Turner Beginnings: 1811 in Berlin, Germany

The year was 1811, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (right) gathered 500 young men at the Berlin Hasenheide, a verdant park in the heart of Berlin, to motivate them and to prepare them for the next war. At that moment in time this was certainly a good idea, since one war followed the next, and Germany was occupied by French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Jahn was a teacher at the High School “Gray Monastery” and had witnessed the battle of Jena-Auerstedt as a soldier. The humiliation of Germany by Napoleon, which he had experienced, prompted him to give new courage to the young people, and he conceived the gymnastic movement, which spread like wildfire. Jahn invented the gymnastics bars, rings and stretchers, and his supporters brought gymnastics to many countries, among them America, where the American Turners were founded in 1848. The Los Angeles Turners were founded in 1871 – the same year the first “Deutsche Reich” was established in Germany – in a feeling of Unity with the German developments, out of several German societies in LA as the “Turnverein Germania”.

Turners: Gymnastics and Politics

The Turnvereine (“gymnastic unions”) were not only athletic, but also political, reflecting their origin in similar “nationalistic gymnastic” organizations in Europe. The Turner movement in Germany was generally liberal in nature, and many Turners took part in the Revolution of 1848. After its defeat, the movement was suppressed and many Turners left Germany, some emigrating to the United States.

 History in the USA

Several of these Forty-Eighters went on to become Civil War soldiers, the great majority in the Union Army, and American politicians. Besides serving as physical education, social, political and cultural organizations for German immigrants, Turners were also active in the American public education and the labor movements. Eventually the German Turner movement became involved in the process leading to German unification. The Turnvereine made a contribution to the integration of German-Americans into their new home. The organizations continue to exist in areas of heavy German immigration, such as Iowa, Texas, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, Missouri, Syracuse, NY, Kentucky, New York City, and Los Angeles. Together with Carl Schurz, the American Turners helped support the election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States. They provided the bodyguard at his inauguration on March 4, 1861, and at his funeral in April, 1865. In the Camp Jackson Affair, a large force of German volunteers helped prevent Confederate forces from seizing the government arsenal in St. Louis just prior to the beginning of the war.