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Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm (; 7 July 1909 – 8 November 1976) was a German tennis champion who won the
French Open The French Open (french: Internationaux de France de tennis), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France, beginning in late May each year. The tournament and v ...
twice and reached the final of a Grand Slam on five other occasions. He was ranked number 2 in the world in 1934 and 1936, and number 1 in the world in 1937. He was inducted into the
International Tennis Hall of Fame The International Tennis Hall of Fame is located in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. It honors both players and other contributors to the sport of tennis. The complex, the former Newport Casino, includes a museum, grass tennis courts, an ind ...
in 1977, an organisation which considers that he is "most remembered for a gallant effort in defeat against Don Budge in the 1937 Interzone Final at Wimbledon". Von Cramm had difficulties with the Nazi regime, which attempted to exploit his appearance and skill as a symbol of Aryan supremacy, but he refused to identify with Nazism. Subsequently he was persecuted as a homosexual by the German government and was jailed briefly in 1938. Von Cramm figured briefly in the gossip columns as the sixth husband of
Barbara Hutton Barbara Woolworth Hutton (November 14, 1912 – May 11, 1979) was an American debutante, socialite, heiress, and philanthropist. She was dubbed the "Poor Little Rich Girl"—first when she was given a lavish and expensive debutante ball in 1930 a ...
, the Woolworth heiress.


Birth and childhood

Third of the seven sons of Baron Burchard von Cramm (1874-1936), by his marriage to
Countess Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York: ...
Jutta von Steinberg (1888–1972), Cramm was born at the family estate, Castle Nettlingen, Lower Saxony, Germany and grew up in Castle Brüggen which also belonged to his family. A younger brother, Wilhelm-Ernst Freiherr von Cramm (1917–1996), was a German officer who was highly decorated during the
Second World War 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 ...
, and who after the war was leader of the German Party, a conservative German political party. Through the mutual ancestry from the Cramm family, he was third cousin of Bernhard, Prince of the Netherlands. Von Cramm began playing tennis around the age of ten after his right hand had recovered from an accident. That accident, which resulted in him losing the top joint of his index finger on his right hand, was the result of a horse who took more than just the sugar cube offered to him by the young von Cramm.


Tennis career

In 1932, Cramm earned a place in the German
Davis Cup The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the orga ...
team and won the first of four straight German national tennis championships. During this time he also teamed up with Hilde Krahwinkel to win the 1933 mixed doubles title at Wimbledon. Noted for his gentlemanly conduct and fair play, he gained the admiration and respect of his fellow tennis players. He earned his first individual Grand Slam title in 1934, winning the French Open. His victory made him a national hero in his native Germany; however, it was by chance that he won just after
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
had come to power. The handsome, blond Gottfried von Cramm fitted perfectly the
Aryan race The Aryan race is an obsolete historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people of Proto-Indo-European heritage as a racial grouping. The terminology derives from the historical usage of Aryan, used by modern ...
image of a
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...
ideology that put pressure on all German athletes to be superior. However, Cramm steadfastly refused to be a tool for Nazi propaganda. Germany effectively lost its 1935 Davis Cup Interzone Final against the US when Cramm refused to take a match point in the deciding game, by notifying the umpire that the ball had tipped his racket, and thus calling a point against himself, although no one had witnessed the error. For three straight years Cramm was the men's singles runner-up at the Wimbledon Championships, losing in the final to England's Fred Perry in 1935 and again in 1936. The following year he was runner-up to American
Don Budge John Donald Budge (June 13, 1915 – January 26, 2000) was an American tennis player. He is most famous as the first tennis player — male or female, and still the only American male — to win the Grand Slam, and to win all four Grand Slam e ...
, both at Wimbledon and at the U.S. Open. In 1935, he was beaten in the French Open final by Perry, but turned the tables the following year and defeated his rival, gaining his second French championship. In addition to his Grand Slam play, Gottfried von Cramm is recalled for his deciding match against Don Budge during the 1937 Davis Cup. He was ahead 4–1 in the final set when Budge launched a comeback, eventually winning 8–6 in a match considered by many as the greatest battle in the annals of Davis Cup play and one of the pre-eminent matches in all of tennis history. In a later interview, Budge said that Cramm had received a phone call from Hitler minutes before the match started and had come out pale and serious and had played each point as though his life depended on winning. Ted Tinling, who served as the Player Liaison for the All England Club, recalled in his memoir that as he was in the process of ushering Budge and von Cramm out to
Centre Court Centre Court is a tennis court at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (also known as the All England Club) and is the main court used in The Championships at Wimbledon, the third annual Grand Slam event of the tennis calendar. It is ...
, they were interrupted by a long-distance call for von Cramm, and that following the call, von Cramm turned to him and Budge and said, 'Excuse me, gentlemen, it was Hitler. He wanted to wish me good luck.' Others say that Budge believed a tale invented by Teddy Tinling that Hitler had telephoned Cramm before the match. For his successful tennis career, he was decorated by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany with the Silver Laurel Leaf, Germany's highest sports award.


