Table of Contents
STUDIES IN PHYSICAL CULTURE AND TOURISM
Vol. 11, No. 2, 2004
VASILIOS KAIMAKAMIS, STELLA DUKA, DIMITRIOS KAIMAKAMIS, ATHANASIOS ANASTASIOU
Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, Department of Physical and Sport Science Education
Correspondence should be addressed to: V. Kaimakamis, Alikarnassu 2, 55133 Kalamaria, Thessaloniki, Greece, 
Table of Contents
Key words: German gymnastics system, Greek physical education.
The foundations of the German gymnastics system were laid by Ludwig Jahn in the early 1820s. It was an athletic movement invested with a nationalistic and patriotic ideology, whose main characteristics were apparatus gymnastics as well as establishment of gymnastics clubs. The Greeks acknowledged this system from the onset of the modern-Greek state. The main contributors to its introduction and spread throughout Greece were the Bavarians; some Greeks who had lived and studied in Germany; Greek gymnast Pagontas through his teaching material and published works; as well as various legislative regulations. However, there were reasons which did not enable German gymnastics to become quickly and readily accessible, not only in physical education but also in Greek society at large. At that time, gymnastics was not a high priority for the Greeks who were more concerned with national survival. In addition, the Greeks’ preference of their own athletic tradition further hindered the spread of German gymnastics.
In the first decades of the 19th century three different gymnastics systems were developed and proliferated: German, Swedish and English. Although each of these systems had distinct aims and objectives as well as a specific structure and philosophy, they did, however, have common roots in the distant past (the Renaissance), as well as a common direct link (the Philanthropists).
Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852), discussed below, is considered to be the founder of the German gymnastics system. Jahn took the gymnastics of the Philanthropists (in particular that of Guts Muts) and after adding a number of new elements and investing it with a nationalistic-patriotic ideology, he created a new gymnastics movement called “Turnbewegung” [6, 9, 24]. According to Borrmann, “Jahn took hold of the ideas and thoughts that Guts Muts had expressed in his writings and augmented them with an ideology” [5]. This movement, with whose spirit the poet-philosophers Fichte and Arndt also identified, became a component of the German nation and German culture, and went on to gain distinction as a major political factor throughout the entire 19th century [6, 23].
Jahn invented the horizontal and parallel bars; two pieces of equipment which in the decades to follow attained a major position in the German gymnastics system and became established as its ideological symbols [6].
In 1811 Jahn opened the first open-air gymnasium in Berlin. He exuded strong patriotic feelings and had a deep-rooted belief that by exercising, and in particular, exercising on various apparatus for hanging, pushing, climbing, etc, young people would grow stronger, braver and most importantly, they would become worthy defenders of the nation [9, 15, 32]. The main objective of Jahn’s gymnastics movement was to overthrow the French dominance and unify the three-hundred or so German miniature states. In order for this athletics and ideological movement to become “purely German” in every respect Jahn used only German terminology, having abandoned the Philanthropists’ Greek term “Gymnastik” and replacing it with the German “Turnen”. Unfortunately, he was not aware of the fact that this term was not German but French, also derived from an ancient Greek root [16].
The main causes of this athletic and patriotic movement, which Jahn called “Vaterländisches Turnen” (patriotic gymnastics), included [9, 14, 24]:
strong current and dynamism, which had arisen due to the Philanthropists’ gymnastics;
the ideas and values of the French Revolution;
French dominance over the German nation during the time of Napoleon.
The fact that from 1811 until 1818 those types of gymnastic centers were established in fifty-two German cities, shows the impact which this movement had on the German people [26, 29, 37]. Later, hundreds and then thousands of gymnastic clubs were established with mass membership (one of the basic characteristics of the German gymnastics system).
Jahn’s in-depth work entitled “Die Deutsche Turnkunst”, published in 1816, written together with his student and close collaborator Eiselen, greatly contributed to the spread of the new gymnastic movement [18]. Nevertheless, according to Chrysafy, “(Jahn) does not present a complete and composite gymnastics system… and does not take into account a person’s anatomical and functional needs…,” unlike Ling, his Swedish counterpart [6].
In 1813, Jahn and his students took part in the “Battle of the Nations” against Napoleon, where they fought heroically and were victorious. In order to commemorate this event, the following year they organized sports, national and cultural manifestations at the Hasenheide Gymnasium. This exhibition was then followed in other towns and cities. In this way the so-called “Turnfeste”events were established which comprised another basic attribute of this system [19].
