Say cheese! Herr Meyer stage-manages the Committee By Rüdiger Fritz and Volker Kluge In front of the lens for the first time: the International Olympic Commitee, or more precisely, the seven members who took part in the second Session in 1896 in Athens (from left): Dr. Willibald Gebhardt (Germany), General Secretary Pierre de Coubertin (France), Jirˇí Guth (Bohemia), President Demetrius Vikelas (Greece), Ferenc Kemény (Hungary), General Alexey Boutovsky (Russia) and Major Viktor Balck (Sweden). Photo: Volker Kluge Archive In his memoirs Pierre de Coubertin wrote about the 1896 assembly in Athens, where seven members in ‘Comité International des Jeux Olympiques’, the attendance discussed the present and future of their description of the IOC at its foundation on 23rd June 1894: committee. I was allowed a free hand in the choice of members The meeting on 9th April 18964, took place in a house of the IOC. Those proposed were elected without any belonging to German publisher Wilhelm Barth. Vikelas amendment; […] Nobody seemed to have noticed that had found lodgings there. It began with a proposal from I had chosen almost exclusively absentee members. the Hungarian Ferenc Kemény to have a photograph As their names figured on the long list of ‘honorary taken of the committee at its work.5 As the idea met with members of the Congress’, people were accustomed general approval, Vikelas asked the General Secretary of to seeing their names and readily assumed that they the Athens Organising Committee, Timoleon Philemon were staunch members always at their tasks. 1 to make the arrangements. Of the 13 individuals whom Coubertin had announced, Rüdiger Fritz | 1952, a journalist since 1990, sports Special thanks to only six2 were in fact living in Paris. Even so, by 1904 he editor and sports boss of the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung in Halle Johannes Gebbing, had started to describe this Congress as the first Session. (Saale); Turned freelance in 2011. Has reported on seven the grandson of Albert The late ISOH honorary member Wolf Lyberg, an expert Olympic Games; co-author of the book PdC. Pierre de Coubertin und die Olympia-Philatelie (2015/with Volker Kluge), Meyer, who put some in the history of the IOC meetings took an alternative ISOH Lifetime member. Lives in Halle (Saale). of the documents at view and described this term as ‘very doubtful’.3 In our disposal. his opinion this numbering was not justified until the 4 For reasons that are no longer comprehensible today that he come at once. The gymnastics competitions the task did not fall to Philemon but Dr. Willibald in the stadium were due to begin at 2.40 p.m. From a Gebhardt, who in late 1895 had founded a German German point of view it was in these competitions that Participating Committee for the Games in Athens. On the greatest hopes rested. If an ‘alibi’ is needed to say 13th March 1896, he had been unanimously nominated where Meyer was at this time, then we have his well as its representative on the IOC. Coubertin had accepted known photos of the team competitions on the bars and this, although he had wished for a member with a more high bars. resonant title and greater social influence.6 Yet Meyer was also indispensable on the next day, Nonetheless on the same day the photographer Albert the 10th April (29th March) as a glance at the programme Meyer, who had travelled with the German team to proves. At 10 a.m. the gymnastics, dominated by the Albert Meyer (1857- Athens, he received via a messenger a hastily written Germans, was continued, and in the afternoon the 1924) went to America letter from Gebhardt, which stated: Games were moving towards their climax: At 2.30 p.m. as a 24 year old, and Dear Herr Meyer! came the 100 m final, at half past four wrestling, which trained as a photo- Is it possible for you to take an immediate was finally interrupted at five o’clock when the Greek grapher there. photographic picture of the International Committee? runner Spyridon Louis was the first into the stadium in From 1883 he resided We will await you in the house of Mr. Vikelas, 53 the Marathon race. 70,000 people raised the roof with in Berlin, where he University Street 7 (in the house of our friend Herr the cry of ‘Hellas!’