Helene Mayer

Helene Mayer (December 20, 1910 – October 15, 1953) was a world champion Olympic fencer who competed for Nazi Germany in the 1936 Summer Olympics, despite having being forced to leave Germany and resettle in the United States because she was Jewish. She was born in Offenbach, Germany.

Fencing career

Mayer was one of the top 100 female athletes of the 20th centuryFact|date=April 2008.

German Championships

Mayer was only 13 when she won the German women's foil championship in 1924. By 1930, she had won 6 German championships.

Olympics

Mayer won a gold medal in fencing at the age of 17 at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, representing Germany, winning 18 bouts and losing only 2.

She finished 5th at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games. She then remained in the U.S. in 1933 to study at the University of Southern California, earned a certificate in social work, and fenced for the USC Fencing Club.

The Berlin Olympics & Controversy

In 1933 she learned that she had been expelled from the Offenbach Fencing Club as part of a Nazi purge of Jewish athletes. She had to leave Germany after Hitler's rise to power, shortly before World War II started, because her father was Jewish.

The Amateur Athletic Union then voted to boycott the 1936 Olympics, to be held in Berlin, unless Jews were allowed to take part in the German trials and compete for Germany in the Olympics. As a gesture of compliance, the German Olympic Committee invited Mayer to join the national team.

She accepted, and returned to Germany to compete in the 1936 Summer Olympics, despite protests from the American Jewish community and other Jewish athletes, hoping to be accepted back into German society.

She won a silver medal. Controversially, she wore a swastika and extended her right arm in the Nazi salute on the medal stand during the medal ceremony. This rankled many, but others explained that she did this to save her family. Although her Jewish father had died in 1931, her mother and two brothers had continued to live in Germany. Mayer considered herself German and wanted to represent her country, but rumors speculated that the Nazis had threatened her family in order to get Mayer to compete. Still, she was not reaccepted into German society.

International competitions

In 1928 she won the Italian national championship.

She was the European champion in 1929 and 1931.

She was World Foil Champion in 1929, 1931 and 1937.

US Championships

Ultimately, she settled in the United States and had a successful fencing career, winning the US women's foil championship 8 times from 1934-46 (1934, '35, '37, '38, '39, '41, '42, and '46). [http://www.fencingonfairfield.com/mayer_helene.htm]

Death

She died of breast cancer after a long illness, two months shy of her 43rd birthday.

Hall of Fame

She was inducted into the USFA Hall of Fame in 1963. [http://www.fencingonfairfield.com/mayer_helene.htm]

Accomplishments

* 1924: German Foil Champion
* 1925: German Foil Champion
* 1926: German Foil Champion
* 1927: German Foil Champion
* 1928: German Foil Champion
** Olympic Gold Medal, Foil, German Team
** Winner Foil, Italian National Championships
* 1929: German Foil Champion
** World Foil Champion
* 1930: German Foil Champion
* 1931: World Foil Champion
* 1932: German Olympic Foil Team
* 1934: U.S. Foil Champion
* 1935: U.S. Foil Champion
* 1936: Olympic Silver Medal, Foil, German Team
* 1937: U.S. Foil Champion
** World Foil Champion
* 1938: U.S. Foil Champion
* 1939: U.S. Foil Champion
* 1941: U.S. Foil Champion
* 1942: U.S. Foil Champion
* 1946: U.S. Foil Champion

References

* [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,747389,00.html?iid=chix-sphere "Like Cyrano"] , "Time Magazine", Apr. 23, 1934
* [http://www-scf.usc.edu/~fencing/Mayer.htm Helene Mayer the Fencer]
* [http://www-scf.usc.edu/~fencing/Books.htm#Mayer "Foiled! Hitler's Jewish Olympian"]
* [http://www.databaseolympics.com/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=MAYERHEL01 Olympic record]
* [http://www.hickoksports.com/biograph/mayerhelene.shtml Hickok Sports bio]
* [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/women.html Jewish Virtual Library bio]
* [http://www.jewsinsports.org/Olympics.asp?sport=olympics&ID=186 Jews in Sports bio]
* [http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/olympics/zcd068.htm Holocaust Museum photo]