- Fred Oberlander
Fred Oberlander (May 23, 1911, in
Vienna, Austria – 1966) was an Austrian, British, andCanadian wrestler .Wrestling career
Between 1930 and 1950 he won two Austrian Junior wrestling titles, five French Heavyweight Championships, seven British Heavyweight Championships (1939-45, 1948), [http://www.britishwrestling.org/plibrary/seniordb/BSC1904_2001.pdf] and the 1950 Canadian Heavyweight crown.
He also won the 1935 World Exhibition Championship in Brussels, the 1937
Moulin Rouge International Championship, the Allied Championships of 1944, and theCommonwealth Games title in 1948, in addition to several silver and bronze medals.World Championships
At the 1935 World Championships, Oberlander was listed as “stateless.” His first match in that competition was against the German champion Kurt Siebert. Recalled Oberlander, “The German coach objected to the
Hakoah [of Vienna] emblem on my wrestling attire, claiming that it was a political insignia. I answered that it was my club’s emblem, which it was. Finally, the referee decided that theSwastika on Siebert’s jersey was also a political insignia. On that note, the match began — and finished in my favour.” [http://books.google.com/books?id=lvszXWxqAR4C&pg=PA195&lpg=PA195&dq=%22fred+oberlander%22&source=web&ots=37c2MvbE44&sig=Nz0qRv2hO35Q7fpLmxrvjSXD0SM] He won the world championships.Olympic Games
Oberlander was nominated to represent Austria at the 1936
Olympic Games in Berlin, but he wrote, “For obvious reasons, beingJew ish, I refused.”He represented Great Britain in the 1948 Olympic Games (he was team captain at the age of 37).
Oberlander then emigrated to Canada, where he founded the Canadian
Maccabi Association.Maccabiah Games
In 1953, he captured the
Maccabiah Games Heavyweight Wrestling Championship and was named Outstanding Jewish World Athlete. The award was presented to him by Israel’s first Prime MinisterDavid Ben-Gurion . [http://www.cjnews.com/viewarticle.asp?id=8316]Honor
An entire floor in the Pierre Gildesgame (Maccabi) Sport Museum in Ramat Gan,
Israel , is named in his honor.Hall of Fame
In 1991 he was inducted into the
International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame . [http://www.jewishsports.net/biopages/FredOberlander.htm]Family
His son Ronald Yehuda Oberlander was CEO of Abitibi-Price Inc., the worlds foremost newsprint producer. He died in 2002.
Link
* [http://www.jewishsports.net/biopages/FredOberlander.htm Jewish Sports bio]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
