Hans von Tschammer und Osten

Hans von Tschammer und Osten (25 October 1887 – 25 March 1943) was a German sport official, SA leader and a member of the Reichstag for the Nazi Party of Nazi Germany. He was married to Sophie Margarethe von Carlowitz.

Hans von Tschammer und Osten led the German Sports Office Deutscher Reichsausschuss für Leibesübungen (DRA) "German Reich Commission for Physical Exercise" after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. In July the same year Hans von Tschammer took the title of Reichssportführer, "Reich Sports Leader", and the whole sports sphere in Germany was placed under his control. He re-established the organization he led, transforming it into the Sports governing body of the Third Reich, Deutscher Reichsbund für Leibesübungen (DRL) "Sports League of the German Reich". In 1937 it was renamed Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen "National-Socialist Sports League of the German Reich". von Tschammer held the high-profile post of Reichssportführer until his death in 1943.

The name of today's DFB-Pokal, Deutscher Fußball-Bund-Pokal "German Football-Federation Cup", first contested in the 1934-35 season during von Tschammer's tenure as Reichssportführer, was known as Hans von Tschammer und Osten-Pokal ("Tschammerpokal") until it was last played in Nazi Germany in 1943. Many other innovative improvements regarding the organization of sports events that von Tschammer's formidable Reich Sports Organ introduced, like the Olympic torch relay, are still in use today.

Hans von Tschammer und Osten was born in a family of landed gentry. After receiving a traditional upper-class education he went to fight to the front in the First World War. During the times of the Weimar Republic he joined the SA, becoming a Gruppenführer, "Group Leader", rising up to become a colonel of the paramilitary organization and later a member of the Reichstag. Von Tschammer was named Reichskommissar für Turnen und Sport (Commissioner for Gym and Sports of the Reich) of the German Sports Office Deutscher Reichsausschuss für Leibesübungen (DRA) on 19 July 1933. Although he had been a relatively unknown figure in German sports, Von Tschammer saw as his goal the use of sports "to improve the morale and productivity of German workers." Sporting skills were made a criterion for school graduation as well as a necessary qualification for certain jobs and admission to universities.

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