Käthe Krauss

Käthe Krauss

Krauß at the 1936 Olympics

Personal information

Born

29 November 1906
Dresden, German Empire

Died

9 January 1970 (aged 63)
Mannheim, West Germany

Height

5 ft 91⁄4 in (176 cm)

Weight

72 kg (159 lb)

Sport

Athletics

Event(s)

100 m, 200 m, 80 m hurdles, high jump, long jump, shot put, discus throw, javelin throw

Club

Dresdner SC

Achievements and titles

Personal best(s)

100 m – 11.8 (1935)
200 m – 24.4 (1938)
80 mH – 12.2 (1936)
HJ – 1.51 m (1933)
LJ – 5.85 m (1937)
SP – 11.99 m (1933)
DT – 41.65 m (1935)
JT – 37.91 m (1931)^[1]^[2]

Medal record

Representing Germany

Women's World Games
	1934 London	100 metres
	1934 London	200 metres
	1934 London	4 x 100 m relay
	1934 London	Discus throw
Olympic Games
	1936 Berlin	100 metres
European Championships
	1938 Vienna	4×100 m relay
	1938 Vienna	100 m
	1938 Vienna	200 m

Katharina "Käthe" Anna Krauß (sometimes spelled Krauss; 29 November 1906 – 9 January 1970) was a German track and field athlete, who won three gold medals at the 1934 Women's World Games in London and a bronze medal in the 100 metres at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, where she was also on the German 4 × 100 m relay team. She won several German championships in various events and 2 silver medals and a gold medal in the 4 × 100 m relay at the 1938 European Athletics Championships in Vienna.

Athletics career

Born in Dresden, Krauß was a member of Dresdner SC, where she was discovered and trained by the influential coach Woldemar Gerschler.^[3] She won the national women's title in the 100 metres from 1934 through 1938,^[4]^[5]^[6] in the 200 metres in 1932, 1934, and 1938 (in 1931 and 1933 she took second),^[7]^[8] and in the long jump^[9] and the pentathlon in 1937,^[10] and was on the national champion Dresdner SC 4 × 100 metre relay teams in 1932 and 1936.^[11]^[12]

At the 1934 Women's World Games in London, she won gold medals in the 100 metres (11.9 s), the 200 metres (24.9 s), and the 4 × 100 metre relay (48.6 s), and the bronze medal in discus (39.875 m).^[13]

At the women's 1938 European Athletics Championships in Vienna, she won silver medals in the 100 metres (12.0 s) and 200 metres (24.4 s)^[14] and a gold medal as part of the German 4 × 100 metre relay team (46.8 s).^[15]^[16]

At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, at that time holding the German women's record for the 100 metres,^[17] Krauß won the bronze medal in that event with a time of 11.9 s.^[18]^[19] She was one of three Olympic medalists that year from Dresdner SC, the others being Rudolf Harbig and Luise Krüger.^[20] She was also on the German women's 4 × 100 m relay team that was in the lead but lost due to a dropped baton on the final leg;^[21]^[22]^[23] in the heats the German team had been faster than the Americans, the eventual winners, and beaten the world record with a time of 46.4 s;^[24]^[25] the American winning time in the final was half a second slower.^[26]^[27]^[28] As national 100-metre champion, Krauß was the fastest runner on the German team,^[29] but had run dead heats with Marie Dollinger.^[30]

Postwar

After World War II, Krauß moved to Landau, where she coached^[31] and was active in senior athletics; there she was also known as a pianist and the owner of a sporting goods shop. In 1952 she published a book on sprint running titled Der Kurzstreckenlauf.^[1]^[32] The local athletics club awards a prize named for her.^[33] She died in Mannheim on 9 January 1970.

Controversy

Along with the gold and silver medalists in the 1936 Olympic women's 100 metre event, Helen Stephens and Stanisława Walasiewicz, Krauß has been suspected of being intersex.^[34]^[35]

