What Lutz Lost

Jesse Owens sat in the infield at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.  It was during the preliminary round of the long jump on August 4.  He had earned a gold medal the previous day by running 100 yards in only 10.3 seconds.  Most of us would be on cloud nine after winning a gold medal, but Jesse was upset.

He had fouled out on his first two attempts at the long jump and he had only one chance left to make a successful jump.  If he fouled again he would not advance to the finals and would be out of the competition…and Adolph Hitler was watching.

What could he do different?  Jesse wracked his brain.

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By 1936 Adolph Hitler and his Nazi party had already taken power in Germany.  They had begun their horrible mission of gaining world domination and trying to convince the world that the Aryan race was superior to people of other races, like jews and blacks.

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Now let me tell you a little bit about the competition Jesse was facing.

Carl Ludwig “Lutz” Long was a member of the Nazi party.  He was also a talented long-jumper.  Long had earned a bronze medal in Turin, Italy, at the 1934 European Championships in Athletics, with a jump of 7.25 meters.  By 1936, Lutz had studied law at the University of Leipzig and was a practicing lawyer while pursuing his passion for sports.

Lutz was having a great performance at the Olympics.  He was well-aware of the talented Owens, and was eager to compete against him.  Long’s training hadn’t let him down.  It was only the preliminary round and he had already broken the Olympic record with a jump of 7.15 meters (about 23 feet, 3 inches). 

Jesse Owens was feeling the pressure.  He had one more chance to qualify to advance to the finals.  Fouling in his first two attempts while watching Long set a new Olympic record just added to his tension.

What could he do?  What could he do?

He couldn’t think of anything.

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Lutz Long had of course been watching his prime competitor during Jesse’s first two attempts.  He had noticed that Owens had been launching from as close as possible to the launch plate, evidently in an attempt to achieve the greatest possible leap, rather than playing it safe.  Jesse had only to jump 7.15 meters to advance, and had jumped much farther than that on several occasions leading up to the Olympics.

Lutz knew what Jesse should do.

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In these days of dog-eat-dog, win-at-all-cost athletic competition, it’s hard to believe that good sportsmanship can go beyond being a gracious winner or loser.  What Lutz Long did went way past that.

Although the exact details have been obscured by the years, some say the referee who was judging the long jump was calling Jesse foul just to please, “der fuhrer,” and not because Owens was really launching too late.

Lutz had an idea that could circumvent even that.

Jesse Owens later spoke of how Long came to him with the suggestion that he take off about four inches before the board…a distance that would make it apparent to those in attendance that he was jumping fair.  There wouldn’t be much the judge could do about that.  A bad call would be obvious to everyone.

Some accounts say that Lutz Long, who by then was on-track for the gold medal himself, took his own towel and placed it beside the long jump track to further illustrate to Owens where he needed to launch…and to viewers that Jesse was not leaping foul.

Jesse Owens took the suggestion and easily cleared the distance, qualifying to advance to the final round.

Lutz Long and Jesse Owens would go toe-to-toe in the finals…two of the greatest living long jumpers at the time.

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Later that day, in the finals competition, the jumpers exceeded the old Olympic record, not once, not twice, but five times.  Owens went on to win the gold medal in the long jump with 8.06 meters while beating Long’s own record of 7.87meters.  Lutz Long won the silver medal for second place.

Long was the first to congratulate Owens. 

The two athletes posed together for photos and walked arm-in-arm to the dressing room.  Owens said, “It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Adolf Hitler…  You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn’t be a plating on the twenty-four karat friendship that I felt for Lutz Long at that moment”.

Long’s sense of fair play may have cost him a gold medal at the 1936 Olympics, but it earned him something too…the adulation of millions of sports fans around the world; the limitless respect of his own and Jesse’s families; and an undying friendship with Jesse Owens.

But then, his good sportsmanship may have cost him much more than that little gold medal.  You see, Long was a member of the Nazi party.  That, in and of itself, doesn’t mean he was a believer in the superiority of the Aryan race; many Germans joined the Nazi party simply as a means to survive the Hitler’s reign of terror.  By helping Jesse Owens do his own best and costing Adolph Hitler the right to claim that his Aryan race was clearly dominant over other races, Long may have attracted the ire of Hitler himself, or at least some Nazi officials.

Long must have known that as well.

Lutz Long served in the Wehrmacht during World War II, having the rank of Obergefreiter.  During the Allied invasion of Sicily, Long was killed in action on 14 July 1943.  He was only 30 years old. Long was buried in the war cemetery of Motta Sant’Anastasia, in Sicily.  

Long and Owens had kept up a running correspondence after their meeting at the Olympics.  In his last letter to Jesse, Long asked him to contact his son after the war and tell him about his father and “what times were like when we (were) not separated by war.  I am saying—tell him how things can be between men on this earth”.  

After the war, Owens did travel to Germany to meet Kai Long who can be seen with Owens in the 1966 documentary Jesse Owens Returns To Berlin where he is in conversation with Owens in the Berlin Olympic Stadium.  Jesse Owens later served as Kai Long’s best man at his wedding.

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Jesse Owens died on March 31, 1980.  He is viewed as a hero of U.S. athletics and a man of courage.  He was both of those, but Americans tend to overlook another brave athletic hero, a man strong enough to do what he knew was right even when it cost him a gold medal…even when it may have cost him his life.

Lutz Long deserves to be remembered.

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