- Person
- Ludwig Guttmann
- Lived
- 1899–1980
- Field
- Neurology, disability sport
- From
- German-British
The story
Ludwig Guttmann was a leading German neurosurgeon until the Nazis expelled him from his posts in 1933 because he was Jewish. He escaped to Britain with his family around the start of 1939. In 1944, at the request of the British government, he opened the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire, with two nurses and eight orderlies.
At the time a spinal cord injury was usually fatal, mostly through infected pressure sores and urinary infections. Guttmann had patients turned in bed every two hours to prevent sores and improved bladder care, and then he set about restoring their will to live. He believed sport was one of the best forms of therapy: it built strength and self-respect. His patients played basketball and badminton, and he introduced archery because it was excellent for developing the muscles a wheelchair user relies on.
On 29 July 1948, the day of the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games, Guttmann organised an archery competition for 16 injured servicemen and women in wheelchairs. He called it the Stoke Mandeville Games and held it every year. In 1952 a team of Dutch ex-servicemen took part, and the event became international. In 1956 the International Olympic Committee honoured Guttmann with the Sir Thomas Fearnley Cup for the social and human value of wheelchair sport.
In 1960 the International Stoke Mandeville Games were held in Rome after the Olympics, with about 400 athletes from 23 countries. They are now recognised as the first Paralympic Games. The Paralympics have been held every four years since, adding Winter Games in 1976 and athletes with many kinds of impairment, and since 1988 they have shared the Olympic host cities and venues. Guttmann was knighted in 1966. When London hosted the 2012 Paralympics, the mascot was named Mandeville, and his daughter Eva Loeffler served as mayor of the athletes’ village.
Why it matters
The Paralympic Games that grew from Guttmann’s hospital archery contest give disabled athletes a world stage and have changed how societies see disability.
About Ludwig Guttmann
Jewish neurosurgeon who fled Nazi Germany, transformed the care of people with spinal injuries at Stoke Mandeville and founded the games that became the Paralympics.
Sources
- Paralympics History International Paralympic Committee
- Sir Ludwig Guttmann and the birth of the Paralympic Games The National Archives (UK)
- Ludwig Guttmann Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.