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Founder of the Paralympic Games VOLUME 12 NO.9 SEPTEMBER 2012 Founder of the Paralympic Games n 4 July 2012, a reception was Guttmann defended the interests of his few survivors spent the rest of their held at the Attlee Room in the Jewish patients courageously; even at the days as incurable, useless cripples OHouse of Lords to celebrate the time of greatest danger, during the so­ in institutions. In December 1941, life of Sir Ludwig Guttmann, founder called ‘Kristallnacht’ in November 1938, Guttmann presented a paper proposing of the Paralympic Games, whose he defied the Gestapo and SS men who radical new methods in the treatment pioneering wartime work with victims descended on his hospital. and rehabilitation of those suffering from of spinal injuries at Stoke Mandeville Realising that he could no longer safely traumatic paraplegia, with the aim of re­ Hospital, Aylesbury, revolutionised the remain in Germany, Guttmann emigrated integrating them into everyday life. As treatment of members of the forces to Britain. He arrived in March 1939 with a result, he was appointed director of a whose wounds would previously have his wife, Else, and their two children, new unit for spinal injuries patients that left them bedridden and condemned to opened at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in an early death. February 1944. Guttmann’s methods were subse­ Guttmann’s ground­breaking new quently applied to paraplegics approach involved both physiological everywhere. Fittingly, the reception and psychological treatment, as one of took place under the auspices of the the principal obstacles to be overcome Council for Assisting Refugee Academ­ was the ingrained belief that paraplegics ics (CARA), the successor organisation were beyond help, a prejudice shared to the Society for the Protection of Sci­ all too often by the victims themselves. ence and Learning (SPSL), which was Guttmann adopted the idea of using sport responsible in the 1930s for finding posts as a means of inspiring self­confidence in for a large number of refugee academics his patients, as well as building up their and scientists, mostly Jewish, who had physical strength, so that they could been dismissed from their positions by again lead active and fulfilled lives. The the Nazis. results of his visionary innovations were Ludwig Guttmann was born in 1899 remarkable, on a par with the wartime in the village of Tost (Toszek) in Upper work of the famous plastic surgeon Silesia; his family then moved to the Archibald McIndoe in treating RAF larger town of Königshütte (Chorzow). Sir Ludwig Guttman, 1899-1980 personnel suffering from burns and facial He studied medicine at Freiburg disfigurement at Queen Victoria Hospital, University, where he was active in one of Dieter (Dennis) and Eva, to take up a East Grinstead. the Jewish student fraternities affiliated position that the SPSL had secured for Guttmann’s work continued after the to the Kartell­Convent; these were bodies him at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, war, leading to the transformation of for patriotic German Jews, aiming to on the invitation of Hugh Cairns, Nuffield countless thousands of lives that would instil confidence in their members in Professor of Surgery. The Guttmanns otherwise have been consigned to the the face of anti­Semitism by building were saved but impoverished; they lived scrapheap. In 1952, his unit became the up their strength through activities like in modest circumstances at 63 Lonsdale National Spinal Injuries Centre. He was sports. Guttmann graduated in 1924 and Road, Oxford (as documents from the knighted in 1966, only the fourth refugee returned to Silesia, where, after a spell in SPSL archives at the Bodleian Library, to be so honoured (after the scientists Hamburg, he became a neurosurgeon at Oxford, helpfully supplied to me by Mrs Francis Simon and Hans Krebs and the Wenzel Hancke hospital in Breslau Laura Broadhurst of CARA, show). the philosopher Karl Popper), and was (Wroclaw) and a lecturer at Breslau In the early stages of the war, the a revered figure far beyond Britain by University. In 1933 he was stripped mortality rate for members of the forces the time of his death in 1980. ‘Poppa’ of both positions, but went to work at with injuries to the spinal cord was Guttmann, as he was known, combined the Breslau Jewish Hospital, where around 80 per cent, with a life expectancy concern and compassion for his patients he became medical director in 1937. of some three months from injury; the continued overleaf AJR JOURNAL SEPTEMBER 2012 Sir Ludwig Guttman cont. from page 1 with unbounded energy, a pioneering serviceman and AJR member, Kenneth walk side by side with the Queen and mind and that devotion to the duties of his Fraser (Kurt Fleischmann), gravely act as her host at a public function, most of us would have dismissed the story