Full name | Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm |
---|---|
Country (sports) | Weimar Republic (until 1933) Nazi Germany (1933-1945) West Germany (from 1949) |
Born | Nettlingen, German Empire | 7 July 1909
Died | 8 November 1976 67) Cairo, Egypt | (aged
Height | 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in) |
Turned pro | 1931 (amateur tour) |
Retired | 1952 |
Plays | Right-handed (one-handed backhand) |
Int. Tennis HoF | 1977 (member page) |
Singles | |
Career record | 390–82 (82.6%) [1] |
Career titles | 45 [1] |
Highest ranking | No. 1 (1937, ITHF) [2] [3] |
Grand Slam singles results | |
Australian Open | SF (1938) |
French Open | W (1934, 1936) |
Wimbledon | F (1935, 1936, 1937) |
US Open | F (1937) |
Doubles | |
Grand Slam doubles results | |
Australian Open | F (1938) |
French Open | W (1937) |
Wimbledon | SF (1933, 1937) |
US Open | W (1937) |
Grand Slam mixed doubles results | |
Wimbledon | W (1933) |
Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr [A] [4] von Cramm (German: [ˈɡɔtfʁiːtfɔnˈkʁam] ; 7 July 1909 – 8 November 1976) was a German tennis player who won the French Championships twice, so becoming the first non American, British, Australian or French player to win a singles slam title at the 1934 French Open, [5] and reached the final of a Grand Slam singles tournament on five other occasions. He was ranked number 2 in the world in 1934 and 1936, and number 1 in the world in 1937. [2] [6] [7] He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1977, which states that he is "most remembered for a gallant effort in defeat against Don Budge in the 1937 Interzone Final at Wimbledon". [3]
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, the Woolworth heiress.
Third of the seven sons of Baron Burchard von Cramm (1874-1936), by his marriage to Countess 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, 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. [8]
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. [9]
In 1932, Cramm earned a place in the German Davis Cup team and won the first of four straight German national tennis championships. [10] 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 had come to power. The handsome, blond Gottfried von Cramm fitted perfectly the Aryan race image of a Nazi 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. [11]
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, 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. [3] 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. [12] 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, 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.' [13] Others say that Budge believed a tale invented by Teddy Tinling that Hitler had telephoned Cramm before the match. [14]
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. [15]
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, a young Galician Jewish actor and singer, who had appeared in the 1926 silent film Der Sohn des Hannibal . [16] After being hospitalized for a nervous collapse after his arrest, on 14 March von Cramm was sentenced to one year's imprisonment [17] 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 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." [18] 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". [19]
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. His friend King Gustaf V of Sweden also pressured the German government to have him released. Cramm was released on parole after six months, [16] and in May 1939 returned to competitive tennis. Cramm competed at the Queen's Club Championships in London, where he won the event by beating American Bobby Riggs 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.[ citation needed ]
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.
Cramm refused to become a party member of the NSDAP during the entire period of the National Socialist regime, although Hermann Göring, who was a member of the same tennis club, tried to persuade him several times. Because Cramm never mentioned Hitler during speeches on international trips, watched films critical of the regime, and privately spoke disparagingly of the National Socialists, he increasingly aroused the displeasure of the Nazis.
Von Cramm showed solidarity with the active resistance to Hitler in the last years of the war, using his travels as a tennis coach to Sweden to pass on confidential messages from the 20 July conspirators. [20] After the failed assassination attempt, he expressed his desire to join another attempt. [21] Since the resistance never reorganised after the 20 July plot, he never got the chance to turn his words into deeds.
In May 1940, some months after the outbreak of the Second World War, Cramm was conscripted into military service [16] as a member of the Hermann Goering Division. [22] He saw action on the Eastern Front and was awarded the Iron Cross. [4] 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. [16]
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). [23] 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.
