Dora Ratjen

Heinrich Ratjen (born Dora Ratjen; 20 November 1918 – 22 April 2008), was a German athlete who competed for Germany in the women's high jump at the 1936 Summer Olympics at Berlin, finishing fourth, but was later determined to be male and/or intersex. In some news reports, he was erroneously referred to as Hermann Ratjen and Horst Ratjen.

Early life, family and education Ratjen was born in Erichshof, near Bremen, into a family described as "simple folk". Ratjen's father, Heinrich Ratjen, stated in 1938: "When the child was born the midwife called over to me, 'Heini, it's a boy!' But five minutes later she said to me, 'It is a girl, after all. Nine months later, when the child, who had been christened Dora, was ill, a doctor examined the child's genitalia and, according to Heinrich, said, "Let it be. You can't do anything about it anyway." Dora stated, also in 1938: "My parents brought me up as a girl [and] I therefore wore girl's clothes all my childhood. But from the age of 10 or 11 I started to realize I wasn't female, but male. However I never asked my parents why I had to wear women's clothes even though I was male."

In 1939, Ratjen broke the world record in the high jump. But Dorothy Tyler-Odam was suspicious of Ratjen, saying, "They wrote to me telling me I didn't hold the record, so I wrote to them saying, 'She's not a woman, she's a man'. They did some research and found 'her' serving as a waiter called Hermann Ratjen. So I got my world record back."

Ratjen was arrested and sent to Hohenlychen sports sanatorium for further tests, with the same results. Criminal proceedings continued until 10 March 1939, when the public prosecutor stated: "Fraud cannot be deemed to have taken place because there was no intention to reap financial reward." Dora promised the authorities he would "cease engaging in sport with immediate effect". The athlete's father, Heinrich Ratjen, initially insisted that Dora should continue to be treated as female but on 29 March 1939 wrote to the police chief of Bremen: "Following the change of the registry office entry regarding the child's sex, I would request you change the child's first name to Heinrich." The gold medal won by Ratjen was returned and his name expunged from the records. A file containing the findings of the 1938 and 1939 investigation into Ratjen's life was made public by Der Spiegel in 2009.

In 1966, Time magazine, used reporting from the earlier The People piece and reported that, in 1957, Dora had presented as Hermann, a waiter in Bremen, "who tearfully confessed that he had been forced by the Nazis to pose as a woman 'for the sake of the honor and glory of Germany'. Sighed Hermann: 'For three years I lived the life of a girl. It was most dull.

The film Berlin 36 (2009) presents a fictionalised version of the story presented by Time. In the version of Ratjen's story presented as background to the movie, the Nazis supposedly wanted to ensure that Hitler would not be embarrassed by a Jewish athlete winning a gold medal for Germany at the Olympics, and Gretel Bergmann was replaced in the team by Ratjen. In 1938, Ratjen was supposedly then disqualified after the European Championships when a doctor discovered that he had strapped up his genitals. Asked for comment following the movie's release, Bergmann said she had "no idea" why Ratjen did what he did.

Der Spiegel disputed the assertion that Ratjen was a tool of the Nazis, as presented by Time and the movie, stating: