Olympics gender drama

Called "Berlin '36," the film by German director Kaspar Heidelbach, tells the story of record-breaking Jewish high-jumper Gretel Bergmann who fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and emigrated to Britain.

Bergmann went on to win the British high-jumping title but was forced to return to Germany in the run-up to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. The film shows how the Nazis were put under pressure by the United States, which threatened to boycott the Olympic Games if Germany failed to field any Jewish athletes.

In a bid to save face and get international respectability, the Nazi leadership selected Bergmann to participate in the Games. They made it clear her family left behind in Germany would suffer the consequences if she refused.

An unusually muscular replacement

Bergmann, played in the film by young German actress Karoline Herfurth, returned to Germany and broke the German high-jump record ahead of the Olympics.

But just days before the start of the 1936 Olympics, the Nazis barred Bergmann, a favorite for gold, from the Games, saying her performances hadn't been satisfactory. The Nazis wanted to ensure that Hitler would not be embarrassed by a Jewish athlete winning a gold medal for Germany.

The dramatic turnabout came after the ship carrying US athletes had set sail for Germany. By way of consolation, Bergmann was given a spectator's ticket.

The Nazis replaced Bergmann with "Aryan" athletes Elfriede Kaun and Dora Ratjen. The two won third and fourth place respectively in the high-jump. But two years later, it emerged that Ratjen, who had a deep, gruff voice, was in fact male.

In 1938, still posing as a woman, Ratjen set a new world high jump record for women of 1.70m - but was disqualified after a doctor discovered that he had strapped up his genitals. He was stripped of his title, his performances were expunged from the records, and he was quickly conscripted into the army.

The film shows Bergmann's trainer Waldmann, played by popular German actor Axel Prahl, being replaced by a Nazi loyalist who brings in a manly-looking athlete to replace high-jumper Bergmann.

The film doesn't just show how Bergmann was discriminated against and sidelined but also touches on how she becomes friends with Ratjen. It portrays Ratjen as a tormented person who knows that he is not a woman but tries fearfully to hide the fact.

A scene in the film shows actress Herfurth coming upon Marie Ketteler, a fictional character based on Dora Ratjen and played by actor Sebastian Urzendowsky, in the shower and discovering that she is a man.

Bergmann: "I had no idea"

In reality, it is not clear whether the Nazis were aware that Dora Ratjen was in fact "Hermann" Ratjen. Bergmann, who emigrated to the United States in 1937 and still lives there, said she herself had no idea.

"I never suspected anything," the now 95-year-old told the German news magazine Der Spiegel. "We all wondered why she never appeared naked in the shower. To be so shy at the age of 17 seemed grotesque. But we just thought: well, she's weird, she's strange."

The film is interspersed with interviews with the real Gretel Bergmann. The 25-year-old Herfurth, hailed as an upcoming acting star in Germany, is reported to have trained for a year to perfect her form for the long-jumping scenes.

The film's Germany premiere, held in Berlin in August, coincided with the row over the gender of South African athlete Caster Semenya, which marred the World Athletics Championships in the very stadium where the 1936 Olympics were held.

Cheated of gold?

After emigrating to the United States, Bergmann went on to win several more high-jumping titles. She vowed never to return to Germany again or speak the language.

But more than 60 years later, Bergmann did return to Germany. In 1999, she accepted a prestigious award in Frankfurt that recognized her sporting achievements. And she made a second trip to her hometown Laupheim in southwestern Germany when a stadium there was named after her.

But Bergmann said she remains certain that she was cheated of an Olympic gold medal by the Nazis.

"I would have won gold, nothing less," she told Der Spiegel. "I wanted to show to the Germans and to the world that Jews were not these terrible people, not fat, ugly and disgusting as were people," she said.

"I wanted to show that a Jewish girl could beat the Germans. In front of 10,000 people."

The film "Berlin 36"opens across cinemas in Germany on Sept. 10.

sp/AP/dpa/AFP

Editor: Sean Sinico