1930s: Body Images of the Gymnastics Movement

When the Austrian Gymnastics and Sports Front was launched in October 1934, it attempted a doomed combination: gymnastics and sports were far removed from one another. In contrast to modern, “apolitical” and mass action oriented competitive sport, the national and political gymnastics movement that emerged in the second half of the 19th century was viewed as anachronistic. Rather than competition and spectacle, it was based on an individual training of the body, albeit for a higher common goal. Therefore, the German-national, Jewish, proletarian or Christian gymnastic clubs were mostly party-affiliated organisations of political groups.

If the body had been unilaterally trained and stressed in sports, the goal in gymnastics was to achieve a “harmonious training” of the body based on “versatility”. The goal was thus to create ascetic, tanned, combative male bodies, and soft, elastic female bodies that comply with women's “natural” maternal tasks. A holistic beauty of the body was to be practiced, and “biological” difference was to be highlighted and presented at mass demonstrations.