Talk:Heinrich Ratjen

The only gender cheater in modern Olympcs?

I thought Ewa Klobukowska was also caught during the Olmypic games for gender cheating? Ewa failed a chromosone test, while Dora appears to be full blown male. Is that fact still true or not? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.43.251.4 (talk) 10:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Having an obscure chromosomal condition is not necessarily "cheating", and is not comparable to being a full-fledged male deliberately impersonating a woman... AnonMoos (talk) 07:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

yes however Raetjen was raised as a girl as well and in that sense it wasn't quite a deliberate impersonation. You can however argue that as teenager and before competing in the games Raetjen personally knew that he wasn't a real female. However so did Stella Walsh or any other athlete who did not "just" fail a genetics test, but who had visible male genitals as well. The "only case"-description is to the very least poorly worded but probably simply badly researched by various media publications.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:03, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Pronouns

Ratjen apparently changed identified gender twice: first, from male to female, and then from female to male. Therefore, I reported Ratjen as a "she" for the period in which she dressed and identified as a woman, and as a "he" for when her/his biological maleness was revealed and he went back to identifying as a man. Yes, this looks weird, but I think it properly attributes gender to the proper time periods. — Rickyrab | Talk 14:16, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Sources

It seems the sources to this article are useless. If I see this right, there is only one source for the alleged "request of the Nazi Youth movement" & that is Ratjen himself in 1957. The way this is written here implies better sources than there are. I think, the approach in the German Wikipedia is better: "In 1957 he claimed to have been forced/coerced by the League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädels) ,,,"

Doesn't claim independent sources where there are none. bossel (talk) 21:28, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Tags added

For original documents and photos see the article in Der Spiegel: Skandal um Dora (in German). He was born with a sort of superficial genital malformation, and was registered at birth as Dora, and then spent his whole life until 1938 as a girl. He was renamed Heinrich by an official change in the Register of Persons in 1939. No evidence of a "plot" has been found. Anyway, if there had been a plot, the Reich's sport administration would have kept the lid on it. Don't forget, there was a dictature in Germany under Adolf Hitler, and no little policeman in Magdeburg could buck the system... The "plot" originated in the heads of writers who supply Yellow journalism. Kraxler (talk) 13:16, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The Spiegel article in English :

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,649104,00.html

yes, the Spiegel article is far more in depth and better researched than various (faulty or incomplete) news agencies and magazine shorts. The article needs to be overhauled and corrected using this source, because in its current form it is highly inaccurate.--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:28, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

i worked it into the article StoneProphet (talk) 21:25, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks but there are still issues due rather unerliable media reports. I feel a bit bugged that in particular even the NYT article doesn't even mention Stella Walsh, who's probably the most famous case and who btw was competing in 1936 as well. I think when somebody has time the whole article should be rewritten using better sources. --Kmhkmh (talk) 23:22, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Very well observed, Kmhkmh. "The Nazis thought that entering males in female contests etc." but Stella Walsh was not a Nazi, she was American, and competed for Poland, not a Nazi country either, very funny don't you think? And the result of this "thought" was one entry and zero medals in Berlin, Ratjen finished fourth. The newsmedia coverage is in this case deliberately making up sensational stories... I will rewrite this next week, based on documented facts, and giving things their proper names. Kraxler (talk) 00:44, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks in advance, I#ll leave it to you then--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:01, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

August 2010

I've rewritten parts of the article, and added refs, with the intention of presenting both sides of the argument over the Der Spiegel report and the contrary views presented by Time and the makers of the Berlin 36 movie. Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:26, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I applaud your excellent contributions and would like to add that this seems to be more than a matter of contrary points of view. The material from Der Spiegel is more thoroughly researched, while the Time and movie material appears to be using a philosophical maxim to distort history and 'tell a good story.' Furthermore, the history of dynamic transgender individuals is filled with this kind of media distortion. Thanks for bringing greater balance to the article. --98.207.107.112 (talk) 06:40, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I happened upon this article almost by chance, and have no prior knowledge of the subject, so have no problem if other editors are able to improve it further. Ghmyrtle (talk) 06:58, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I hate to be difficult but...

I hate to be difficult but the recent changes which have massively altered the narrative of this article are, I believe, based on an 'investigation conducted in 1938 and 1939'. Surely it should be worth pointing out that a Nazi-era investigation would have had a specific interest in showing that they had not known about Ratjen's sex and gender differences before the '36 Olympic games. I doubt that they have been interested in proving that they were cheats. I mean, the Nazis weren't particularly interested in historical accuracy when it came to a host of other subjects: They liked to pretend that the lost city of Atlantis was real and, of course, their ideas about racial science were based on self-interest and bigotry. I have not changed the article myself because I do not know enough about the subject but I do think that these points are worth considering. EttaLove (talk) 11:44, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