Imprisonment for same-sex affair

Despite his enormous popularity with the public, on 5 March 1938, von Cramm was arrested by the German government and tried on the charge of a homosexual relationship with
Manasse Herbst Manasse Herbst (1 November 1913 in Galicia, Austria-Hungary – 3 January 1997 in Hallandale, Florida) was a German-speaking silent movie actor, child-actor, theater actor and singer. He participated in 416 sold-out performances of the operetta ' ...
, a young Galician
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
actor and singer, who had appeared in the 1926 silent film '' Der Sohn des Hannibal''. After being hospitalized for a nervous collapse after his arrest, on 14 March von Cramm was sentenced to one year's imprisonment Cramm admitted the relationship, which had lasted from 1931 until 1934 and had begun shortly before he married his first wife. He was additionally charged with sending money to Herbst, who had moved to Palestine in 1936. According to a report on the trial in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' of 15 May 1938, the judge stated that "Baron von Cramm had alleged that his wife, during their honeymoon, had become intimate with a French athlete. The court held that this experience had unsettled the young tennis star and had resulted in his seeking a perverse compensation for an unhappy married life." Although Cramm had confessed to an affair with Herbst once he was arrested, he later changed his confession to one of "mutual masturbation", and his lawyer was able to convince the judge that Cramm had been forced into sending money to Herbst because Herbst was a "sneaky Jew". Cramm's international tennis friends were outraged at his treatment. Don Budge collected the signatures of high-profile athletes and sent a protest letter to
Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
. His friend King Gustaf V of Sweden also pressured the German government to have him released. Cramm was released on parole after six months, and in May 1939 returned to competitive tennis. Cramm competed at the
Queen's Club Championships The Queen's Club Championships is an annual tournament for male tennis players, held on grass courts at the Queen's Club in West Kensington, London. The event is part of the ATP Tour 500 series on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) T ...
in London, where he won the event by beating American
Bobby Riggs Robert Larimore Riggs (February 25, 1918 – October 25, 1995) was an American tennis champion who was the World No. 1 amateur in 1939 and World No. 1 professional in 1946 and 1947. He played his first professional tennis match on December ...
6–0, 6–1. Officials at Wimbledon reportedly refused to let him play in their tournament, using the excuse that he was a convicted criminal and therefore unfit; ''The New York Times'', however, quoted Wimbledon sources as saying that Cramm would have been welcome to participate, had he submitted an entry. A further humiliation was Germany's decision in 1940 to recall Cramm from an international tennis tournament in Rome before he had a chance to play.


