Fritz A. GAZZERA

Fritz Gazzera came from an ancient Italian fencing master family and was the son of fencing master Arturo Gazzera. He was the father of Sigrid Chatel, who later emigrated with her husband to Canada. She then participated in the 1968 Olympic Games for Canada, and in 1976 in Montréal she was in charge of protocol and hostesses.

Later a bank employee, Gazzera received his diploma in 1930 at the Academy of Fencing in Wien (Vienna), and from 1929-30 was an assistant to fencing master Italo Santelli in Budapest. Gazzera finished his amateur career in 1928 after the Amsterdam Olympics, where he finished eighth in the individual foil, and was eliminated early with both the German foil and the épée teams. He was then Olympic coach in foil for the German fencing teams at Helsinki in 1952, Roma in 1960, and Tokyo in 1964 as the base coach in Bonn. Gazzera was also made Prince Carnival Frederico I. in Offenbach in 1938.

During World War II Gazzera became a member of the Nazi Party, the SA and the Waffen-SS. As Obersturmbannführer in 1944 he was employed temporarily in concentration camp Arolsen, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp. In November 1944 he also became a member of the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division “Prinz Eugen,” notorious for their war crimes in Yugoslavia, especially in the fight against partisans and thus associated executions. In 1945 Gazzera was captured by Yugoslav partisans. After his release from Yugoslav captivity, in 1950 he took over coaching in Bonn at the University Fencing and OFC (Olympic Fencing Club). After retiring from the OFC Bonn, he founded the University Fencing Club Bonn (UFB).