player – Tennisarchives.com

General First nameHeinrich Ernst Otto (Henner)
LastnameHenkel
GenderMale
CountryGermany
Date of birth1915-10-09
Place of birthPosen, Berlin, Germany
Date of death1943-01-13
Place of deathRossosk, USSR

About

The following piece originally appeared in the book entitled ‘Tennis in Deutschland. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Zum 100-jährigen Bestehen des Deutschen Tennis Bundes.’/‘Tennis in Germany. From Its Beginnings to the Present Day. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the German Tennis Federation’. The book in question was first published in 2002.

Heinrich Henkel – The Shadowy Prince

By Jutta Deiss

[Translated from the German by Mark Ryan]

Heinrich Henkel must have been a great guy. His friends, colleagues, the fans and journalists all affectionately called him ‘Henner’. They also spoke of his impeccable reputation, his always fair attitude, his modesty and, above all, his heart-warming cheerfulness. Such impeccably fair sporting heroes with a fighting heart, who spread good cheer on top of everything else, are no longer to be found. With the help of managers and PR advisers, and with the mass media focussed on them, contemporary athletes try hard, and often frantically, to create a positive image, then to sell it at a high price and also, if possible, to honestly live up to it – something that rarely proves possible in the long run.

Those were different times back then. And the flow of the years also gently sands the rough edges of former players – of Henner Henkel, for example. He was born on 9 October 1915 in Posen, and nowadays would probably be considered a happy-go-lucky individual. After all, he was not only worshipped because of his numerous successes in the Davis Cup, as one of the best doubles specialists in the world, as the winner of the men’s singles title at the International French Championships and as the world number three. He was also a charming master at the art of living, who knew how to enjoy his all too short life, who laid the cards on the table when playing skat and doppelkopf, and who occasionally found the time to enjoy a cigar.

His doubles partner Roderich Menzel, with whom Henkel won the International German Championships in 1939 and defeated the top French pair of Jean Borotra and Jacques Brugnon in the final of the International French Covered Court Championships, wrote of the years that Henkel “gambled away wonderfully”. But he also bowed before him with great respect: “What a surprising, what a reliable and what a loyal doubles partner he was.”

This carefree young man, who met big challenges with childlike happiness, would have to be closely scrutinised today because of his dissolute lifestyle, and his professional attitude would be questioned. His parents would certainly have to impose a strict form of censorship. Because Henner Henkel’s mother and father were enthusiastic tennis players and naturally had only one wish – to open the door to a career in tennis for their son as early as possible.

His father had a special, lighter type of racket specially made for his frail son, with which the eight-year-old Henner was able to practice diligently. And, together with Henner’s mother, he successfully pried the boy away from the temptations of football in the city of Erfurt in Thuringia. In later life Henner was grateful for the sharp change of course where sport was concerned. “Fortunately, my parents didn’t approve of my passion for football. They brought me back to my original vocation.”

In other words, back to tennis. With Hans Moldenhauer as his role model, Henkel moved to Berlin with his parents in 1927 and quickly began to collect trophies. At the age of only 15, he was already club champion at the Tennis and Hockey Club 99 in Berlin, and initially third and then runner-up at the German Junior Tennis Championships. He won that title in 1932 and 1933. In 1934, he was called up for the Davis Cup team, which won against Romania and Denmark and, one year later, against Australia.

Then came that memorable Davis Cup match in the tie pitting Germany against Czechoslovakia in Prague. The fourteenth of July 1935 was a summer’s day on which the heat made any movement and all thought nearly impossible. The Czech player Josef Caska was in a hurry to win the second singles rubber and furiously and powerfully whipped the ball over the net. Initially, Henkel seemed to be serenely obeying an inescapable fate. Caska won the first set 6-2 and led 5-3 in the second. But the first cool breath of wind revived Henkel’s fighting spirit. Using drop shots and high volleys, he defended himself skilfully against his opponent’s attacks, turned the second set around, won it 7-5, the third 6-4 and the fourth set by the score of 6-0. In the end, after a dramatic four-set match, the winner was Henner Henkel.

