1936, High Jump, Women, Olympic Games, Berlin

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• published: 27 Jul 2013
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1936, High Jump, Women, Olympic Games, Berlin Date: 9 August 1936 Rank Name Nation Distance 1 Ibolya Csak HUN 1.60m [5' 3"] 2 Dorothy Odam GBR 1.60m [5' 3"] 3 Elfriede Kaun GER 1.60m [5' 3"] 4 Dora Ratjen GER 1.58m [5' 2 ¼"] 5 Marguerite Nicolas FRA 1.58m [5' 2 ¼"] 6 Doris Carter AUS 1.55m [5' 1"] 6 Annette Rogers USA 1.55m [5' 1"] 6 Fanny Koen NED 1.55m [5' 1"] The event was won by the 21 year old Hungarian Ibolya Csak with GBR's 16 year old Dorothy Odam (later Dorothy Tyler) in second place - she was placed second at the 1948 Games also - and Germany's 21 year old Elfriede Kaun in third place. The silver medallist, Odam, is the youngest ever medallist in the event being only 16 years and 115 days old in Berlin. However, the real story concerned the fourth place finisher Dora Ratjen (see video above at 1:42). On September 21, 1938 Ratjen took an express train from Vienna to Cologne. At the European Athletics Championships in the Austrian capital a few days earlier, she had won gold for the German Reich, clearing the high-jump bar at 1.70 meters, a new world record. At around noon the train stopped at Magdeburg station. The athlete was stretching her legs on the platform when a policeman approached her and asked to see some ID. A ticket inspector had informed Detective Sergeant Sömmering that a woman sitting on the train was actually a man. Sömmering took a close look at Ratjen and noticed how hairy her hands were. Ratjen pulled out an ID card from the European Championships, but the officer wasn't satisfied. He asked her to take her bag out of the train and accompany him to the police station. The policeman was determined to find out if Ratjen was a woman or a man. He even threatened to examine her. "And if I resist?" Ratjen asked. Then she would be guilty of obstruction, the detective replied. The athlete hesitated for a moment, then said that she was indeed a man. Dora Ratjen was arrested at 12.15pm. Mug shots were taken, the details of the case were noted down, preliminary proceedings were initiated, and Ratjen was charged on suspicion of fraud. The period: 1934 to 1938. The victim: "The Reich" - at least according to the admission papers. Ratjen's gold medal was immediately confiscated. It was thus that on September 21, 1938 the life of 19-year-old sportswoman Dora Ratjen came to an end, and that of Heinrich Ratjen began; a story that would continue to be spun until his death on April 22, 2008. The Ratjen case is one of the biggest sporting scandals in which a man dressed in women's clothes managed to fool his rivals. Gender researchers have also taken an interest in the affair. Was Ratjen a hermaphrodite, a transvestite, or simply a boy whose sex had been incorrectly identified at birth? Although his name is not mentioned, Ratjen and his police photos appear in the Atlas of Forensic Medicine under "transvestitism". Little is known about Heinrich Ratjen junior's later life. The last note in the police file is dated August 22, 1939. It states that Heinrich Ratjen, who later called himself Heinz, was given a work book, invalidity papers, and membership of the German Labor Front; the amalgamated trade union. With the help of the labor office he was issued with new ID and work papers and taken to Hanover "as a working man," according to the document. This note was sent to the Reich Sports Ministry, various police stations, and the relevant courts. There is therefore nothing to suggest that senior civil servants tried to keep the case a secret or restrict the number of people who were aware of it. And yet the case was clearly important to the Nazis themselves, as attested by the five-page report signed personally by security chief Reinhard Heydrich and sent to chancellery chief Hans Heinrich Lammers. This letter too (headed: "Athlete Dora Ratjen, Bremen -- Discovered to be a man following a medical examination") contains no evidence of any previous manipulation. In fact the report provides an amazingly frank summary of events, including the comment that the case "did not prompt undesirable public debate or even conflict in the international sporting arena." Damage limitation was conducted behind the scenes, just as the Ratjens had requested. Germany openly returned its European Championship gold medal, and the runner-up in Vienna was crowned the victor. Ratjen's record was struck from the books. Specialist track-and-field magazine Der Leichtathlet ran a short piece stating simply that Ratjen would no longer be permitted to take part in the women's competition following a medical examination. After the war Heinrich Ratjen took over the running of his parent's bar. Numerous attempts to interview him about his former life failed. N.B. On a lighter note the Dutch athlete, No.307, is Fanny Koen who (as Fanny Blankers-Koen) won four gold medals at the 1948 Games in London (see video at 1:33).