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Gottfried von Cramm (July 7, 1909 - November 8,
1976) was a German tennis champion.


Born Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt
von Cramm in Nettlingen, Lower Saxony, Germany,
his family was part of the ancient German nobility
and he inherited the title of Baron. One of the
best German tennis players ever, he had the
misfortune of having to compete against Fred Perry
and Don Budge, two of the greatest players to have
ever played the game. And, as a homosexual|not
openly gay man,  he had to play under great stress
at a time when History of Gays during the
Holocaust|gay men under Nazi Germany were being
publicly persecuted and exterminated. 

In 1932, Von Cramm earned a birth as a Davis Cup
competitor for his country and immediately  won
the first of four straight German national
championships. During this time he also teamed up
with Hilde Krahwinkel to win the 1933 Wimbledon
champions (Mixed Doubles)|Mixed Doubles title at
the Wimbledon Championships. Noted for his
gentlemanly conduct and fair play, he gained the
admiration and respect of his fellow tennis
players. He earned his first individual Grand Slam
in tennis|Grand Slam title in 1934, winning the
French Open. His victory made him a national hero
in his native Germany,  however, he had the bad
luck of doing so just after Adolf Hitler had come
to power. The tall, handsome and blonde Gottfried
von Cramm fit perfectly the Aryan race image of a
Nazi ideology that put pressure on all German
athletes to be superior. However, von Cramm
steadfastly refused to be a tool for Nazi
propaganda.

For three straight years he was the men's singles
runner-up at the Wimbledon Championships, losing
memorable matches in the finals to Fred Perry in
1935 and again in 1936. The following year he lost
in the finals to American Don Budge both at
Wimbledon and at the US Open (tennis)|U.S. Open.
In 1935, he was beaten in the French Open finals
by England's Fred Perry but turned the tables the
following year and defeated Perry for his second
French championship. In an attempt to get von
Cramm on side, the Nazi regime punished his
insubordination by not allowing him to compete in
the 1937 French championship even though he was
the defending champion.

Despite his Grand Slam play, Gottfried von Cramm
is most remembered for his match against Don Budge
during the 1937 Davis Cup. He was ahead 4-1 in the
final set, when Budge launched a comeback,
eventually winning 8-6 in a match considered by
many as the greatest battle in the annals of Davis
Cup play and one of the preeminent matches in all
of tennis history. In an interview after the
match, Budge told a reporter that von Cramm had
received a phone call from Hitler minutes before
the match started and came out pale and serious
and had played each point as though his life
depended on winning. And von Cramm did pay, when
in 1938 things reached the boiling point with the
Nazi government. While von Cramm was always
respectful, he continued to refuse to go along
with the propaganda of a regime he did not
condone. Despite his enormous popularity with the
public, in March of 1938, von Cramm was arrested
by the German government and ordered to stand
trial on trumped-up charges. Found guilty, he was
sentenced to a year in prison. His international
tennis friends were outraged and Don Budge
collected the signatures of high-profile athletes
and sent a protest letter to Hitler. Finally
freed, in May of 1939 von Cramm returned to
competitive tennis but the extremely tense
political climate caused problems when he went to
play in England. After an initial ban, von Cramm
was allowed to compete at the Queen's Club
tournament in London where he won the event by
beating American Bobby Riggs 6-0, 6-1.
Nonetheless, the officials at Wimbledon refused to
let him play in the Championships, using the
excuse that he was a convicted criminal and
therefore unfit. 

With the outbreak of World War II, von Cramm had
to serve in the German army. While war robbed von
Cramm of some of his best years for tennis,
nevertheless he still won another  German national
championship in 1948 and was already forty years
old when he won it for the last time in 1949. He
played Davis Cup tennis until retiring after the
1953 season and still holds the record for most
wins by any German team member. Following his
retirement from active competition, Von Cramm
served as an administrator for the German tennis
federation and became successful in business as a
cotton importer. In addition, he managed the farm
property he had inherited from his father at
Wispenstein in Lower Saxony. Von Cramm was part of
the elite of European society and became friends
with the American Woolworth heiress, Barbara
Hutton. In November of 1955, after the failure of
her fifth marriage, a completely messed up Hutton
sought safety and friendship with the homosexual
von Cramm. The two married, but the situation
could only lead to disaster and they soon
divorced.

Baron Gottfried von Cramm was killed in an
automobile accident near Cairo, Egypt in 1976. The
following year, he was posthumously inducted into
the International Tennis Hall of Fame. In his
honor, the Gottfried-von-Cramm-Weg in
Berlin|Berlin-Wilmersdorf, site of the Rot-Weiss
tennis club, was given his name.

Grand Slam Record:
*French Open:
**Men's Singles champion (1934) (1936)
**Men's Doubles champion (1937)
*Wimbledon Championships:
**Mixed Doubles champion (1933)
*US Open (tennis)|U.S. Open:
**Men's Doubles champion (1937)