On that day Henkel fuelled the success of his game with uninhibited resistance from an apparently hopeless position, with his patience in long baseline duels, and with the courage to carry out surprising, and sometimes clearly poorly-prepared attacks on the net. With a furious backhand, refined lobs and a cracking first serve Henkel compensated for an unsteady forehand and a harmless second serve. That was how, after his breakthrough victory in Prague, Henkel was later able to beat top players such as Vivian McGrath and Jack Crawford.

And that was how he became French champion in 1937 by beating the world number two, Bunny Austin, in the final. It was also how he became German national champion four times between 1937 and 1940. The only problem for the chroniclers is that Henkel had to live in the shadow of the sun king Gottfried von Cramm. Of course, Henkel should not be forgotten because another player – what is more, his doubles partner – shared the era with him and played the glamorous role.

The careers of the doubles partners Gottfried von Cramm and Henner Henkel are intertwined because the one was able to take from the other what he himself lacked. Some contemporary witnesses judged Henkel to be the more talented player, whose desire and talent facilitated his incredible lightness of being, which people liked so much. Von Cramm, on the other hand, was the ambitious, hardworking, single-minded player who paid attention to the aesthetic side of things, and who had to work hard and purposefully on his brilliant reputation as a gentleman player during his fierce daily training sessions. Von Cramm’s virtues set the course along which Henkel was able to allow his carefree creativity and fun-loving curiosity to flourish.

They played so harmoniously with and for each other although – or rather, because – they were such different people. In this way they beat – as the high point of their time together – the Wimbledon champions, the Americans Donald Budge and Gene Mako, in the final of the U.S. doubles championships at Forest Hills in 1937 without dropping a set: 6-4, 7-5, 6-4. Their partnership lasted only three years, from 1935 to 1937. The dream team split up after von Cramm was defamed and arrested.

In this respect Henkel’s success story remained unfinished although he still had lot of triumphs subsequently with a number of other doubles partners. With Georg von Metaxa, he reached the men’s doubles final at Wimbledon in 1938, where they lost to Budge and Mako. In the same year Henkel and von Metaxa also successfully came through demanding tests of strength against France and Yugoslavia in the Davis Cup.

With Roderich Menzel, Henkel won, amongst other things, the men’s doubles title at the International German Championships in 1939 and, in the same year, the same title at the International French Covered Court Championships. In the last tournament of his life this trusted partner, Menzel, was Henkel’s last ever opponent in a singles match. That was in 1942, in the final of the anniversary tournament held in Bad Pyrmont.

The dark shadow of the Second World War was expanding across Europe. Let us allow Roderich Menzel to recount this final chapter in his own words: “While conference followed upon conference and couriers hastened between capital cities, Henner Henkel, Georg von Metaxa, the Czech Vladimir Cernik and I reached the semi-finals in Bad Pyrmont.” The telegraph messengers were bringing dispatches from the district military commander ordering conscripts to deploy. Menzel continues: “They called out the names of spectators, players and officials – whoever received a telegram got up, packed his things and drove to the front.”

When a messenger called out the name Henner Henkel, the tournament director negotiated quickly with the two other semi-finalists, who voluntarily agreed to withdraw so that the spectators could still experience their dream final – Henkel versus Menzel. Only 150 spectators were witnesses to this farewell match, the telegraph messengers had already taken the others away. Menzel triumphed because Henkel lacked the absolute will to win and the luck in this final match.

Henner Henkel was injured in the thigh by a bullet while serving as a soldier in the Russian campaign near Voronezh. On 13 January 1943, he died of this serious wound. He was 27 years old. “With him,” wrote Roderich Menzel, “German tennis was robbed of its happiest and most talented player. He was able to laugh easily, long and heartily at any type of joke.”

He was basically a great guy.
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