Hermann Goerner

13 April 1891 – 29 June 1956 · Hänichen, Leipzig → Wunstorf, Lower Saxony

Hermann Goerner (Görner) was the great grip and pulling specialist of the iron game. A competitive weightlifter before and after the First World War and a professional strongman from the early 1920s, he is credited with a one-hand deadlift of 330 kg (727 lb) at Leipzig in 1920 — a figure that has not been clearly equalled.

Origins

Goerner was born on 13 April 1891 in Hänichen, now part of Leipzig, and grew up in the city. He began lifting at about ten, joined Leipzig athletic clubs including SC Atlas Leipzig, and in 1911 formed a stage trio with his brother Otto. He competed as an amateur weightlifter, placing fourth among the heavyweights at the 1913 world championships in Breslau. During the First World War he was badly wounded and lost an eye.

The work

After the war Goerner returned to competition. On 4 April 1920, in a five-lift match against Karl Mörke at Leipzig, he totalled 597.5 kg, a figure then unmatched in that format. He turned professional in the early 1920s and toured as a strongman in Germany, Britain and, above all, South Africa, where he met his wife, Elsie, who joined his act. He performed in variety theatres and circuses; his stunts included wrestling a young elephant and supporting on his back a bridge over which a car carrying passengers was driven. He was around 1.83–1.85 m (6 ft) tall and weighed between about 120 and 133 kg (265–295 lb) during his career.

Notable feats

The figures most often cited for Goerner, chiefly from Leipzig, include:

• One-hand (right) deadlift of 330 kg (727 lb), Leipzig, 8 October 1920. A right-hand deadlift of 301.5 kg (665 lb) on 29 October 1920 is the figure Guinness World Records treats as official, describing the 330 kg lift as unofficial.
• Two-hands deadlift of 360 kg (793 lb) with an overhand grip (Leipzig, 1920) and 376.5 kg (830 lb) with a mixed grip (Leipzig, 1933), by German accounts.
• Deadlift of 270 kg (595 lb) using only two fingers of each hand, Leipzig, 30 November 1933.
• A piano in its crate, 655 kg, carried on his back for 16 m, Leipzig, 1921.
• A plank holding 24 men, about 1,870 kg, supported on the soles of his feet while lying on his back, London, 1927.
• About 195 kg held overhead in four kettlebells, swung up one or two at a time, Dresden, 25 July 1920.

In the conventional weightlifting events German sources credit him with a two-hands clean and jerk of about 177 kg and a right-hand snatch of 104 kg.

Method

Goerner left no training book of his own. The principal source for his life and methods is Edgar Mueller's Goerner the Mighty (1951), written by an admirer who knew him. What emerges is a lifter who worked chiefly on the heavy lifts themselves and on grip, with thick-handled bars and kettlebells, rather than on light developmental exercise.

Legacy

A hand injury in 1929 limited his lifting, though he continued to perform in circuses until 1939. After the Second World War he was for a time held in a Soviet-run prisoner-of-war camp; he then lived in poverty near Wunstorf, outside Hanover, where Elsie died in 1949 and he died on 29 June 1956. Largely forgotten in Germany, he is remembered in Britain and the United States as a pioneer of what became powerlifting and of grip strength.

Disputed and unresolved

Goerner's figures come largely from German club and press reports and from Mueller's book, and few were made under federation rules. The 330 kg one-hand deadlift is accepted by most strength historians but is classed by Guinness as unofficial, with 301.5 kg as the official figure; questions about bar diameter and lockout apply here as to every lift of the period. German sources say he was briefly held in a concentration camp under the Nazi regime; this is reported but not well documented.