Nickolaus (also "Nikolaus") "Mickey" (also "Micki") Hirschl (March 20, 1906 – October 10, 1991) was an Austrian Olympic-medal-winning

wrestler Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat spor ...

. He was also a European heavyweight wrestling champion, and for 10 years held the title of Austrian heavyweight wrestling champion. He was also an Austrian shot put and discus junior champion, Austrian heavyweight

weightlifting Weightlifting generally refers to activities in which people lift weights, often in the form of dumbbells or barbells. People lift various kinds of weights for a variety of different reasons. These may include various types of competition; promo ...

junior champion, and for seven years the Austrian pentathlon champion.

Early life

Hirschl was

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 ...

, and was born in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, Austria. His parents were kosher butchers, and his father was president of a synagogue.

Sports career

At 15 years of age, he won the Austrian junior championship in shot put and discus. At 16 years of age, he won the Austrian junior championship in heavyweight

. At 17 years of age, he became the pentathlon champion of Austria, winning the title in 1923. He held it for seven years. At the age of 18, he won the Austrian heavyweight

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

championship. He was the Austrian champion for the following 10 years. In 1932, Hirschl won the gold medal in the European Wrestling Championships heavyweight championship. He wrestled for the

Hakoah Vienna SC Hakoah Vienna (german: Sport Club Hakoah Wien; ' means "the strength" in Hebrew) is a Jews, Jewish sports club in Vienna, Austria. Prior to World War II, it produced several Olympic athletes and was notable for fielding an entirely Jewish ass ...

wrestling team, which won 127 international titles from 1929 to 1934. At the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, he won a bronze medal in heavyweight freestyle, and a bronze medal in heavyweight Greco-Roman. At the 1932 Maccabiah Games in Mandatory Palestine, he won a gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling in the heavyweight category. In 1936, he boycotted the Olympics which were to be held in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

, refusing to participate due to the racial policies of the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

Life after sports career

Hirschl left Austria to escape the Nazis before the start of World War II. Most of his family was killed in

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. He first moved to pre-Israel Palestine. He joined the

British Commandos The Commando, Commandos, also known as the British Commandos, were formed during the World War II, Second World War in June 1940, following a request from Winston Churchill, for special forces that could carry out Raid (military), raids against ...

, and served fighting the Germans in North Africa. After the war, he married and moved to Australia in 1947, where he ran a meat business."Nickolaus Hirschl,"
Olympics.com. He was inducted into the

International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame ( he, יד לאיש הספורט היהודי, translit=Yad Le'ish HaSport HaYehudi) was opened July 7, 1981 in Netanya, Israel. It honors Jewish athletes and their accomplishments from anywhere arou ...

in 1993.

Early life

Sports career

Life after sports career

See also

References

Further reading