Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm (; 7 July 1909 – 8 November 1976) was a German tennis player who won the French Championships twice 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.
Tennis career
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.
In 1932, Cramm earned a place in the German Davis Cup team and won the first of four straight German national tennis championships. 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 Championships at Roland Garros. He was the first non-American, British, Australian or French player to win a singles Grand Slam title. 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.
thumb|274px|von Cramm at the 1937 Australian Championships
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. National Championships. In 1935, he was beaten in the Roland Garros 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. 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.' Others say that Budge believed a tale invented by Teddy Tinling that Hitler had telephoned Cramm before the match.
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.
Imprisonment for same-sex affair
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. 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." 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".
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, After the failed assassination attempt, he expressed his desire to join another attempt. Since the resistance never reorganised after the 20 July plot, he never got the chance to turn his words into deeds.
Wartime service and postwar career
In May 1940, some months after the outbreak of the Second World War, Cramm was conscripted into military service He saw action on the Eastern Front and was awarded the Iron Cross.
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). 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.
Marriages
Gottfried von Cramm married twice:
- Baroness Elisabeth Lisa von Dobeneck (1912–1975), a daughter of Robert, Baron von Dobeneck (died in 1926) and his wife, the former Maria Hagen (1889–1943), a granddaughter of the Jewish banker . They married on 1 September 1930 and divorced in 1937. Lisa von Cramm later married the German ice-hockey star Gustav Jaenecke.
- Barbara Hutton, an American socialite and an heiress to the Woolworth five-and-dime fortune. The couple married in 1955 and divorced in 1959. He had married her in order to "help her through substance abuse and depression but was unable to help her in the end." 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. Cramm's story is featured at some length in the 2023 Netflix documentary Eldorado – everything the Nazis hate. He is also the subject of the 2024 documentary screened by PBS Playing to Survive: von Cramm vs Hitler.
Grand Slam finals
Singles (2 titles, 5 runners-up)
{| class='sortable wikitable'
!Result
!Year
!style="width:150px"|Championship
!Surface
!style="width:160px"|Opponent
!style="width:160px" class="unsortable"|Score
|-
| style="background:#98FB98"|Win || 1934 || style="background:#ebc2af"|French Championships || Clay || Jack Crawford || 6–4, 7–9, 3–6, 7–5, 6–3
|-
| style="background:#FFA07A"|Loss || 1935 || style="background:#ebc2af"|French Championships || Clay || Fred Perry || 3–6, 6–3, 1–6, 3–6
|-
| style="background:#FFA07A"|Loss || 1935 || style="background:#ccffcc"|Wimbledon || Grass || Fred Perry || 2–6, 4–6, 4–6
|-
| style="background:#98FB98"|Win || 1936 || style="background:#ebc2af"|French Championship || Clay || Fred Perry || 6–0, 2–6, 6–2, 2–6, 6–0
|-
| style="background:#FFA07A"|Loss || 1936 || style="background:#ccffcc"|Wimbledon || Grass || Fred Perry || 1–6, 1–6, 0–6
|-
| style="background:#FFA07A"|Loss || 1937 || style="background:#ccffcc"|Wimbledon || Grass || Don Budge || 3–6, 4–6, 2–6
|-
| style="background:#FFA07A"|Loss || 1937 || style="background:#ccccff"|U.S. Championships || Grass || Don Budge || 1–6, 9–7, 1–6, 6–3, 1–6
|}
Doubles (2 titles, 1 runner-up)
{| class='sortable wikitable'
|-
!Result
!Year
!style="width:150px"|Championship
!style="width:50px"|Surface
!style="width:160px"|Partner
!style="width:160px"|Opponents
!style="width:120px" class="unsortable"|Score
|-
|style="background:#98FB98"|Win || 1937 || style="background:#ebc2af"|French Championships || Clay || Henner Henkel || Vernon Kirby<br /> Norman Farquharson || 6–4, 7–5, 3–6, 6–1
