Hitler's pawn: A Thwarted Olympian

In the early 1930s, Bergmann was one of Germany's top female track and field athletes. She seemed poised to compete at the 1936 Olympics, which were going to be held in Berlin. After the Nazis' rise to power, however, Bergmann and other Jewish athletes were told they were no longer allowed to compete in German athletic clubs or competitions. In response, Bergamann moved to London. She hoped to represent Great Britain at the Olympics. She won the British high jump championship in 1935.

At this time, an Olympic boycott movement was gaining momentum in the United State because of the Nazi policy of excluding Jewish athletes. In response, the Nazis agreed to nominate 21 Jews, including Bergmann, to attend the Olympic training camp. She returned to Germany and took part in the camp, because her family had been threatened if she did not return.

Despite achieving terrific result, she was not allowed to compete against non-Jewish athletes. Still, with the American boycott threat looming, the Germans invited Bergmann to join the Olympic team, and she accepted. Her admission to the team secured the American team's participation in the Games.

Bergmann jumped a German-record tying 5'3" in the high jump in June 1936, but on July 16, she received a letter from the German Olympic Committee that read, "Looking back on your recent performances, you could not possibly have expected to be chosen for the team." The letter concluded, "Heil Hitler."

The rejection, of course, came as a terrible disappointment. Her boyfriend Lambert a Jewish athlete, to recalls that "the thought that I might represent Nazi Germany had sickened me, and yet I desperately wanted the chance to compete…but my motivation was different from any other athlete, I wanted to show what a Jew could do, and I wanted to use my talent as a weapon against Nazi ideology." Eager to refute the Nazi impression of the Jew as "fat, bowlegged, and miserable," Bergmann later remarked that "It was all a charade. They never intended to put me on the team."

Feeling cheated, she emigrated to the United States in 1937, and promptly won national championships in the high jump and shot put. She repeated as national champion in the high jump in 1938. Bergmann was honored in 1980 with a commemorative award from the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. She was soon joined in the USA by her future husband, Bruno Lambert. The two Jewish athletes were unsure if they would ever see each other again when Bergmann left; but Lambert secured papers to America, and the couple settled in New York City.