Dora ratjen a german olympic athlete

German high jumper (1918–2008)

Heinrich Ratjen (20 November 1918 – 22 April 2008), born Dora Ratjen, was a German athlete who competed for Germany in the women's high jump at the 1936 Summer Olympics at Berlin, finishing fourth, but was later determined to be male and/or intersex.^[1] In some news reports, he was erroneously referred to as Hermann Ratjen and Horst Ratjen.

Life

A file containing the findings of an investigation conducted in 1938 and 1939 into Ratjen's life was made public by Der Spiegel in 2009.^[2]

Ratjen was born in Erichshof, near Bremen, into a family described as "simple folk".

The father, Heinrich Ratjen, stated in 1938: "When the child was born the midwife called over to me, 'Heini, it's a boy!' But five minutes later she said to me, 'It is a girl, after all.'" Nine months later, when the child, who had been christened Dora, was ill, a doctor examined the child's genitalia and, according to Heinrich, said