Gottfried von Cramm married:
While on a business trip, Cramm and his driver were killed in an automobile accident near Cairo, Egypt, 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-Wilmersdorf, where the Rot-Weiss Tennis Club 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 in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1977. [3]
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. [B] Cramm was the subject of a radio play, titled Playing for His Life, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2011. The play focused on the 1937 Interzone Davis Cup final and on Cramm's personal life. [26] Cramm's story is featured at some length in the 2023 Netflix documentary Eldorado – everything the Nazis hate. [27]
Result | Year | Championship | Surface | Opponent | Score |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Win | 1934 | French Championships | Clay | Jack Crawford | 6–4, 7–9, 3–6, 7–5, 6–3 |
Loss | 1935 | French Championships | Clay | Fred Perry | 3–6, 6–3, 1–6, 3–6 |
Loss | 1935 | Wimbledon | Grass | Fred Perry | 2–6, 4–6, 4–6 |
Win | 1936 | French Championship | Clay | Fred Perry | 6–0, 2–6, 6–2, 2–6, 6–0 |
Loss | 1936 | Wimbledon | Grass | Fred Perry | 1–6, 1–6, 0–6 |
Loss | 1937 | Wimbledon | Grass | Don Budge | 3–6, 4–6, 2–6 |
Loss | 1937 | U.S. Championships | Grass | Don Budge | 1–6, 9–7, 1–6, 6–3, 1–6 |
Result | Year | Championship | Surface | Partner | Opponents | Score |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Win | 1937 | French Championships | Clay | Henner Henkel | Vernon Kirby Norman Farquharson | 6–4, 7–5, 3–6, 6–1 |
Win | 1937 | U.S. Championships | Grass | Henner Henkel | Don Budge Gene Mako | 6–4, 7–5, 6–4 |
Loss | 1938 | Australian Open | Grass | Henner Henkel | John Bromwich Adrian Quist | 5–7, 4–6, 0–6 |
Result | Year | Championship | Surface | Partner | Opponents | Score |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Win | 1933 | Wimbledon Championships | Grass | Hilde Krahwinkel | Mary Heeley Norman Farquharson | 7–5, 8–6 |
W | F | SF | QF | #R | RR | Q# | DNQ | A | NH |
Tournament | 1931 | 1932 | 1933 | 1934 | 1935 | 1936 | 1937 | 1938 | 1939 | 1940 | 1941 | 1942 | 1943 | 1944 | 1945 | 1946 | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 | 1950 | 1951 | 1952 | SR | W–L | Win % |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Australia | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | SF | A | A | NH | NH | NH | NH | NH | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | 0 / 1 | 3–1 | 75.0 |
France | 4R | 2R | A | W | F | W | A | A | A | NH | NH | NH | NH | NH | NH | A | A | A | A | A | A | 1R | 2 / 6 | 21–4 | 84.0 |
Wimbledon | 4R | 2R | 3R | 4R | F | F | F | A | A | NH | NH | NH | NH | NH | NH | A | A | A | A | A | 1R | A | 0 / 8 | 27–8 | 77.1 |
United States | A | A | A | A | A | A | F | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | 0 / 1 | 5–1 | 83.3 |
Source: ITF [28]
John Donald Budge was an American tennis player. He is most famous as the first tennis player — male or female, to win all four Grand Slam events consecutively overall. Budge was the second man to complete the career Grand Slam after Fred Perry, and remains the youngest to achieve the feat. He won ten majors, of which six were Grand Slam events and four Pro Slams, the latter achieved on three different surfaces. Budge is considered to have one of the best backhands in the history of tennis, with most observers rating it better than that of later player Ken Rosewall.
Frederick John Perry was a British tennis and table tennis player and former world No. 1 from England who won 10 Majors including eight Grand Slam tournaments and two Pro Slams single titles, as well as six Major doubles titles. Perry won three consecutive Wimbledon Championships from 1934 to 1936 and was World Amateur number one tennis player during those three years. Prior to Andy Murray in 2013, Perry was the last British player to win the men's Wimbledon championship, in 1936, and the last British player to win a men's singles Grand Slam title, until Andy Murray won the 2012 US Open.
1937 in sports describes the year's events in world sport.
