Christl Cranz, Germany’s ski icon of the 1930s: the Nazis’ image of the ideal German woman?

Abstract

Until today, Christl Cranz (1914–2004) is one of the world’s most successful female downhill skiers. She competed during the Nazi period: between the years 1934–1939, she won 12 World Championships and the Olympic downhill skiing competition in 1936. After the Second World War, Cranz became Germany’s first female ski instructor with an official certificate and the first woman to open a ski school. She also served on the Council of the German Ski Federation as a representative for women’s issues for some years and was an international judge for ski competitions. So far no research has been done on Cranz’s life. Cranz herself left a published and an unpublished autobiography in which she mainly focused on her career as a skier. She completely left out the political circumstances of her active time. It is known that she received many honours from the Nazis and there are photos of her shown together with the German Reichskanzler, Hitler. This neglect raises such questions as to what extent she was a showpiece athlete and used for Nazi propaganda. Did she – like other public figures of her time – use her fame for her own ideological or athletic goals? Sources show that she had to serve in a French camp for almost one year before she was denazified.

Notes

1. Her name was originally spelled Christel. However, due to the many autographs she had to give, she deleted the ‘e’.

2. Her published books are Christl Cranz (1935). Skilauf für die Frau; Christel Cranz & Rudi Cranz (1939). Erprobtes und Erfahrenes Skiläufer und ihr Gerät, München: Verlag V. Bruckmann; Christl Cranz-Borchers (1949). Christl erzähl!, München: Rudlof-Rohr; Christl Cranz-Borchers (1958). Wir laufen Ski, Gütersloh. Bertelsmann Lesering.

3. Not only those files but also the papers of regional ski federations can no longer be located. The question is whether they were lost during the war or purposely destroyed or hidden. Also, see Falkner (2004) on this matter.

4. These files were located in Sonthofen and Kempten in the mountain region Allgäu, where Cranz moved to in 1947. Today, they are in the court archive of the city of Augsburg.

5. This can be supported by Sauer-Burghard (2008), who writes about the various ideals of women in the Nazi ideology.

6. Until 1945, about 5 million women were awarded with the ‘Mutterkreuz’. For four to five children, they received the bronze Mutterkreuz; for six to seven children, silver and for more children, gold.

7. Hitler already mentioned in Mein Kampf that „marriage cannot be an end in itself, it has to serve a greater goal such as the sustainment of a race […]. Because of this an early marriage is desirable; it gives young couples the strength necessary to produce healthy and resistant offspring.”

8. The Jung Mädels were between 10 and 14 years old, the Mädels between 14 and 18 years.

9. Boys should be “as fast as greyhounds, tough as leather and hard as steel from Krupp” (German original: “Flink wie Windhunde, zäh wie Leder und hart wie Kruppstahl”) was one of Hitler’s quotes.

10. Gebietsbefehl des Gebietes Köln/Aachen, K 1/42, March 1, 1942, p. 21, http://www.jugend1918-1945.de/thema.aspx?s=5386&m=3448&v=5386, accessed Sept 16, 2014.

11. Additionally, see www.jugend1918-1945.de/thema.aspx?s=5386&m=3448&v=5386, accessed Sept 16, 2014, https://www.dhm.de/lemo/kapitel/ns-regime/ns-organisationen/glaube-und-schoenheit.html, accessed March 2, 2016.

12. Sauer-Burghard (2008) writes about sport and physical exercises in the BDM, Pfister (1983) also gives insight into – beside other aspects – the physical education curriculum and Czech (1994) provides an overall summary in her study on women’s sport during the Nazi period in Germany.

13. Heinz-Rudolf Cranz (1988–1941) was also a successful German skier. In the years between 1937 and 1941, he won several German championships in slalom and the alpine combination. At the 1936 Olympics, he placed sixth in the alpine combination.

14. In the court files, there are also some documents that mention that Cranz worked – due to a lack of educators – between October 1939 and January 1940 for the P.E. Department of the University of Munich. The University of Freiburg had to continue to pay her salary. It seems that Cranz also taught ski classes to the students from Munich (Spruchkammer Akte).

15. According to Peiffer, later on, there was a ‘Skisportverbot’, meaning that skiing was forbidden. However, Falkner is of a different opinion (2001).

16. Edmund Goldschaad (1886–1971) was a German journalist and publisher. During the Weimar Republic, he worked for the social democratic press; this led to an occupational ban during the Nazi period. He and his family hid the Jew Else Rosenfeld during the war. After the Second World War, he founded the Süddeutsche Zeitung together with Franz Josef Schöningh and August Schwingenstein. From the beginning on October 6, 1945 until 1951, he was the editor in chief. He remained one of the editors until his death (Wikipedia).

17. The letter was written on January 23, 1948; the signature cannot be identified.

18. The first questionnaire was sent out in July 1941.

19. Her visit to Squaw Valley in the US was quite special to her. She talks about the German skier Willi Bogner (born in 1942), who fell in the slalom competition, and about filming him. Bogner later became a famous ski-film producer and the producer of a fashion line.