Otto the strange: The champion who defied the Nazis

[struggle4progress]

Otto Peltzer was a German track hero in the Twenties, was vilified and jailed for his sexuality in the Thirties, survived a death camp in the Forties, then found a remarkable new life in the Sixties. Tim Pears tells the unknown story of the world-record holder who stayed true to the amateur ideal

Tim Pears
The Observer
Sunday June 29, 2008

... During the Weimar era, Otto Peltzer had been Germany's pre-eminent sportsman. At his peak he held the national record in eight different events, and was world-record holder at three middle distances. Captain of the 1928 and 1932 Olympic teams, Otto was a driven, disputatious man, as unpopular with officialdom as he was popular with his fellow athletes and with the public.

Peltzer also happened to be homosexual, a 'crime' for which he would pay, under the Nazis, a terrible price. He was borne up and then ground under the wheels of European history in the 20th century, at whose beginning he was born. And yet he would survive, and find in India an extraordinary valediction ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/jun/29/olympicgames

[mitchtv]

1. happy to reccomend

inspiring story