Sports Awards

Sturmabteilung (SA) - Sports Award

The Sturmabteilung (SA) Sports award was issued between the years 1933 and 1945. It was a political version of the much more generic German Sports Badge which was also issued in great numbers by the NSDAP.
The badge was issued in three grades (bronze, silver, and gold) as well as a special version known as the "SA Sports Badge for War Wounded". The wounded version was implemented in 1940 for those military veterans of the Wehrmacht who had been wounded in combat and could no longer perform the physical feats required for the normal SA Sports Badge. The wounded version of the badge was designed with different criteria and only those rated with a disability could qualify for the badge.

Although originally designed as a physical fitness badge for Nazi stormtroopers, the SA Sports Badge was issued across every German military and paramilitary organization. Indeed, the SS held the SA Sports Badge in high regard, and many of its senior members, Heinrich Himmler, Karl Wolff, and Arthur Nebe among them, qualified for the decoration. The badge was also commonly issued to the Wehrmacht and was one of the few political decorations that the armed forces allowed to freely be displayed on a military uniform (other such decorations included the Blood Order and the Golden Party Badge).

Award Criteria

Leibesübungen (Physical Fitness) 100m Sprint, long-throw, shot-put, 300m walk

Grundübungen (Basic exercises) Small caliber shooting, 25km ruck-march, club (Stick grenade shaped) tossing

Geländesport (Field exercises)

SA - Sports Award - Bronze, Silver and Gold

SA - Sports Award for the disabled

SA - Sports badge lapel pin for civilian attire

SA - sports badge in wear

German Sports Badge

(Deutscher Reichsbund für Leibesübungen)

Heinrich Himmler seen wearing the DRL badge in gold 

The German Sports Badge, also known as the "German National Sports Badge" was first created in the year 1913 and is one of the oldest awards of Germany still in active circulation.

The Deutscher Reichsbund für Leibesübungen (DRL) was established on 27th July 1934 as the official sports governing body of the Third Reich

Between 1934 and 1939, the German Sports Badge was overshadowed by an almost identical decoration, the SA Sports Badge which was a sports badge issued by the Nazi Party. Even so, the German Sports Badge was still regarded as an important qualification badge, and both the SA Sports Badge and German Sports Badge could both be earned and worn, on the uniform, at the same time.

The SS considered the German Sports Badge of particular importance and the decoration was one of nine awards which were listed on the front of all SS service records with spaces for qualification dates. Regulations of the Allgemeine-SS required a prospective SS candidate to qualify for both the German Sports Badge and the SA Sports Badge during a six month probationary period upon joining the SS. Notable SS recipients of the German Sports Badge include Reinhard Heydrich, Joseph Mengele, Hermann Fegelein and Amon Göth

Award Criteria

Disciplines

Swimming

50m or 200m swim

Jumping power

High-jump or Long-jump or Pommel horse or leap frogging

Speed

50m/75m/100m/400m/1000m run, 300m/500m bicycling or 300m/500m inline-skating or Ice-skating

Physical strength

Stone or shot-put, 100m swim or Shooting sports, Bench press or weightlifting, Canoeing or rowing

Endurance

800m/1000m/2000m/3000m/5000 run, 5000m/10000m inline-skating, 10 kilometers walk, 7 kilometers Walking/Nordic Walking, 20 kilometers bicycling, 600m/1000m swim cross-country skiing or Canoeing, rowing, ice-skating

The German Sports Award - Bronze, Silver and Gold

The German Sports Award for the war wounded and disabled

The German Sports Badge in wear - Silver

SA - Sports Badge and German "DRL" Sports Badge in wear

Non-portable awards

A very early sports award to members of the police who took part in a three day sports event in August 1933.
 
What makes this award a rather rare piece is that it depicts Hermann Göring (the then Minister of the Interior for Prussia, head of the police force and founder of the infamous Gestapo) on one side.
 

 
 
The cased award is, as can be seen on the rim of the award, made by the firm E. Ferdinand Wiedmann, Frankfurt am Main.

Award to a member of the S.A. Gruppe Niederrhein for the 100m sprint during the 3 day sports event 16-18 June 1939

The label on the reverse of the cased award shows the maker to be Steinhauer & Lück - Lüdenscheid

1938 Deutsches Turn- und. Sportfest

The Deutsches Turn- und Sportfest (German Gym and Sports Celebration) was the last big sports event organized by the Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen, the sports-governing body of the Third Reich. It took place in Breslau (now Wroclaw) the most important city of Silesia, now in Poland. The venue was staged in July 1938 at the city's Hermann Göring Stadium, later renamed "Stadion Olimpijski", following the trademark grandiose style of the Nazi Sports Body.
This highly nationalistic sports event was officially commemorating the 125th anniversary of the historical German Wars of Liberation against Napoleon and the first award of the Iron Cross in the city of Breslau itself in 1813. It was staged as a grand patriotic, expansionist occasion, illustrating the clamour for a Greater Germany to the public. This event gathered German athletes brought from many different parts of the world, like Argentina, South West Africa, Italy, the USA and South Africa. It also became a gathering of representatives of German ethnic minorities, mainly from Eastern Europe (Siebenbürgen, Banat) who staged processions dressed in their colourful folkloric costumes.

The Deutsches Turn- und Sportfest was a highly political event, attended by many high-ranking Nazi officials. The event was presided over by Reichssportführer (NSRL leader) Hans von Tschammer und Osten and the patron of the festival, Reich minister of the interior Wilhelm Frick. Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking personalities of the Third Reich attended the inaugural venue of the games. During this occasion Hitler gave a speech from the balcony of Hotel Monopol in Breslau.

The event and its celebration of Germanism, as well as the choice of Dr. Wilhelm Frick to lead it, was part of the creation of a war-preparation atmosphere by the Nazi state. Minister of the Interior Frick was the spearhead of Germany's rearmament in violation of the Versailles Treaty. His inaugural speech was full of war symbolism, setting the mood for the events that would culminate the following year with the invasion of nearby Poland, then just a few miles to the east of Breslau.

Viciously attacked and fanatically defended, the city of Breslau would suffer much destruction towards the end of World War II.

One of the many postcards produced after the 1938 Deutsches Turn- und. Sportfest

Commemorative badge of the 1938 Deutsches Turn- und. Sportfest produced by the firm of Hermann Aurich - Dresden