In a spin-off from our ever-so-popular Olympic Eventing History series, we now bring you obscure, forgotten history of our sport that has made all of us who we are today. From the first safety vest to the most triumphant stories you've never heard, we'll see to it that you're always learning -- in and out of the saddle.
Ludwig Stubbendorff and Nurmi in Berlin Olympics. Photo courtesy of Reiterverein Hannover.
Born on a frigid February day in 1906, Ludwig Stubbendorf was born to Ludwig Sr. and Franziska Stubbendorff in Gostorf, Germany. His father’s occupation was listed as a “forester” in early census reports, and in the next 1919 census, we see that he lived in a mixed large home with siblings, his mother and no listed father. If his father was still technically in the picture, he likely spent many months away from his family each year performing hard labor in the vast German forests.
In the late 1920s, Ludwig finished his early schooling and immediately joined the 2nd Prussian Artillery Regiment, which was a division of the German State’s “Reichswehr” Army. After the end of WWI, The Treaty of Versailles required that Germany only maintain a defensive military, a fraction of the size its military had previously been, and with no offensive tactical units that could pre-emptively attack.
This may in fact have opened a door for Ludwig, as there was briefly more focus in the German forces on sophisticated training and ceremonial divisions such as those in the competitive cavalry. In the 1930s, an artillery regiment would have had a significant cavalry element as they needed horses to move heavy supplies, and it was likely here Ludwig’s horse skills first flourished. In 1930 those skills earned him a spot in Germany’s illustrious Hannover Cavalry School.
The Cavalry was founded in 1920, and their primary duty was starting and developing horses for officers and delivering them to the troops. They would also go on drag hunts, though it’s not clear if this was a more entertaining form of training or purely a joyous diversion among the men. It was also during this time that Ludwig met his future wife, Margot Dorothea Theidel, who lived in the nearby town of Hannover. They were married May 7, 1933.
Ludwig apprenticed for two years before being asked to join the competitive dressage team, and soon thereafter he found his true knack in eventing, or “versatility” as it was known then. In 1936, he and his Trakehner partner Nurmi were named to the Olympic German eventing team, and the pressure was on. The competition would be on home turf, and in the past year, Adolf Hitler had publicaly revealed the aggressive expansion of the German military in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles. With the equestrians being among some of the exclusively military teams, it was considered vital that they demonstrate their dominance to the world – and they did.
As Leslie Wylie described in a previous synopsis of the 1936 Games, the Germans were actually so dominant – particularly at a few obstacles that the other equestrians had never seen before – that the IOC investigated the possibility of an unfair advantage. The Germans were ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing, but the proverbial asterisk has remained with many of the victories Germany achieved over the Berlin games.
The Ludwig Stubbendorff Olympic Trading Card. Via eBay.
Soon enough, the cheers of the crowds and peaceful pursuit of equestrian excellence would become a distant memory for Ludwig. The war began in earnest in 1939, and Ludwig would be shipped to the front lines with the First Cavalry Division of the German Army. The division initially fought in the Netherlands and later in northeastern France. Ludwig was wounded in battle on May 14, 1940 while attacking the Kornwerderzand Dam when they were hit with grenades. He survived the attack and it appears may have been promoted as a result of the deaths of his superior officers in this battle.
The cavalry’s next assignment was to march to the Eastern Front and participate in the fateful Operation Barbarossa, which is known by historians as one of Germany’s greatest failures and marks the changing of Hitler’s fortunes in the war. The plan had been to invade and destroy the Soviet Union swiftly and devastatingly, but instead Germany found itself dedicating a shocking number of its troops to two major war lines simultaneously, and the Eastern Front proved to be a long, hard slog rather than swift surrender as Hitler had envisioned.
Ludwig would live to see little of this; the invasion began on June 22, 1941, and he would die less than a month later.
According to records pertaining to the First Cavalry, between July 7th and July 31st, the division was engaged in defensive fighting at the Dnjepr/Dnieper River in where is now Bychau, Belarus. There are some sources which suggest that Ludwig died in “fierce hand-to-hand combat” in this battle. He died July 17, 1941, and was buried at the battle site, where he remains to this day. There is a marker in Verden, Germany, which honors his Olympic achievements, his military service, and his Olympic mount, Nurmi.
Ludwig was not alone in his sacrifice for Germany; of the nine riders who won an individual or team gold medal for Germany in the equestrian events in Berlin, four died in the war (Ludwig, his eventing teammate Rudolf Lippert and show jumpers Heinz Brandt and Kurt Hasse), and a fifth died in Russian captivity in 1953 (Konrad von Wangenheim). Athletes from many sports and many countries perished in the past century of wars, but with few exceptions, they were just men doing their jobs.
While I cannot provide a narrative or primary source of Ludwig’s thoughts and feelings on the Third Reich, what is known is that he was a competent horseman and natural leader – years before the Nazi regime took hold. I cannot and would not canonize Ludwig or any historic figure, but only good can come from understanding the full breadth of our human story.
Special thanks to the many historians who did the heavy lifting in advance of my arrival to this story – Ron Klages, the historians of grebbeberg.nl, and the axis history forums.
