Gottfried von Cramm

Von Cramm figured briefly in the gossip columns as the sixth husband of Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress.

Third of the seven sons of

Von Cramm began playing tennis around the age of ten after his right hand had recovered from an accident. That accident, which resulted in him losing the top joint of his index finger on his right hand, was the result of a horse who took more than just the sugar cube offered to him by the young von Cramm.[9]

In 1932, Cramm earned a place in the German

For three straight years Cramm was the men's singles runner-up at the Wimbledon Championships, losing in the final to England's Fred Perry in 1935 and again in 1936. The following year he was runner-up to American Don Budge, both at Wimbledon and at the U.S. Open. In 1935, he was beaten in the French Open final by Perry, but turned the tables the following year and defeated his rival, gaining his second French championship.

In addition to his Grand Slam play, Gottfried von Cramm is recalled for his deciding 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 pre-eminent matches in all of tennis history.^[3] In a later interview, Budge said that Cramm had received a phone call from Hitler minutes before the match started and had come out pale and serious and had played each point as though his life depended on winning.^[12] Ted Tinling, who served as the Player Liaison for the All England Club, recalled in his memoir that as he was in the process of ushering Budge and von Cramm out to Centre Court, they were interrupted by a long-distance call for von Cramm, and that following the call, von Cramm turned to him and Budge and said, 'Excuse me, gentlemen, it was Hitler. He wanted to wish me good luck.'^[13] Others say that Budge believed a tale invented by Teddy Tinling that Hitler had telephoned Cramm before the match.^[14]

For his successful tennis career, he was decorated by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany with the Silver Laurel Leaf, Germany's highest sports award.^[15]

Despite his enormous popularity with the public, on 5 March 1938, von Cramm was arrested by the German government and tried on the charge of a homosexual relationship with

Cramm refused to become a party member of the NSDAP during the entire period of the National Socialist regime, although Hermann Göring, who was a member of the same tennis club, tried to persuade him several times. Because Cramm never mentioned Hitler during speeches on international trips, watched films critical of the regime, and privately spoke disparagingly of the National Socialists, he increasingly aroused the displeasure of the Nazis.

Von Cramm showed solidarity with the active resistance to Hitler in the last years of the war, using his travels as a tennis coach to Sweden to pass on confidential messages from the 20 July conspirators.^[20] After the failed assassination attempt, he expressed his desire to join another attempt.^[21] Since the resistance never reorganised after the 20 July plot, he never got the chance to turn his words into deeds.

In May 1940, some months after the outbreak of the

• Baroness Elisabeth Lisa von Dobeneck (1912–1975), a daughter of Robert, Baron von Dobeneck (died in 1926) and his wife, the former Maria Hagen (1889–1943), a granddaughter of the Jewish banker Louis Hagen [de].^[24] They married on 1 September 1930 and divorced in 1937.^[25] Lisa von Cramm later married the German ice-hockey star Gustav Jaenecke.
• Barbara Hutton, an American socialite and an heiress to the Woolworth five-and-dime fortune. The couple married in 1955 and divorced in 1959. He had married her in order to "help her through substance abuse and depression but was unable to help her in the end."^[19]

While on a business trip, Cramm and his driver were killed in an automobile accident near

Gottfried von Cramm was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1977.^[3]

In his 1979 autobiography,

Grand Slam finals

Singles (2 titles, 5 runners-up)

Result	Year	Championship	Surface	Opponent	Score
Win	1934	French Championships	Clay	Jack Crawford	6–4, 7–9, 3–6, 7–5, 6–3
Loss	1935	French Championships	Clay	Fred Perry	3–6, 6–3, 1–6, 3–6
Loss	1935	Wimbledon	Grass	Fred Perry	2–6, 4–6, 4–6
Win	1936	French Championship	Clay	Fred Perry	6–0, 2–6, 6–2, 2–6, 6–0
Loss	1936	Wimbledon	Grass	Fred Perry	1–6, 1–6, 0–6
Loss	1937	Wimbledon	Grass	Don Budge	3–6, 4–6, 2–6
Loss	1937	U.S. Championships	Grass	Don Budge	1–6, 9–7, 1–6, 6–3, 1–6

Doubles (2 titles, 1 runner-up)

Result	Year	Championship	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Win	1937	French Championships	Clay	Henner Henkel	Vernon Kirby Norman Farquharson	6–4, 7–5, 3–6, 6–1
Win	1937	U.S. Championships	Grass	Henner Henkel	Don Budge Gene Mako	6–4, 7–5, 6–4
Loss	1938	Australian Open	Grass	Henner Henkel	John Bromwich Adrian Quist	5–7, 4–6, 0–6

Mixed doubles (1 title)

Result	Year	Championship	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Win	1933	Wimbledon Championships	Grass	Hilde Krahwinkel	Mary Heeley Norman Farquharson	7–5, 8–6

Grand Slam singles performance timeline

Key

W

F

SF

QF

#R

RR

Q#

DNQ

A

NH

(W) winner; (F) finalist; (SF) semifinalist; (QF) quarterfinalist; (#R) rounds 4, 3, 2, 1; (RR) round-robin stage; (Q#) qualification round; (DNQ) did not qualify; (A) absent; (NH) not held; (SR) strike rate (events won / competed); (W–L) win–loss record.

Tournament	1931	1932	1933	1934	1935	1936	1937	1938	1939	1940	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945	1946	1947	1948	1949	1950	1951	1952	SR	W–L	Win %
Australia	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	SF	A	A	NH	NH	NH	NH	NH	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	0 / 1	3–1	75.0
France	4R	2R	A	W	F	W	A	A	A	NH	NH	NH	NH	NH	NH	A	A	A	A	A	A	1R	2 / 6	21–4	84.0
Wimbledon	4R	2R	3R	4R	F	F	F	A	A	NH	NH	NH	NH	NH	NH	A	A	A	A	A	1R	A	0 / 8	27–8	77.1
United States	A	A	A	A	A	A	F	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	0 / 1	5–1	83.3

Source: ITF[28]

Freiin

.

^B Writing in 1979, Kramer considered the best ever to have been either

Jack Crawford, Pancho Segura, Frank Sedgman, Tony Trabert, John Newcombe, Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith, Björn Borg and Jimmy Connors. He felt unable to rank Henri Cochet and René Lacoste

accurately but felt they were among the very best.

Further reading

• Fisher, Marshall Jon (2009). A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played.
  ISBN 978-0-307-39394-4
• Simkin, John (6 July 2018). "Why was the anti-Nazi German, Gottfried von Cramm, banned from taking part at Wimbledon in 1939?". Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 23 July 2018
• Nordalm, Jens (2021). Der schöne Deutsche: Das Leben des Gottfried von Cramm (in German). Rowohlt E-Book.
  ISBN 978-3-644-00819-9
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gottfried von Cramm.

• Gottfried von Cramm at the International Tennis Hall of Fame
• Gottfried von Cramm at the Association of Tennis Professionals
• Gottfried von Cramm at the International Tennis Federation
• Gottfried von Cramm at the Davis Cup
• Official page Archived 19 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine
• Newspaper clippings about Gottfried von Cramm in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

Awards
Preceded by Incumbent	German Sportsman of the Year 1947–1948	Succeeded by Georg Meier