In these events, Jahn’s students aimed to achieve the following objectives [9, 15, 19, 32]:
To display their bodily strength and vigor; to prove their willingness for the continuation of the liberation struggle; to express their desire for the unification of the German miniature states; and to demonstrate their opposition, fury and disobedience to the Feudal regime, which they wanted to overthrow.
From the above statement it was clear that Jahn’s gymnastic movement was inwrought with a political ideology which the State powers (the Holy Alliance, Feudalism, Princes, Kings) saw with suspicion and for this reason regarded as dangerous and traitorous. At first, the Princes and the governors of various German miniature states were faced with a dilemma concerning “Turnbewegung”, since on the one hand, this movement, with its numerous supporters, was aiming to liberate the German people from the French oppressors (which the State powers approved of); whereas, on the other hand, it despised and rejected feudalism and the established order (which the State powers were party to).
Kruger comments that, “The Prussian government supported Jahn’s gymnastic movement while at the same time fearing it…, whereas, Metternich from as early as 1818 considered Jahn’s athletic and ideological movement threatening, since its members were disrespectful, dangerous, toughened and unscrupulous [24].”
Finally, the pretext was found in 1819, when one of Jahn’s students (K. Sand) assassinated politician-poet Kotzeboe, whom he considered to be an enemy of “Turnbewegung”. After this event, the movement was damned and banned, Jahn was jailed, the movement leaders were persecuted and the gymnasiums were closed down [5, 6]. In the years to follow, up to 1842 (the year the ban was finally lifted), many of Jahn’s students fled abroad, bringing along with them and keeping alive his gymnastics system whose main component was apparatus gymnastics. Yet, in many German miniature states, the part of the movement related directly to athletics continued to exist indoors under the misleading name of the Philanthropists’ “Gymnastik”, instead of Jahn’s “Turnen”. This “forced move” into closed quarters of which Eiselen was the main instigator, helped significantly in the development of the pure form of apparatus gymnastics due to the fact that there was room only for this equipment. In addition, the trainees of this gymnastics were not considered illegal [9, 32].
After 1842, Jahn and his gymnastics movement were restored, and a rapid development followed with the establishment of thousands of gymnastic clubs with mass membership, which the ruling classes, however, successfully modified to their measures and brought within their control [20].
In this way, from the mid-19th century on, Jahn’s spontaneous, liberal and radical gymnastics movement was transformed into the so-called German gymnastics system, which was rigorously disciplined, predetermined and “molded”. It became a versatile training system which drilled young people towards attaining technical and acrobatic perfection, and at the same time taught them total obedience [5, 6].
On the turn of events and the German gymnastics system’s philosophy, Borrmann stated, “Spiess, along with many other teachers of physical education used the subject of gymnastics and especially that of apparatus gymnastics as a serious and rigorous means to produce obedient citizens in the service of the ruling feudal class and the military [5].”
Simultaneously, the system never stopped embracing a nationalistic and at times, racist ideology which was largely embodied in the almighty German Gymnastics Federation (also characterized by introversion and self-importance) [5, 17, 21, 22], which in 1871 directly contributed to the unification of all German miniature states. The gymnastic and pedagogical foundations were laid by Adolf Spiess, who is referred to as the “father” of the German school of physical education and, in addition, was the founder of women’s gymnastics. Jahn’s gymnastics movement and the later developed and integrated German gymnastics system, with its main component of gymnastics on fixed apparatus (horizontal bars, parallel bars, vaulting horse, etc) as well as gymnastic clubs, spread all over the world with many variations and admixtures. In some countries, this system was popularized by Jahn’s fugitive students [32]; in some by the political self-imposed exiles after the 1848 revolution [38];and in some other ones by official state legislation on this system of physical education. The introduction and proliferation of this system in Greece was accomplished in a variety of ways with the main ones being: the arrival of the Bavarians; its promotion by people of Greek descent living in Germany; and the legislative regulations on physical education (1834 and 1836).
The German gymnastics system (and by extension apparatus gymnastics) is interwoven not only with physical education in the modern-Greek nation, but also with the general history of this period, since it has been as old as the modern-Greek state itself. From 1834 until the first decade of the 20th century, the German gymnastics system was introduced and proliferated – beginning with the Parliamentary Bill [23, 30] on physical education – quite apart from local athletic tradition [11, 12, 13]. In 1834, the first gymnasium was built in Nafplio, the then capital of the modern-Greek state, which was equipped with apparatus of the German gymnastics system (parallel bars, horizontal bars, gymnastics tables, vaulting horses, climbing ropes, etc). Some of the first gymnasiums in the modern-Greek state on the islands of Aigina and Syros were likewise equipped [23].
