Have you ever run into a turnverein (pronounce: ‘toorn-fuh-ine) or a turner (pronounce: toornah) over here in the U.S.? The former means gymnastic club, the latter gymnast. And both are Germanisms in the English language. I haven’t met any so far.
In the U.S., the connotation has become something different from that in Germany. As far as I gather from explanations on Wikipedia and elsewhere, a turnverein is also a somewhat German-American gymnastic club promoting German ideals of different variations. In Europe, today, they are mostly called Sportverein (sports club) with a gymnast section included. No political, cultural, or other ideas than physical fitness and more or less fun competition. By the way, the U.S.A.’s now oldest turnverein is one in Sacramento, California (1854).
But how did these clubs come to exist, at all? And how did they make it to the U.S.? Most Germans probably don’t know either, because sports clubs are taken as a given. So, generally, nobody looks into the history.
Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, nicknamed Turnvater (the father of gymnastics), founded the first Turnverein during Napoleon Bonaparte’s occupation of Germany. That was way before the first German Reich existed, and Germany then was a conglomeration of feudalistic territories, not even a nation as such. Rather a cultural unit and Sprachraum. A turnverein was not just a gymnastic organization; it also propagated German culture and politics in an atmosphere of occupation. As turners were mostly liberal, a lot of them took part in the revolution of 1848 (which failed) and in its aftermath, fled to the United States. But they were not the founder of sports clubs there – some Germans and Americans had already created similar organizations at Harvard College and in Portland, Maine.
Turners joined the Republican party, became Union soldiers, and were bodyguards of Abraham Lincoln. But turners were not only male; there were also gymnastic groups for women and children. The World Wars changed the climate for anything German in the United States, and German language in schools as well as the bigger culture of Turnvereine shrunk or disappeared. Yet, the idea of sports clubs stuck.
I had an active outdoor life as a very small kid already. So, I only saw my first sports club at age six, in addition to sports at school. I hated it. It was all competitive and no fun; even my sports gear, an expensive Adidas track suit, didn’t make it feel more attractive. In second grade, I joined a gymnastics group; the male trainer felt eerie to me, and I left. In fourth grade I joined a gym wheel group at one of our local sports clubs; I was really good at it but lacked family support when – for once! – I wanted to enter competitions. Probably for fear that I might fail in school, which would have endangered the opportunities of my future; and they might have been right. Here is a clip, just so you know what sports I’m talking about:
So, after barely half a year’s participation I quit and never joined another turnverein or sports club, again.
Still, sports was (and is) huge in my native town. My suburb even had a Jahnstrasse (I didn’t really make the connection of the street’s name to that of Turnvater Jahn). There is a huge number of sports clubs beneath the TV tower in the same suburb, boasting a figure skating training center, curling training center, an American football club, various relevant tennis clubs, and soccer clubs some of which made it into the national league during my childhood. If we walked by those places, we were able to watch training – really cool!
As to political messages, I think German sports always made its statement without much ado. Teams were teams, at least to the outside; of course, one never knows about attitudes inside the teams, does one?! A Turnverein or Sportverein was and is all about competition with others. Sports was and is a part of German culture. As to political stances – I should hope that peacefulness will prevail as the message.
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