Henry Ellsworth Vines Jr. was an American tennis champion of the 1930s, the World No. 1 player or the co-No. 1 in 1932 as an amateur, and in 1934, 1935, 1936 and 1937 as a professional. He won three Grand Slam titles, the U.S. National Championships in 1931 and 1932 and the Wimbledon Championships in 1932. Vines also was able to win Pro Slam titles on three different surfaces. He later became a professional golfer and reached the semifinals of the PGA Championship in 1951.
John Herbert Crawford, was an Australian tennis player during the 1930s. He was the World No. 1 amateur for 1933, during which year he won the Australian Open, the French Open, and Wimbledon, and was runner-up at the U.S. Open in five sets, thus missing the Grand Slam by one set that year. He also won the Australian Open in 1931, 1932, and 1935. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1979.
Bryan Morel "Bitsy" Grant Jr. was an American amateur tennis champion. At 5 feet 4 inches (163 cm) and 120 pounds (54 kg), Grant was the smallest American man to win a championship on the international tennis circuit. A right-handed retriever, he was able to beat heavy-hitting greats such as Don Budge and Ellsworth Vines even when playing on grass. His nickname was "Itsy Bitsy the Giant Killer".
Heinrich Ernst Otto "Henner" Henkel was a German tennis player during the 1930s. His biggest success was his singles title at the 1937 French Championships.
The 1937 Wimbledon Championships took place on the outdoor grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom. The tournament was held from Monday 21 June until Saturday 3 July 1937. It was the 57th staging of the Wimbledon Championships, and the third Grand Slam tennis event of 1937. Don Budge and Dorothy Round won the singles title.
In the 1936 Wimbledon Championships men's singles competition, Fred Perry successfully defended his title, defeating Gottfried von Cramm in the final, 6–1, 6–1, 6–0 to win the gentlemen's singles title. Perry's victory was the last Wimbledon singles title won by a British male until Andy Murray won in 2013.
Don Budge defeated Gottfried von Cramm in the final, 6–3, 6–4, 6–2 to win the gentlemen's singles tennis title at the 1937 Wimbledon Championships. Fred Perry was the defending champion, but was ineligible to compete after turning professional at the end of the 1936 season.
Roderich Ferdinand Ottomar Menzel was a Czech-German amateur tennis player and, after his active career, a writer.
Georg Felix Ritter von Metaxa was an Austrian tennis player active in the 1930s.
Norman Gordon Farquharson was a male tennis player from South Africa.
František Cejnar was a Czechoslovak amateur tennis player in the 1930s.
Manasse Herbst was a German-speaking silent movie actor, child-actor, theater actor and singer from Jewish descent. He participated in 416 sold-out performances of the operetta White Horse Inn between 1930 and 1932 in Berlin. During the first half of the 1930s, Herbst had a relationship with the German Baron Gottfried von Cramm, one of the more popular tennis players of the time. Because of this, von Cramm was sentenced in a Nazi propaganda trial that was recognized all over the world. Due to his Jewish background and the Nazi prohibition to perform his job, Herbst fled from Germany in 1936. Later, he became a U.S. citizen.
Giovanni Palmieri was an Italian tennis player who was active during the 1930s.
Don Budge and Gene Mako defeated the defending champions Pat Hughes and Raymond Tuckey in the final, 6–0, 6–4, 6–8, 6–1 to win the gentlemen doubles tennis title at the 1937 Wimbledon Championship.
George McVeagh, also known as Trevor McVeagh and T. G. McVeagh, was an Irish sportsman who was capped in four sports for his country as a cricket, hockey, tennis, and squash player. He is considered the greatest all-round sportsman of his day in Ireland.
The 1937 Pacific Southwest Championships was a combined men's and women's amateur tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts at the Los Angeles Tennis Club in Los Angeles, California in the United States. It was the 12th edition of the tournament and took place from September 19 through September 26, 1937. Don Budge and Alice Marble won the singles titles.
Franz-Wilhelm Matejka was an Austrian tennis player.