Wartime service and postwar career

In May 1940, some months after the outbreak of the
Second World War 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 ...
, Cramm was conscripted into military service as a member of the Hermann Goering Division. He saw action on the Eastern Front and was awarded the
Iron Cross The Iron Cross (german: link=no, Eisernes Kreuz, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). King Frederick William III of Prussia e ...
. Despite his noble background, Cramm was enlisted as a private soldier until being given a company to command. His company faced harsh conditions on the Eastern Front, and Cramm was flown out suffering from frostbite, with much of his company dead. Because of his previous conviction, he was dismissed from military service in 1942. While the war robbed Cramm of some of his best years as a tennis player, he won the German national championship in 1948 and again in 1949, when he was 40 years old. He went on playing Davis Cup tennis until retiring after the 1953 season and still holds the record for the most wins by any German team member. Following his retirement from active competition, Cramm served as an administrator in the German Tennis Federation. He was instrumental in reviving the Lawn Tennis Club Rot-Weiss in Berlin following World War II, and later served as its Chairman and President (1958-death). Von Cramm became successful in business as a cotton importer. In addition, he managed the landed estate he had inherited from his father in Wispenstein, in Lower Saxony.


Marriages

Gottfried von Cramm married: * Baroness Elisabeth ''Lisa'' von Dobeneck (1912–1975), a daughter of Robert, Baron von Dobeneck (died in 1926) and his wife, the former Maria Hagen (1889–1943), a granddaughter of the Jewish banker Louis Hagen. They married on 1 September 1930 and divorced in 1937. Lisa von Cramm later married the German ice-hockey star
Gustav Jaenecke Gustav "Justav" Jaenecke (22 May 1908 – 30 May 1985) was a German ice hockey player who competed in the 1928 Winter Olympics, in the 1932 Winter Olympics, and in the 1936 Winter Olympics, and tennis Tennis is a racket sport that i ...
. *
Barbara Hutton Barbara Woolworth Hutton (November 14, 1912 – May 11, 1979) was an American debutante, socialite, heiress, and philanthropist. She was dubbed the "Poor Little Rich Girl"—first when she was given a lavish and expensive debutante ball in 1930 a ...
, an American socialite and an heiress to the Woolworth five-and-dime fortune. The couple married in 1955 and divorced in 1959. He had married her in order to "help her through substance abuse and depression but was unable to help her in the end."


Death

While on a business trip, Cramm and his driver were killed in an automobile accident near
Cairo, Egypt Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo me ...
, in 1976, when the baron's car collided with a truck. Two roads were named in his honor, the Gottfried-von-Cramm-Weg in
Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...
-
Wilmersdorf Wilmersdorf (), an inner-city locality of Berlin, lies south-west of the central city. Formerly a borough by itself, Wilmersdorf became part of the new borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf in Berlin's 2001 administrative reform. History The ...
, where the
Rot-Weiss Tennis Club The Lawn-Tennis-Turnier-Club "Rot-Weiß" (abbr.: LTTC, ''red-white'') is a tennis club located in Grunewald, part of a district in Berlin, Germany. The club was founded in 1897 as ''Lawn Tennis Turnier Club'', and was the origin for careers of ...
is located, and a similarly named road in the small town of Merzig. Gottfried von Cramm was inducted into the
International Tennis Hall of Fame The International Tennis Hall of Fame is located in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. It honors both players and other contributors to the sport of tennis. The complex, the former Newport Casino, includes a museum, grass tennis courts, an ind ...
in
Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and northeast of New ...
, in 1977. In his 1979 autobiography, Jack Kramer, the long-time tennis promoter and a great player, included Gottfried von Cramm in his list of the 21 greatest players of all time. Cramm was the subject of a radio play, titled ''Playing for His Life'', first broadcast on
BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of Talk radio, spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history fro ...
in June 2011. The play focused on the 1937 Interzone Davis Cup final and on Cramm's personal life.Playing for his life
Afternoon drama, BBC Radio 4, 24 June 2011. Retrieved 4 February 2014.


