Gymnastics

In the first edition of the newspaper there is an account of a wrestling competition¹, but there is no further mention of wrestling until 1919. In the newspaper of the 18^th of November 1917, it was proposed to hold a military gymnastics competition (involving, amongst other things, practising the throwing of hand grenades)². As part of their celebration of the Kaiser’s Birthday in January 1918, the naval gunners only performed a few limited gymnastic exercises³. On the 5^th of May 1918, Clemens Felchnerowski, who was an enthusiastic gymnast, published an article calling for more activity in gymnastics and athletics⁴. He blamed the lack of involvement on the preference for sporting activities.

Eventually, on the 26^th of May, the Bando Camp Gymnastics Club was established⁵, and in the Camp Chatter for that month it was stated that “gymnastics are in full bloom”, while intellectual activities were “becoming increasingly sluggish”⁶. On the 1^st of June, on the same day as the performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, a gymnastics display was given to fifty Japanese teachers⁷.

The German gymnastics movement was founded by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn at the time of the Napoleonic wars. The lively illustrated account of the Club’s Jahn celebrations on the 11^th of August conveys the enthusiasm of the gymnasts⁸, and Camp Chatter in the same edition also talks enthusiastically about the event.

In the newspaper for the 20th of October, Camp Chatter reports that a planned gymnastics festival had been cancelled because of damp weather⁹, but that the “old men’s” squad had successfully completed their part of it. There was a full account in the following edition¹⁰. It was obviously a lively event.

In December 1918 the camp was afflicted by the epidemic of Spanish flu, and one of the victims, Karl Kühne had been an enthusiastic gymnast¹¹.

In March 1919 a “Sporting Entertainment Evening” was held on two consecutive evenings¹². Among other activities this event included wrestling and boxing. In the same April edition of the newspaper there is an article by Robert Martin about the reconstruction of the German army after its defeat in the war in which he emphasises the importance of gymnastics as an element of training young men¹³.

An innovative gymnastic event involving greenery taken from the woods was held on Palm Sunday, the 13th of April¹⁴.

A “real gymnastics festival” was held on the 1^st of June, the day on which twenty-eight prisoners from Alsace left to return home¹⁵.

The last event involving gymnastics recorded in the newspaper was the Variety Evening of the 27th-30th of July¹⁶, which included ring gymnastics.

Footnotes

• 1.#1.01: Under the Banner of Wrestling, Page 3
• 2.#1.08: Gymnastics, Page 10
• 3.#1.20: The Celebration of the Kaiser’s Birthday by the Naval Gunners, Page 9
• 4.#2.06(32): Gymnastics and Athletics, Page 8
• 5.#2.10(36): The Bando Camp Gymnastics Club, Page 7
• 6.#2.12(38): Camp Chatter, Page 10
• 7.#2.16(42): Camp Chronicle, Page 14
• 8.#2.22(48): The Camp Gymnastics Club’s "Jahn Celebration", Page 5
• 9.#3.03(56): Camp Chatter, Page 9
• 10. #3.04(57): A small German Gymnastics Tournament by the Older Men's Squad, Page 6
• 11. #3.10(63): Karl Kühne, An Obituary, Page 11
• 12. #4.01(80): The Sporting Entertainment Evening, Page 25
• 13. #4.01(80): The Reconstruction of the German Army, Page 32
• 14. #4.01(80): Camp Chatter, Page 64
• 15. #4.03(82): Camp Chatter,Page 52
• 16. #4.04(83): Variety Evening on the 27th-30th July 1919, Page 39

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