The German dressage riders won gold at the Olympics this Tuesday.
Almost exactly 85 years ago to the day, a (later) Gaißacher succeeded.
Gaißach - When the team's dressage riders fight for Olympic gold on July 27th in Setagaya, a district of Tokyo, it will be almost 85 years to the day that a (later) Gaißach was the district's only gold medalist at summer games: in team jumping In dressage, Hermann von Oppeln-Bronikowski won the Olympic Games in Berlin on August 12 and 13, 1936, together with his teammates Heinz Pollay and Friedrich Gerhard.
Oppeln-Bronikowski rode the 17-year-old gelding Gimpel.
After Germany, France and Sweden took the other medal positions.
Hermann von Oppeln-Bronikowski came from a noble Prussian family
Who was Hermann von Oppeln-Bronikowski?
Born in 1899, he came from a noble Prussian family that produced many professional soldiers.
Oppeln-Bronikowski was a cavalry captain and was allowed - a specialty - due to his riding skills to remain in the small 100,000-man army of the German Reich even after the lost First World War.
During the Second World War he was a highly decorated tank commander.
Little is known about his gold ride
Little is known about his gold ride in August 1936, apart from the mentions in the relevant Olympic pages on the Internet. His son Alexander, who has found a home in Gaißach and Tölz, only said in a conversation with the Tölzer Kurier that his father remained connected to equestrian sports even after 1945. The family settled near Hanover. Oppeln-Bronikowski, helped as a civil advisor in building up the Bundeswehr and worked as a riding instructor. He would have liked to take part in the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki again. But, as his son Alexander said, he had to do without because of an injury to his horse. Germany won the silver medal in team dressage in Helsinki. Later he trained the multiple Canadian Olympic rider Christilot Hansen-Boyle.
The Olympic champion from 1936 is buried in his adopted home
How did Hermann von Oppeln-Bronikowski come to the Isarwinkel?
According to Alexander von Oppeln-Bronikowski, his mother Edelgard was able to persuade her husband to move to their dream home in Upper Bavaria in the early 1960s.
The fact that it became Gaißach had to do with acquaintances living here and with the fact that Hermann von Oppeln-Bronikowski's son Friedrich worked at the Loessl car dealership in Tölz.
The Olympic champion from 1936 died in Gaißach in September 1966 and was buried there.
His wife Edelgard lived in Gaißach until her death at the age of 96.
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