For sale is a lot of four German Turnerkreuz Turner Farther Of Gymnastics Detailed Medal, an 1851 German Nationalist Gymnastic Turner Movement collectables, from the 1850s until ww1 period. WW1 German ATUSB Members Arbeiter-Turn- und Sportbund Sallfeld Magazine, an Antique 1850s German Turnerkreuz Turner Farther Of Gymnastics Detailed Medal, an 1851 German Nationalist Gymnastic Turner Movement Turnverein Pocket Book.

The medal included in this grouping is very rare it’s an Antique 1850s German Turnerkreuz Gymnastics Highly Detailed Turner Medal. Which states the following “frisch frei fromm fröhlich. turner auf zum streite tritt in die bahn” meaning fresh free pious happy. turner on to the fight enters the track. This is an exceptionally rare medal.

Another item in this grouping is the Antique 1851 German Nationalist Gymnastics Turner Movement Turnverein pocket guide, in good condition for its age of 171 years! This rare document covers all of the early philosophies and believes that the organisation set out to do. This pocket manual was written by Johann Friedrich Ludwig Christoph Jahn.

The third item in this grouping is a WW1 German ATUSB Members Arbeiter-Turn- und Sportbund Sallfeld Magazine. This magazine was Dedicated to happy memories of your school days in the Free Gymnastics Association in Saalfeld, 1927. And the fourth item is a hand written letter that was found inside the magazine.

Founder of the German Turnerkreuz Turner Farther Of Gymnastics:

Johann Friedrich Ludwig Christoph Jahn (11 August 1778 – 15 October 1852) was a German gymnastics educator and nationalist whose writing is credited with the founding of the German gymnastics (Turner) movement as well as influencing the German Campaign of 1813, during which a coalition of German states effectively ended the occupation of Napoleon's First French Empire. His admirers know him as Turnvater Jahn, roughly meaning "father of gymnastics" Jahn.

He was born in the village of Lanz in Brandenburg, Prussia. He studied theology and philology from 1796 to 1802 at the universities of Halle, Göttingen, and Greifswald. After the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt in 1806 he joined the Prussian army. In 1809, he went to Berlin, where he became a teacher at the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster and at the Plamann School.

Brooding upon what he saw as the humiliation of his native land by Napoleon, Jahn conceived the idea of restoring the spirits of his countrymen by the development of their physical and moral powers through the practice of gymnastics. The first Turnplatz, or open-air gymnasium, was opened by Jahn in Berlin in 1811, and the Turnverein (gymnastics association) movement spread rapidly. Young gymnasts were taught to regard themselves as members of a kind of guild for the emancipation of their fatherland. The nationalistic spirit was nourished to a significant degree by the writings of Jahn.

In early 1813 Jahn took an active part in the formation of the famous Lützow Free Corps, a volunteer force in the Prussian army fighting Napoleon. He commanded a battalion of the corps, but he was often employed in the secret service during the same period. After the war, he returned to Berlin, where he was appointed state teacher of gymnastics, and he took on a role in the formation of the student patriotic fraternities, or Burschenschaften, in Jena.

A man of a populistic nature, rugged, eccentric and outspoken, Jahn often came into conflict with the authorities. The authorities finally realized he aimed at establishing a united Germany and that his Turner schools were political and liberal clubs. The conflict resulted in the closing of the Turnplatz in 1819 and Jahn's arrest. Kept in semi-confinement successively at Spandau, Küstrin, and at the fortress in Kolberg until 1824, he was sentenced to imprisonment for two years. The sentence was reversed in 1825, but he was forbidden to live within ten miles of Berlin.

He therefore took up residence at Freyburg on the Unstrut, where he remained until his death, except for a short period in 1828, when he was exiled to Kölleda on a charge of sedition. While at Freyburg, he received an invitation to become professor of German literature at Cambridge, Massachusetts, which he declined, saying that “deer and hares love to live where they are most hunted.”

This is a truely rare collection of turner movement items! Please note the first photo shows both faces of the medal and that there is only one medal in this grouping not two. This lot will be sent via special delivery and dispatched within two working days.