. And the wrestling competition was maintained two large Barth). Please give an answer to the messenger. – resumed the following day. photographic studios. Tomorrow the photographs cannot be taken, as Major Meyer was no ‘snapper’. Born in Dresden, he had Balck goes back to his home in Sweden. gone to the USA aged 24 to train as a photographer. With heartfelt greetings to you and your lady wife Resident in Berlin from 1883, he had succeeded in Your devoted gaining a splendid set of customers, to which the W. Gebhardt 8 portrait of his sovereign, the King of Saxony, during his visit to his health spa in Bad Ems, had contributed. Genesis of a perfect small work of art In thanks the King had appointed him subsequently as ‘court photographer’. Specialising additionally in Albert Meyer ran two well-known studios in Berlin theatre photography, Meyer knew very well how to put with branches on the Baltic. He was not content with prominent people in the ‘correct’ light. a mere snapshot. Rather, he placed the IOC Members When the photos he took in Athens are compared with at or behind a table according to their rank. Three were those of his Greek colleagues they reveal not only that seated – Vikelas, Coubertin and General Boutovsky –, the remaining four – Gebhardt, Guth, Kemény and On 9th April 1896 Ferenc Balck – stood. Kemény proposed that The picture is a perfectly arranged small work of the IOC should be art. The President looks intently into the lens. On his photographed at its right the General Secretary, who himself has the air work. In this letter, his of being very busy. Left from Vikelas – dignified – the colleague Dr. Willibald ‘aged president’ from Russia. The younger gentlemen Gebhardt asked the behind have a pose appropriate to ordinary members. photographer Albert The “outside players” – Gebhardt and Balck (his left Meyer to come to the hand grasping his sabre) – look interestedly over the house of the German shoulders at those in front of them. In the middle field publisher Wilhelm looking straight ahead are two teachers: Guth and Barth. Kemény. Illustration: Rüdiger Fritz th Lyberg believed that this photo was taken on 10 Archive April (by the Julian calendar on 29th March) which may be doubtful. It is known that Meyer had not travelled to Athens to photograph gentlemen in dark suits of whose importance few were aware. He was more enthusiastic about the athletes and the “Peace Games”, dressed up in antique costumes, as he depicted the Olympic Games in letters and postcards.9 If the messenger did indeed reach him on 9th April, the photographer certainly had better things to do that afternoon even though Gebhardt had asked JOH 1 | 2016 Say cheese! Herr Meyer stage-manages the Committee 5 Meyer was in the habit the movement of the shadow, then it can be calculated of staging his pictures. that a photo showing Olympic champion Alfred Flatow One morning in the on the parallel bars was probably taken at some time empty stadium, he between 10 and 11 o’clock. photographed the Meyer was by no means as flexible as Gebhardt had German Olympic hoped because he worked with a fixed large format champion on the wooden camera. The size of the glass negatives, which parallel bars, Alfred had a light-sensitive layer, was 18 x 24 centimetres Flatow. If the shadow for the big plates and 13 x 18 for the small format.11 A of the gymnast is peculiarity was that these were developed on the spot compared with the in a bag impervious to light. position of the Among the equipment was a movable, heavy column stadium, the photo- stand on which the camera was mounted. To serve graph must have this monster and transport the heavy box with the been taken between glass negatives, Meyer required an assistant, who is 10 and 11 a.m. recognisable on a photo taken by his Greek colleague Pantzopoulos during the victory ceremony on 15th April.12 Photo: Volker Kluge Archive Diner or Royal Breakfast in the Palais It is not yet clear when and how the IOC photo was created. As Balck was planning to leave at according to Gebhardt’s information at the latest on 10th April. The location might have been Barth’s house in University Street, where the IOC met on the 9th and 10th and then again on the 14th April13 – moreover until the end in the presence of Balck, who had probably reconsidered the length of his stay.14 Against this we have a second photo, sports reporting was still in its infancy, but also makes on which Meyer recorded not only the IOC Members but clear the different approaches. Meyer did not shoot also the Greek princes and with Dr. Georg Streit und action shots. In those days the technology made it Colonel Iphikratis Kokkidis leading members of the difficult to ‘freeze’ movement on film or plate. Instead Organising Committee.15 It seems unlikely that the IOC he followed the trend of his time and immortalized the would have suggested to their Royal Highnesses that athletes in posed positions, which even an experienced they should visit the business premises of a foreign German archaeologist like Paul Wolters, who under the publisher for a communal photo.