calling that was the hallmark of the best wounded at Arnhem in September 1944, as the product of wild and unrealistic of German Jewry. He also had an eye for was able to cope with his injuries thanks imagination. And yet, it came true publicity, hitting on the idea of holding to Guttmann’s new treatment and lived a few weeks ago, when Sir Ludwig Guttmann welcomed Her Majesty who the initial Stoke Mandeville Games on 28 on until 1972. had graciously consented to open the July 1948, the opening day of the London But in the early days of emigration Stoke Mandeville Sports Stadium for the Olympics of that year. Guttmann shared the hardships and Paralysed and other Disabled. From that event, at which 14 ex­ restrictions of refugee life. Admitted on Guttmann combined loyalty to Britain servicemen and 2 ex­servicewomen took a temporary permit, he was, like other with loyalty to his German­Jewish part in an archery competition, the Stoke refugees from Nazism, forbidden to under­ origins. The house in which he lived Mandeville Games expanded, taking take any form of employment, though he with his family in High Wycombe was on an international dimension in 1952 was able to continue his research on the called ‘Menorah’, and he was an active when a contingent of Dutch war veterans physiology and pathology of the cerebro­ member of the local synagogue. He was competed in the first international games spinal fluid thanks to his grant from the particularly concerned to promote the for athletes with disabilities. In 1960, SPSL (despite the strenuous attempts of treatment of spinal injuries in Israel. Guttmann arranged for these games to be the British Medical Association to block He also remained a proud champion held in Rome, in parallel with the Olympic the entry of refugee medical practitioners of the values and heritage of German Games; medals were awarded to disabled into the profession). Guttmann’s situa­ Jewry: speaking at an anniversary athletes for the first time, leading to tion remained insecure, as his residence banquet for former members of the the integration of what became the permit expired in September 1939; only Kartell­Convent in September 1976, Paralympic Games with the Olympics. after Esther Simpson of the SPSL wrote to he compared German Jewry’s fight for This, along with his unique contribution the Home Office on his behalf in August equal rights with his own campaign to the welfare of an entire category of 1939 was the permit for Guttmann and his against the discrimination suffered by medical patients, formed part of Ludwig family extended until September 1940 – by groups like the disabled. Guttmann’s legacy. which time there could be no question of Anthony Grenville Readers of this journal will be their returning to Germany. interested to know that Guttmann was The papers of the SPSL show how also an active and longstanding member grateful Guttmann and his wife were AJR and of the AJR, serving on its Board (then for the permit that had enabled them to a large advisory body separate from escape Germany for Britain and for the German-Jewish the Executive Committee) for over 25 extension that allowed them to remain Studies Centre years after being co­opted onto it in in Britain permanently. Britain benefited 1953. On 1 April 1953, he was, alongside hugely from the hospitality that it had to hold the historian Erich Eyck and Rabbi Dr offered Guttmann, while the honours that September seminar Leo Baeck, one of three distinguished his achievements earned him – an OBE speakers at a public meeting organised in 1950 and a CBE in 1960 preceded his The AJR is joining forces by the AJR at Woburn House, on the knighthood – were a source of great pride with the Centre for German- Jewish Studies at Sussex occasion of the twentieth anniversary of to the AJR. When the Queen opened University to hold a series the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses, the the magnificent new sports stadium at of lectures, discussions and first official anti­Jewish action undertaken Stoke Mandeville on 2 August 1969, AJR interviews at the London by the regime after Hitler’s accession to Information commented: Jewish Cultural Centre (LJCC) power in 1933. If we had been told thirty years ago that on 12-13 September. Guttmann also acted as one of the one day someone in our midst would The two-day seminar will distinguished patrons of the Thank­You AJR Chief Executive Michael Newman highlight the cultural legacy Britain Fund, which was set up in the Directors of the Jewish German and 1960s, under the administration of the Carol Rossen Austrian refugees who fled David Kaye AJR, to raise money from the Jewish Nazism and celebrate their Head of Department refugees from Hitler to promote scholarly Sue Kurlander Social Services remarkable contribution to research, as a token of gratitude to their AJR Journal life in Britain.
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