You may be right - but, you may not. It's your opinion against the evidence provided by Der Spiegel, which seems to me to be a reliable source which should be reported here. Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:01, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I am certainly not suggesting that the new information be deleted or changed in any way. Certainly, I recognise Der Spiegel as a reliable source and I have read the article cited on the Dora Ratjen page. But, it seems to me, that there should at least be a suggestion that the Nazis had reasons to be untruthful. I am not German and my knowledge of German history is flawed to say the least but I do vaguely remember learning about Nazi 'investigations' that were geared towards doing good for the Nazi regime. For example, I remember one military man whose mother signed sworn affidavits saying that her German uncle (rather than her Jewish husband) had fathered all of her children. Despite the fact that this was blatantly a lie the Nazis accepted it and filed it because this military man could do them some good. I know that I am deviating from the point but I do feel that it is definitely worth pointing out, in some small way, that Nazi sources are not going to be the most reliable sources. EttaLove (talk) 13:42, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure that's fair comment. I'd be more than happy to include some references to the possible unreliability of Nazi sources in this case - if we can find reliable sources that make that point in relation to this case, or, perhaps, more generally. This is beyond the point where my expertise runs out, I'm afraid - if those sources exist, reference should certainly be made to them in this article. But it would not be correct simply to add an unreferenced statement questioning the sources used by Der Spiegel, in my view. Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:20, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Just stating the facts: Ratjen was born in 1918 - at the end of the first world war. The birth certificate was written either on the same day or the day after the birth, with the infant's gender "female"- fifteen years before Hitler took over the government. Ratjen himself said that he noticed he really was a boy when he was ten or eleven years old, that would have been in 1928/29 i.e. four or five years before the Nazis raised to power (in 1933). If there had been a conspiracy, someone would have had to fake all official records (meaning everything from birth certificate to baptism certificate, all kinds of medical records - e.g. smallpox vaccination, dentist' records - all school documents etc.) and on top of that bribed or threatened not only his family, the midwife, doctor, pastor and teachers, but an entire village into silence. And this "conspiracy would have to have lasted for at least twenty years. Completely implausible. On the other hand, it is very plausible that his trainers noticed his real gender but didn't tell anything in order to cheat - similar to doping.

Intersexed?

The page has Ratjen linked to "intersexed people", but it's not clear about whether he was infact intersexed or if he was a male mistakenly raised a female. It gets a bit more confusing when the narration illustrates that he eventually finds he was a male and continued to live as a female, until his discovery by police. Maybe the link to "intersexed people" in the category should be removed; or the article should clearly say that he was indeed intersexed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.123.161.12 (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Well imho the problem is not here but with category. This article clearly describes the nature of his gender, the category "intersexed people" however comes without definition or description, so the exact nature of "intersex people" in terms of categorisation is currently anyone's guess.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:07, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia takes the official stance that transgender and intersex are the same thing. Chromosomes no longer dictate whether someone is intersex according to some people, some claim that having a hormone imbalance makes you intersex. Wikipedia takes the side of those people. It does not matter what the scientific definitions of these things actually are.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.207.136.200 (talk • contribs)

It's pretty clear that Wikipedia does not conflate intersex with transgender, given there are separate, distinct articles. Transgender is rooted largely in psychology where gender identity doesn't match phenotypic sex, and intersex relates to biological sex variation. It's very clear. Having said that, there are folks who identify as either and both as they're not mutually exclusive. Chromosomes, BTW, are just one of the indicators for intersex with common examples being complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (female phenotype, XY karyotype) or De la Chapelle syndrome (male phenotype, XX karyotype).Then there are variations such as persistent Müllerian duct syndrome where a person may have both male and female internal organs, ovotestis, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, etc. It's not as cut and dried as just looking at someone's karyotype, hence all the controversy about sex verification in sports. As to that of Ratjen here - who knows? One single doctor is on record as having described their genitalia as anomalous - Alison ^❤ 21:49, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Photo

Does anyone know the date of the photograph? 1936? In the photo, it is apparent that (s)he is a man: facially, adam's apple, and upper torso. How could anyone have thought (s)he was female?! Arrivisto (talk) 12:33, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

People with female bodies can certainly have prominent larynges or stereotypically masculine face shapes or chests, so that's no clear indicator of anything. He was thought to be a woman for the simple reason that he was raised as a woman, wore feminine clothing and had a feminine name. I'd imagine it was probably also much easier for him to be seen as a woman at the time than it would be today, because the idea of transgenderism would have been completely unfamiliar to most people. The idea that he could possibly be a biological male presenting as a woman wouldn't have even been considered. --87.82.207.195 (talk) 00:53, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Express train between Vienna and Cologne, via Magdeburg

How is this possible? Those trains should go via Munich or Nuremberg and Frankfurt am Main. Calle Widmann (talk) 20:48, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

It is an error in translation. The train was a "D-Zug", this is a train connecting towns, but not stopping at the small stations (basically what is now called "Intercity"). These trains - even today - sometimes use very strange routes, zig-zagging through the country. 87.188.17.183 (talk) 21:39, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

World War II

Jewish, Germany, WWII....what happened to this person during that time? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8805:5802:3900:C8BD:3F88:802A:7CB4 (talk) 22:51, 27 March 2020 (UTC)