|-
|style="background:#98FB98"|Win || 1937 ||style="background:#ccccff"| U.S. Championships || Grass || Henner Henkel || Don Budge<br /> Gene Mako || 6–4, 7–5, 6–4
|-
| style="background:#FFA07A"|Loss || 1938 || style="background:#ffffcc"|Australian Championships || Grass || Henner Henkel || John Bromwich<br /> Adrian Quist || 5–7, 4–6, 0–6
|}
Mixed doubles (1 title)
{| class='sortable wikitable'
|-
!Result
!Year
!style="width:150px"|Championship
!style="width:50px"|Surface
!style="width:160px"|Partner
!style="width:160px"|Opponents
!style="width:100px" class="unsortable"|Score
|-
|style="background:#98FB98"|Win || 1933 || style="background:#ccffcc"|Wimbledon || Grass || Hilde Krahwinkel || Mary Heeley<br /> Norman Farquharson || 7–5, 8–6
|}
Grand Slam singles performance timeline
{|class="wikitable nowrap" style=font-size:90%;text-align:center
|- bgcolor="#efefef"
| align="left" style="width:90px;" | Tournament
! 1931 !! 1932 !! 1933 !! 1934 !! 1935 !! 1936 !! 1937 !! 1938 !! 1939
! 1940 !! 1941 !! 1942 !! 1943 !! 1944 !! 1945 !! 1946 !! 1947 !! 1948 !! 1949 !! 1950 !! 1951 !! 1952
! style="width:45px;" | SR
! style="width:45px;" | W–L
! style="width:45px;" | Win %
|-
| align="left" style="background:#EFEFEF;" | Australia
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| style="background:yellow;" |SF
| A
| A
| style=color:#767676|NH
| style=color:#767676|NH
| style=color:#767676|NH
| style=color:#767676|NH
| style=color:#767676|NH
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| style="background:#EFEFEF;" | 0 / 1
| style="background:#EFEFEF;" | 3–1
| style="background:#EFEFEF;" | 75.0
|-
| align="left" style="background:#EFEFEF;" |France
| style="background:#afeeee;" |4R
| style="background:#afeeee;" |2R
| A
| style="background:#00ff00;" |W
| style="background:#D8BFD8;" |F
| style="background:#00ff00;" |W
| A
| A
| A
| style=color:#767676|NH
| style=color:#767676|NH
| style=color:#767676|NH
| style=color:#767676|NH
| style=color:#767676|NH
| style=color:#767676|NH
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| style="background:#afeeee;" |1R
| style="background:#EFEFEF;" | 2 / 6
| style="background:#EFEFEF;" | 21–4
| style="background:#EFEFEF;" | 84.0
|-
| align="left" style="background:#EFEFEF;" |Wimbledon
| style="background:#afeeee;" |4R
| style="background:#afeeee;" |2R
| style="background:#afeeee;" |3R
| style="background:#afeeee;" |4R
| style="background:#D8BFD8;" |F
| style="background:#D8BFD8;" |F
| style="background:#D8BFD8;" |F
| A
| A
| style=color:#767676|NH
| style=color:#767676|NH
| style=color:#767676|NH
| style=color:#767676|NH
| style=color:#767676|NH
| style=color:#767676|NH
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| style="background:#afeeee;" |1R
| A
| style="background:#EFEFEF;" | 0 / 8
| style="background:#EFEFEF;" | 27–8
| style="background:#EFEFEF;" | 77.1
|-
| align="left" style="background:#EFEFEF;" |United States
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| style="background:#D8BFD8;" |F
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| A
| style="background:#EFEFEF;" | 0 / 1
| style="background:#EFEFEF;" | 5–1
| style="background:#EFEFEF;" | 83.3
|- style="background:#EFEFEF;"
|}
<small>Source: ITF</small>
Notes
:
:Writing in 1979, Kramer considered the best ever to have been either Don Budge (for consistent play) or Ellsworth Vines (at the height of his game). The next four best were, chronologically, Bill Tilden, Fred Perry, Bobby Riggs and Pancho Gonzales. After these six came the "second echelon" of Rod Laver, Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall, Gottfried von Cramm, Ted Schroeder, Jack Crawford, Pancho Segura, Frank Sedgman, Tony Trabert, John Newcombe, Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith, Björn Borg and Jimmy Connors. He felt unable to rank Henri Cochet and René Lacoste accurately but felt they were among the very best.
References
Further reading
- Fisher, Marshall Jon (2009). A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played.
- Simkin, John (6 July 2018). "Why was the anti-Nazi German, Gottfried von Cramm, banned from taking part at Wimbledon in 1939?". Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 23 July 2018
External links
- Official page