Dora Ratjen, born as Hermann Ratjen in 1918, became a star high jumper after he was pressured by Nazi Youth before the 1936 Berlin Olympic games to compete as a woman. Ratjen was a natural jumper at 5'9" and 130 pounds. Perhaps the German team was feeling pressured to field a strong jumper since their top jumper Gretel Bergmann who was Jewish, was dismissed from the team for "poor performance". Ratjen wound up in fourth place at the '36 games. The irony of the German team fielding a female impersonator in light of their later massive efforts to extinguish the gay and transgender population of Europe during the holocaust cannot be missed. Two years later, at the 1938 World Championship games, Bergmann, who had emigrated to the U.S. took first place and Ratjen came in second. Immediately after the awards ceremony, however, Ratjen was stripped of the medal for being a "hermaphrodite". In 1957, Ratjen finally revealed that he was a man.
Dora Ratjen
