Wolfgang Fürstner

Wolfgang Fürstner
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-2008-0122-500, Wolfgang Fürstner.jpg First Class Iron Cross on Fürstner's breast pocket lower right.
Born	(1896-04-04)4 April 1896
Died	Berlin
Buried	Invalidenfriedhof Berlin
Allegiance	German Empire (to 1918) Weimar Republic (to 1933) Nazi Germany
Service/branch	Heer (Army)
Rank	Hauptmann (Captain)
Battles/wars	World War I
Awards	Olympic Medal First Class Iron Cross First Class

Wolfgang Fürstner (4 April 1896 – 19 August 1936) was a German Wehrmacht captain first appointed commander, then vice-commander, of Berlin's Olympic village during the 1936 Summer Olympics.

Family

Wolfgang Fürstner was married to Leonie von Schlick, daughter of Marie Gräfin von Reventlow and Albert Heinrich Hans Karl von Schlick (1874–1957), last commander of the World War I battleship SMS Derfflinger.

Career and replacement

After being tasked with building and organising the Olympic village, Fürstner was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Werner Freiherr von und zu Gilsa in June 1936. Fürstner was demoted to local vice-commander. Officially Fürstner’s demotion was due to the fact that "Fürstner did not act with the necessary energy," because 370,000 visitors had poured through from the opening on the first of May to the 15th of June and caused damage. This explanation was a pretext to disparage Fürstner due to his background; Fürstner, along with fencer Helene Mayer and hockey star Rudi Ball, was one of the few people with Jewish ancestry connected with the 1936 Olympics. The non-Jewish Werner von Gilsa was given Fürstner's position and promoted to General der Infanterie. Gilsa became the last Wehrmacht commandant of Dresden and committed suicide on 8 May 1945.

Death and cover-up

Fürstner committed suicide with a pistol shot on 19 August 1936, three days after the end of the Games; he had been awarded the Olympic Medal First Class and had attended a banquet for his successor Gilsa. But Fürstner, a career officer, had learned that according to the Nuremberg Laws he was classified as a Jew and was to be dismissed from the Wehrmacht.

In order to cover up Fürstner’s suicide and protect the international reputation of Germany, the Nazis said Fürstner’s death was the result of a car accident, and Fürstner was buried in the Invalidenfriedhof, section F, alongside the honored dead of Germany’s wars.

There is evidence however that this instantly was unsuccessful. In Australia, reports emerged stating that he had been found dead with a revolver by his side.

The grave was listed in the Official Berlin Invalidenfriedhof Guidebook (Der Invalidenfriedhof in Berlin – Ein Ehrenhain preußisch-deutscher Geschichte), which appeared between 1936 and 1940 in several editions.

File:Invalidenfriedhof, Restitutionsstein Fürstner.jpg

Wolfgang Fürstner's gravestone. "Suicide as a result of political persecution"

Restoration of grave

A new stone marker for Fürstner's grave was donated by the German Olympic Committee and dedicated in June 2002 by the Committee President, Walther Tröger. The stone lists Fürstner as "Deputy Commandant of the Olympic Village 1936" (stellvertretender Kommandant des Olympischen Dorfes 1936).

Bibliography

• Dost, Susanne. Das Olympische Dorf 1936 im Wandel der Zeit, Neddermeyer, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-933254-12-4