Workers’ Olympics – against Olympic nationalism

A course is set up on the forecourt of the Paulskirche. The cobblestones are covered with a pink tarpaulin between information boards and barrier tapes. The marking for a competition that is not about speed, but about control. The heat is located deep above the city center of Frankfurt this afternoon. Travel groups are drawn from the nearby Römerberg to the shopping streets. Some stop in front of the Paulskirche and find out about the National Assembly of 1848, the first parliament for all of Germany to take on this place. But they also look at the pink marking, partly with astonishment.

Two women climb bicycles there. They stand on the pedals with bent knees and move slowly. It goes diagonally to the left, to the right, the eyes firmly on the front wheel. They brake, balance, tear the handlebar back and forth, and yet they have to move further forward so as not to tip over. This is how it works for a while, because when cycling slowly, the last will be the first.

The artist Katja Kämmerer and the theater maker Jan Deck are on the edge of the course. Both founded the “Professional Collection” ensemble in 2007. In it, they deal with social and historical topics in an artistic way. Now, in front of the Paulskirche, they are reminiscent of the first workers’ Olympics, which took place in Frankfurt am Main in July 1925, with a festival.

Solidarity instead of record hunt

“At that time it was not about” higher, faster, further “,” says Deck. “It was about international solidarity and a strong sign against nationalism.” The workers’ movement wanted to differentiate itself from the record of the Olympic Games, even with “slow cycling”. Incidentally, the German Valentin Stieber won this competition in 1925. It took 14:22 minutes for the 100 meter long route.

Most of the interested parties who stop at the information boards in front of the Paulskirche or look at the flyer have never heard of the workers’ Olympics. “We want to close this knowledge gap,” says Katja Kämmerer. “The encouragement at the time was huge. And of course it was also about the political issues and conflicts of that time. «In Frankfurt, there are almost no visible traces that are reminiscent of the workers’ Olympics. But the treasurer and deck shaped an audio tour with eleven stations. So you can walk through the city and have it back into the time of 100 years ago.

At that time, in July 1925, more than 3,000 athletes from twelve countries took part in the workers’ Olympics. At the opening ceremony in the newly built Waldstadion, they waived state flags and national anthems. Instead, the “international” sounded. In the previous year, at the Olympic Games in Paris, no team from Germany had been allowed to take part, the memories of the First World War were too fresh. But now, in Frankfurt, athletes from Germany and France, who had still shot at a few years ago, shot together: “Never again war!”

The labor movement shows its strength

A stop on the audio tour of Jan Deck and Katja Kämmerer leads to the Main and reminds of the parade that took place during the workers’ Olympics. Around 100,000 people moved through Frankfurt, swiveled flags and distributed posters. “The workers’ athletes wanted to develop a new physical culture,” says sports journalist Martin Krauss. “They linked physical and mental education for their political goals.” Krauss has processed the participation struggles in sports history in a book, the title: “Being there would be everything”. In it he also describes the continuation of the class struggle with sporting means. “In Frankfurt, the workers’ movement wanted to demonstrate its strength,” he says. “Not only with sports, but also with cultural events and choreographies.”

The workers’ Olympics were accompanied by gymnastic exercises with thousands of participants. Chess games with “living figures” took place in the stadium. The Jewish writer Alfred Auerbach staged the play “Kampf und The Earth” with several choirs as a protest against great -mower struts and the overexploitation of mineral resources. Friedrich Adler, Secretary General of the Socialist International, found the games “more powerful than anything that has so far succeeded in working class”. Around 450,000 people visited the five -day workers’ Olympics.

Such a development was hardly imaginable in the late 19th century. The workers had too little free time for competition sports. And if they do, then they were rarely able to afford the expensive membership fees and sports clothing for bourgeois clubs. It was only through the abolition of the Socialist Act in 1890 that it became possible for workers to found clubs and associations. Also in sports. However, the workers’ sport in the Empire was still closely monitored. The judiciary regarded socialist sports clubs as political organizations. The police monitored competitions and gatherings – and sometimes caused them violently. The repression only decreased when the Empire collapsed.

After the introduction of the eight -hour day 1918, workers grew. Hundreds of clubs for football, gymnastics or hiking were created. Many of them called for an “escape to nature”. They built sports fields or worked in pub rooms in sports halls. The Arbeiter-Turnverlag in Leipzig established a mail order company for clothing, sports equipment and club utensils. In 1930 the umbrella organization, the workers’ gymnastics and sports association (ATSB), counted around 1.2 million members.

But the development of workers’ sports was accompanied by a number of conflicts. And there are probably only a few who are as familiar with it as the Frankfurt city historian Dieter Wesp. “It was long discussed who was actually allowed to take part in the workers’ Olympics,” says WESP. “Because the division of the labor movement continued in sports.”

In the Weimar Republic, Social Democrats and Communists argue bitterly about the interpretation of socialism. As president of the workers’ gymnastics and sports association, the social democratic Reichstag MP Cornelius Gellert campaigned for a reformal course. After internal tensions, the ATSB in 1928 excluded revolutionary KPD supporters. The communists founded their own sports association and planned a Spartakiade in Berlin as a competition with the workers’ Olympics. But the social democratic police chief of Berlin prohibited the event.

Shattered by the Nazis

Dieter WESP gave a lecture in Frankfurt about the workers’ Olympics. On the invitation flyer, the poster motif of the 1925 games was shown: an athlete in short pants stands on destroyed weapons and soldier helmets with a red flag. A torn swastika flag can also be seen. “As early as 1925, workers’ athletes stood against the National Socialists,” explains WESP, reminiscent of their later protests and strikes before Adolf Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor.

After the takeover of power in 1933, the associations of workers’ athletes were smashed and their possessions were confiscated. Many members wanted to avoid the ban and chose names for their groups that sounded less “suspicious”. Others joined the resistance, as a hiking exhibition works out that has been touring Germany since 2018. The title: “The other football”. The exhibition, which was also a guest in the Münzenberg Forum in Berlin in the summer of 2024, in the building in which the editorial team of the »ND« is based, for example, commemorates August Postler. The workers’ footballer took part in the spread of the newspaper “Red North Sport” in 1933. The Gestapo arrested Postler. In March 1934 he died in custody, presumably from the consequences of the abuse.

Boom of the workers’ Olympics only lasts briefly

Biographies like this do not play a major role in the historiography of German sport. And even outside of Germany, little is known that the boom in the workers’ Olympics was only short. The second edition of the games took place in Vienna in 1931. The third was planned for 1936 in Barcelona, but the beginning of the Spanish Civil War led to the cancellation. The last workers’ Olympics took place in Antwerp in 1937. And after the war the workers’ sport remained a niche, if at all.

When the artist Katja Kämmerer and the theater maker Jan Deck talk about the workers’ Olympics, then think of the threat of fascists, the exploitation of workers or housing shortages, all topics that also shape the present. But you also want to go into the focus on your festival in Frankfurt.

At the 1924 Olympics in Paris, only a few athletes were allowed to start. Athletics in particular and gymnastics rejected the admission of women. It was quite different at the workers’ Olympics in Frankfurt a year later, where women could of course participate, also at the organization. 100 years later, this is still not a matter of course in German sport.