The introduction and spread of the German gymnastics system in the newly formed Greek state was neither accompanied by Jahn’s “Turnbewegung” ideology, nor by the establishment of gymnastics clubs modeled on the German “Turnvereine”. In Greece, these clubs were founded much later (from the 1870s on), and bore no relationship to the ideologies and activities of their German counterparts. According to Koulouri:
[the first gymnasiums founded in the modern-Greek state] … did not correspond to the actual social demand. They were run on state or community support but only for a short period of time, because of the limited or non-existent interest in exercising the body. In an attempt to introduce the German gymnastics system during the Regency, these gymnasiums were provided with equipment used by the Turners (horizontal bars, parallel bars, vaulting horses, climbing ropes, etc) [23].
The Regency, thus, attempted to dictate and to “Bavarianise” both Greek physical education and the Greeks themselves, not only by introducing the German gymnastics system, but mainly through enforcing and promoting German gymnasts and directors [20, 27, 28]. In contrast, the great Phil-Hellene and lover of antiquity, Louis I (King of Bavaria and the father of Otto, King of Greece), in a letter to his son advised him that, “The Greeks must not be “Bavarianised” but should be governed [taking into consideration] their own ethnic mentality and in doing this, it is sufficient that only Greeks should administrate” [35].
The main vehicles of the German system in Greece were King Otto’s many consultants, the large number of Bavarian soldiers (3500) [34, 35], some German gymnasts (Kork, Ottendorf, Hennig) [12, 28]and numerous Greeks, who at that time, for various reasons, were living or studying in Germany [6, 29]. Of particular importance is the contribution of the Greek gymnast Georgios Pagontas, who had studied in Munich and Berlin under the great German gymnast and philosopher H. F. Massmann (Massmann had been Jahn’s student and close colleague; since 1827 he was the organizer of Bavarian physical education, personal gymnastics instructor to the royal children, including Otto; and finally was one of the most significant personalities in King Louis’ court) [6]. When Pagontas returned to Greece he wrote the first athletics book of the modern-Greek nation (1837), in which he dedicated a number of pages to apparatus gymnastics (in accordance with the German gymnastics system), while overall, the work was orientated toward ancient Greek gymnastics [6, 23, 31].Apart from the exercises he recommended on the various fixed apparatus, he also specified the method for their construction; in addition, he presented a diagram with sketches of various fixed apparatus. As he put it in the prologue, he wrote this book with the encouragement of his teacher (Massmann) and based it on the works by J.C.F. Guts Muts (Gymnastik fur die Jugend, 1793) and L. Jahn (Deutsche Turnkunst, 1816). For over forty years Pagontas’ book remained the exclusive work on Greek physical education.
It is interesting to note that during the period when Kapodistrias was the first governor of the modern-Greek state (1829-1832) [29, 40]that is, prior to the arrival of the Bavarians and the Parliamentary Bill (1834), physical education had already been cultivated in accordance with the German system in an orphanage on the island of Aigina. One of the newspapers of that time “Athena” provides us with the following information, “…in the orphanage [of Aigina] there is a gymnastics teacher [who conducts lessons] in the German manner [1].” Consequently, the Greeks had come into contact with the German system and with apparatus gymnastics before the arrival of the Bavarians.
In the first decades after liberation, however, the Greek people, who were poverty stricken and exhausted from the war, did not regard organized physical education as one of their priorities but were rather concerned with other urgencies related to survival and the basic needs of life. Apart from this, children’s upbringing was one-sided since, almost exclusively, the weight was placed on mental and intellectual pursuits, dismissing not only exercise but also personal hygiene as unimportant [6, 7, 23, 33].
It is also worth noticing that at that time (as well as a few decades later) apparatus gymnastics was not a separate specialized sport with skilled athletes, nor had commonly accepted rules and regulations, but rather it was mixed and integrated into a more general gymnastics system [32]. Until the mid-19th century, the gymnastics apparatus (horizontal bars, parallel bars, vaulting horses and other equipment used for hanging, climbing and balancing) were simple, wooden constructions of varying sizes and dimensions. In addition, for many years (until 1950) this equipment did not have any set functional specifications [21].