Grand Slam finals


Singles (2 titles, 5 runners-up)


Doubles (2 titles, 1 runner-up)


Mixed doubles (1 title)


Notes

: :Writing in 1979, Kramer considered the best ever to have been either
Don Budge John Donald Budge (June 13, 1915 – January 26, 2000) was an American tennis player. He is most famous as the first tennis player — male or female, and still the only American male — to win the Grand Slam, and to win all four Grand Slam e ...
(for consistent play) or Ellsworth Vines (at the height of his game). The next four best were, chronologically,
Bill Tilden William Tatem Tilden II (February 10, 1893 – June 5, 1953), nicknamed "Big Bill", was an American tennis player. Tilden was the world No. 1 amateur for six consecutive years, from 1920 to 1925, and was ranked as the world No. 1 professional ...
, Fred Perry,
Bobby Riggs Robert Larimore Riggs (February 25, 1918 – October 25, 1995) was an American tennis champion who was the World No. 1 amateur in 1939 and World No. 1 professional in 1946 and 1947. He played his first professional tennis match on December ...
and Pancho Gonzales. After these six came the "second echelon" of Rod Laver, Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall, Gottfried von Cramm,
Ted Schroeder Frederick Rudolph "Ted" Schroeder (July 20, 1921 – May 26, 2006) was an American tennis player who won the two most prestigious amateur tennis titles, Wimbledon and the U.S. National. He was the No. 1-ranked American amateur player in 1942; ...
, Jack Crawford,
Pancho Segura Francisco Olegario Segura (June 20, 1921 – November 18, 2017), better known as Pancho "Segoo" Segura, was a leading tennis player of the 1940s and 1950s, both as an amateur and as a professional. He was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, but m ...
, Frank Sedgman, Tony Trabert, John Newcombe,
Arthur Ashe Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. (July 10, 1943 – February 6, 1993) was an American professional tennis player who won three Grand Slam singles titles. He started to play tennis at six years old. He was the first black player selected to the Uni ...
, Stan Smith,
Björn Borg Björn Rune Borg (; born 6 June 1956) is a Swedish former world No. 1 tennis player. Between 1974 and 1981, he became the first man in the Open Era to win 11 Grand Slam singles titles with six at the French Open and five consecutively at W ...
and
Jimmy Connors James Scott Connors (born September 2, 1952) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. He held the top Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) ranking for a then-record 160 consecutive weeks from 1974 to 1977 and a career total of 268 ...
. He felt unable to rank
Henri Cochet Henri Jean Cochet (; 14 December 1901 – 1 April 1987) was a French tennis player. He was a world No. 1 ranked player, and a member of the famous " Four Musketeers" from France who dominated tennis in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Born in ...
and
René Lacoste Jean René Lacoste was a French tennis player and businessman. He was nicknamed "the Crocodile" because of how he dealt with his opponents; he is also known worldwide as the creator of the Lacoste tennis shirt, which he introduced in 1929, and ...
accurately but felt they were among the very best.


References


Further reading

* Fisher, Marshall Jon (2009). ''A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played''. * Simkin, John (6 July 2018)
"Why was the anti-Nazi German, Gottfried von Cramm, banned from taking part at Wimbledon in 1939?"
'' Spartacus Educational''. Retrieved 23 July 2018 *


External links

* * * *
Official page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cramm, Gottfried Von 1909 births 1976 deaths Barons of Germany Bisexual sportspeople French Championships (tennis) champions German male tennis players Grand Slam (tennis) champions in men's doubles Grand Slam (tennis) champions in men's singles Grand Slam (tennis) champions in mixed doubles International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees Recipients of the Silver Laurel Leaf LGBT sportspeople from Germany LGBT tennis players People convicted under Germany's Paragraph 175 People from Hildesheim (district) Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany Recipients of the Iron Cross (1939) Road incident deaths in Egypt United States National champions (tennis) West German male tennis players Wimbledon champions (pre-Open Era) Woolworth family Tennis people from Lower Saxony