "Let it be. You can't do anything about it anyway." Dora stated, also in 1938: "My parents brought me up as a girl ndI therefore wore girl's clothes all my childhood. But from the age of 10 or 11 I started to realize I wasn't female, but male. However I never asked my parents why I had to wear women's clothes even though I was male."
In his teens, Dora began competing successfully as a girl at sports, apparently being "too embarrassed to talk about what was happening to him". In 1936, he took part in the Olympics, his teammate Gretel Bergmann
Gretel Lambert (born Margarethe Bergmann; April 12, 1914 – July 25, 2017) In 1938, Ratjen competed at the
Sports-Reference.com. Retrieved 31 August 2010 In 1939, he broke the world record in the high jump. But
''Time'', 16 September 1966, retrieved 18 March 2011 In 2009, the film ''
European Athletics Championships
The European Athletics Championships is a biennial (from 2010) athletics event organised by the European Athletics Association and is recognised as the elite continental outdoor athletics championships for Europe.
Editions
First held, for men ...
, and won the gold medal with a world record jump of . "Dora Ratjen"Sports-Reference.com. Retrieved 31 August 2010 In 1939, he broke the world record in the high jump. But
Dorothy Tyler-Odam
Dorothy Jennifer Beatrice Tyler, MBE (née Odam; 14 March 1920 – 25 September 2014) was a British athlete who competed mainly in the high jump. She was born in Stockwell, London.
Odam competed for Great Britain in the 1936 Summer Olympics ...
was suspicious of Ratjen, saying, "They wrote to me telling me I didn't hold the record, so I wrote to them saying, 'She's not a woman, she's a man'. They did some research and found 'her' serving as a waiter called Hermann Ratjen. So I got my world record back." Odam's world record was formally recognized by the sport's world governing body, the IAAF, in 1957.
Gender controversy
On 21 September 1938, Ratjen took an express train fromVienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
to Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
. The conductor of the train reported to the police at the station in Magdeburg
Magdeburg (; nds, label=Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river.
Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdebur ...
that there was "a man dressed as a woman" on the train. Ratjen was ordered off the train and questioned by the police. He showed his genuine documents which said he was a woman, but after some hesitation, admitted to being a man and told his story. A physician was summoned and after an examination pronounced Ratjen to be male. However, the physician described Ratjen's intersex
Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical bina ...
genitalia as having a "coarse scarred stripe", and stated his opinion that with this organ sexual intercourse would be impossible.
The athlete was arrested, and sent to Hohenlychen sports sanatorium for further tests, with the same results. Criminal proceedings continued until 10 March 1939, when the public prosecutor stated: "Fraud cannot be deemed to have taken place because there was no intention to reap financial reward." Dora promised the authorities he would "cease engaging in sport with immediate effect". The athlete's father, Heinrich Ratjen, initially insisted that Dora should continue to be treated as female but on 29 March 1939 wrote to the police chief of Bremen: "Following the change of the registry office entry regarding the child's sex, I would request you change the child's first name to Heinrich." The gold medal won by Ratjen was returned and his name expunged from the records.
Later life and confusion
According to ''Der Spiegel
''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'', Dora, then Heinrich Ratjen, who later called himself Heinz, was issued a new ID and work papers and taken to Hanover
Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
by the Reichsarbeitsdienst
The Reich Labour Service (''Reichsarbeitsdienst''; RAD) was a major organisation established in Nazi Germany as an agency to help mitigate the effects of unemployment on the German economy, militarise the workforce and indoctrinate it with Nazi ...
"as a working man". He later took over the running of his parents' bar, refusing requests for interviews before his death in 2008.
However, in 1966, ''Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine reported that, in 1957, Dora had presented as Hermann, a waiter in Bremen, "who tearfully confessed that he had been forced by the Nazis to pose as a woman 'for the sake of the honor and glory of Germany'. Sighed Hermann: 'For three years I lived the life of a girl. It was most dull."Track & Field: Preserving la Difference"''Time'', 16 September 1966, retrieved 18 March 2011 In 2009, the film ''
Berlin 36
''Berlin 36'' is a 2009 German film telling the fate of Jewish track and field athlete Gretel Bergmann in the 1936 Summer Olympics. In the movie she was replaced by the Nazi regime with a fellow athlete which she befriended. The film, based on ...
'' presented a fictionalised version of the story presented by ''Time'' magazine. In the version of Ratjen's story presented as background to the movie, the Nazis supposedly wanted to ensure that Hitler would not be embarrassed by a Jewish athlete winning a gold medal for Germany at the Olympics, and Gretel Bergmann
Gretel Lambert (born Margarethe Bergmann; April 12, 1914 – July 25, 2017)"The Jewish jumper and the male impostor"
BBC News, 9 September 2009, retrieved 31 August 2010 ''Der Spiegel'' disputed the assertion that Ratjen was a tool of the Nazis, as presented by ''Time'' and the movie, stating:
BBC News, 9 September 2009, retrieved 31 August 2010 ''Der Spiegel'' disputed the assertion that Ratjen was a tool of the Nazis, as presented by ''Time'' and the movie, stating:
See also
*Gender verification in sports
Sex verification in sports (also known as gender verification, or loosely as gender determination or a sex test) occurs because eligibility of athletes to compete is restricted whenever sporting events are limited to a single sex, which is gene ...
*Intersex rights in Germany
Intersex people in Germany have legal recognition of their rights to physical integrity and bodily autonomy, with exceptions, but no specific protections from discrimination on the basis of sex characteristics. In response to an inquiry by the Ge ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ratjen, Heinrich 1918 births 2008 deaths Athletes (track and field) at the 1936 Summer Olympics Sex verification in sports Intersex sportspeople Intersex men German high jumpers Olympic athletes of Germany Cheating in sports Sportspeople from Bremen German LGBT sportspeople LGBT track and field athletes Reich Labour Service members 20th-century LGBT people