The first athletic games referred to in the modern-Greek state are those of 1829 which were conducted at the Megara military camp [10]. The following contests were included in the program: target shooting, running, and jumping events. Thus, there were two events of the ancient Greek pentathlon (running, jumping), deeply rooted in Greek tradition, whereas target shooting was a purely military skill. Although the three events were included in the German gymnastics system, none of them were typical of it. In 1835 as part of the celebrations accompanying Otto’s coronation, athletic games were held in Athens under the initiative and responsibility of the Minister of Internal Affairs I. Koletti. In spite of Koletti’s efforts and despite the fact that he called them “Olympic” games, the Bavarian regency downgraded them (mainly for political reasons related to Koletti himself) and thus sentenced the games to failure [35]. The games’ program included three sports which took place on three consecutive days: running, jumping and horse racing [8, 34, 36].Apparatus gymnastics, which was then referred to as gymnastic events, was again absent from these games.
Of interest is that until the end of the 1860s, there did not appear to be any particular movement either in Greek athletics or physical education; the only athletics book available was still the one written by Pagontas; gymnastics clubs had not yet been founded; and there were only one or two gymnasiums with limited scope and functions.
Before formulating the final conclusions, the following comments must be made that will provide a better understanding of the topic at hand:
The German gymnastics system was not only comprised of the fixed gymnastics apparatus, which did, in fact, play an important role in the system’s identity and development, but it also consisted of a range of sports which included various forms of the ancient Greek pentathlon events. It should be noted that the horizontal and parallel bars were established as gymnastic and ideological-political symbols of this system [24, 32].
The German gymnastics system was inspired by ancient Greek gymnastics and, in particular, by various forms and combinations of the ancient pentathlon. The influence of ancient Greek gymnastics on the Philanthropists was well known and Jahn’s “Turnbewegung”, which took on another form and direction was, in turn, based on the “Gymnastik” of his Philanthropist predecessors. In Krüger’s opinion, “Ancient Greek gymnastics did not only influence the Philanthropists but also the development of “Turnen” as well as German physical education in the 19th century in general” [24].
From the foundation of the modern-Greek state until the end of the 1880s no gymnastics clubs were established in Greece and those that were founded in the 1890s did not follow the ideological model of the German “Turnvereine” characteristic of the aforementioned gymnastics system.
The few gymnasiums which existed in the modern-Greek state in the 19th century were equipped with the German system apparatus.
The book which played a pivotal role in the development and formation of athletics and physical education in Greece on the onset of the new state was Summary of Gymnastics, 1837, written by Pagontas. He dedicated a large section of his work to apparatus gymnastics, while at the same time expressing a more general orientation to ancient Greek athletics.
Physical education in 19th-century Greece (especially up to 1880), was greatly downgraded in spite of the intermittent legislative regulations, since both the State and the people had other priorities [2, 6].
Even though, for various reasons, the Greeks did not adopt the German gymnastics system outright, it can be seen from a number of sources, that they fostered admiration for the Germans who were fit; and they had high regard for the widespread implementation and the impressive results of athletics in Germany [2, 3, 4, 25].
The main aim of Jahn’s gymnastics movement, invested with a nationalistic and patriotic ideology, was to boost the German people to make them able to throw off the French yoke more easily and to unite all the German miniature states. Further on, this movement became a component of the German nation and German culture, and became a prominent political factor throughout the 19th century. At the same time, the foundations were laid for the German gymnastics system, whose main characteristics were apparatus gymnastics; establishment of gymnastics clubs; and organization of celebratory events with an athletic, cultural, and nationalistic character. This particular gymnastics system was proliferated in a variety of ways in many countries around the world, including Greece.
The Greek state, during its first decades, was not in a position to make any significant attempts to spread and upgrade physical education or organized athletics. The people focused on other priorities and were not aware then of the real value of athletics. These circumstances did not help in making the German system easily accessible or widespread.
The Greek people still had deep-rooted connections with various popular games and sports, which were interwoven with Greek culture, folk tradition as well as the Greek temperament. Amongst these sports were the various forms of the competitive events of the Ancient Greek pentathlon, which were also included in the German gymnastics system. Therefore, many elements of the German system were reintroduced as a “gymnastic” loan, since they had already existed in people’s memory and in popular tradition. This fact, perhaps, reinforced further the dominant position held by the Ancient Greek pentathlon in the few sports events which took place during this period.
The pure version of German gymnastics system was never implemented in Greek athletics and physical education. The Greeks took from or added to this system whatever suited them, and thus adapted it to their own measures. Above all, they did not espouse the nationalistic and political ideology of the German “Turnvereine.”
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