Sports in Germany: 1898-1938 From the 1890s, despite fierce
resistance, German women increasingly participated in
gymnastics, games and other sporting activities. Furthermore, in
1894 gymnastics lessons became obligatory at girls’ secondary
schools in Prussia. Nevertheless, women were a tiny minority in
athletics and sports organizations, in which they had no say.
Although even “Eastern Jewish” (Ostjüdische) women and girls
encountered new opportunities for exercise, such as gymnastics
and dance, the greatest impact of sport as a sign of modernity
was on Jewish women who were already integrated into German
culture—middle-class women with enough leisure time and wealth
to engage in such activities as gymnastics, skating and tennis,
many of which were also occasions for social gatherings. Sport
became a way for the “assimilated” Jewish community to end its
marginalization and publicly demonstrate its social status and
aspirations. The fact that in the 1920s the list of highest-
ranking German tennis players was