References

^ ^a ^b Käthe Krauß. sports-reference.com
^ Käthe Krauss. trackfield.brinkster.net
^ Egon Meyer-Venecia, Hoffnung aber läßt nichts zu Schanden werden, self-published, Denzlingen, 2003, ISBN 9783833008481, p. 25 (in German)
^ Fritz Steinmetz, 75 Jahre Deutsche Leichtathletik-Meisterschaften 1898–1972, Berlin: Bartels & Wernitz, 1973, ISBN 9783870399566, p. 191 (in German)
^ Leichtathletik – Deutsche Meisterschaften (100m-Damen), Historie, Sport-komplett.de (in German), retrieved 17 July 2012.
^ Steinmetz, p. 192
^ Steinmetz, p. 196.
^ Leichtathletik – Deutsche Meisterschaften (200m – Damen), Historie, Sport-komplett.de (in German), retrieved 17 July 2012.
^ Leichtathletik – Deutsche Meisterschaften (Weitsprung – Damen), Historie, Sport-komplett.de (in German), retrieved 17 July 2012.
^ Leichtathletik – Deutsche Meisterschaften (Mehrkampf – Damen), Historie, Sport-komplett.de (in German), retrieved 17 July 2012.
^ Leichtathletik – Deutsche Meisterschaften (Staffeln – Damen – Teil 1), Historie, Sport-komplett.de (in German), retrieved 17 July 2012.
^ Steinmetz, p. 261.
^ FSFI Women's World Games, GBRAthletics.com, Athletics Weekly, 2005, retrieved 17 July 2012.
^ Leichtathletik-EM (Damen Teil 1), Historie, Sport-komplett.de (in German), retrieved 17 July 2012.
^ Leichtathletik-EM (Damen Teil 3), Historie, Sport-komplett.de (in German), retrieved 17 July 2012.
^ European Championships (Women), GBRAthletics.com, Athletics Weekly, 2005, retrieved 17 July 2012.
^ Gudrun Angelis and Marianne Pitzen, eds., Frauen bei Olympia: Kunst – Sport – Wissenschaft; Olympische und Paralympische Spiele 1896–2008; eine Ausstellung im Frauenmuseum vom 17. August bis 9. November 2008, Bonn: Frauenmuseum, 2008, ISBN 9783940482129, p. 112 (in German)
^ Guy Walters, Berlin Games: How Hitler Stole the Olympic Dream, London: Hodder-John Murray, ISBN 978-0-7195-6783-4, p. 211.
^ Fritz Steinmetz and Dieter Huhn, Erfolge der deutschen Leichtathletik seit 1896: Weltmeisterschaften, Europameisterschaften, Olympische Spiele, Agon Sportverlag-Statistics 8, Kassel: Agon, 1994, ISBN 9783928562386, p. 117 (in German)
^ Auszug aus der Vereinsgeschichte, Dresdner Sportclub 1898 e.V., April 2011, retrieved 17 July 2012 (in German)
^ Bud Greenspan, 100 Greatest Moments in Olympic History, Los Angeles: General Publication Group, 1995, ISBN 9781881649663, p. 33.
^ Reinhard Rürup, ed., 1936, die Olympischen Spiele und der Nationalsozialismus: eine Dokumentation, Berlin: Argon, 1996, ISBN 9783870243500, p. 144 (in German)
^ Birgit Jochens and Sonja Miltenberger, eds., Zwischen Rebellion und Reform: Frauen in Berliner Westen, Berlin: Jaron, 1999, p. 220 (in German)
^ Walters, pp. 268–69
^ Report: Games of the Olympiad, New York: United States Olympic Committee, 1936, OCLC 17760969, p. 159.
^ Duff Hart-Davis, Hitler's Games: The 1936 Olympics, New York: Harper, 1986, ISBN 9780060155544, p. 200.
^ Louise Mead Tricard, American Women's Track and Field: A History, 1895 through 1980, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1996, ISBN 9780786402199, p. 227.
^ Walters states in error, p. 269, that the American time in the final, 46.9 s, was faster.
^ Walters, p. 270.
^ "Frauleins Will Bolster Nazi Team", Lawrence Journal-World, 17 June 1936, p. 6.
^ August Schimpf, Vereinschronik Archived 15 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Leichtathletik-Club Oberhaardt 1954, Edenkoben (in German), retrieved 17 July 2012.
^ Eberhard Vollmer, "Neuauflage der 'ewigen' Senioren-Bestenliste", Leichtathletik.de, 30 November 2010 (in German)
^ jwe, Leichtathletik: Oleg Zernickel neuer Käthe-Krauß-Preisträger, Leichtathletik, Turnverein 1981 e.V., ASV Landau, (in German), retrieved 17 July 2012.
^ Walters, p. 211, comments on Marie Dollinger telling Elfriede Kaun in 1968, "You know, I was the only woman in that race!": "[I]t is easy to see in photographs why Dollinger should have suspected Krauss of being a man."; photo caption between pages 272 and 273: "The gender of all three women would be subject to many doubts."
^ Michael Krüger, ed., Olympische Spiele: Bilanz und Perspektiven im 21. Jahrhundert, Sport 1, Münster: Lit, 2001, ISBN 9783825856151, note 97, p. 132 (in German)