There are more than three million Canadians of German heritage, and we celebrate their contributions in October during German Heritage Month. This timeline highlights achievements of skaters of German ancestry in Canada!
1911 - Arthur Held began teaching at the Minto Skating Club. Born in Neustadt, Germany, Held won the junior championship of Munich in 1903 and taught figure skating for a time at the Berlin Eispalast. Among his students were some of Canada's earliest champions, including Eleanor Kingsford, Ormonde Butler Haycock, Douglas Henry Nelles and Philip Harvey Chrysler.
Arthur Held
1913 - Robert Botsford Veits was one of the members of the winning fours team from the Minto Skating Club at the Canadian Championships. Though his parents were both born in Nova Scotia, his family was of German ancestry.
1932 - Three-time German Champion Leopold Maier-Labergo emigrated to Canada to teach at the Winnipeg Winter Club. His students included Mary Rose Thacker, Lewis Elkin, Philip Lee, Audrey Garland and Fraser Sweatman and Rupert Whitehead.
1932 - Germany's Werner Rittberger taught at the Toronto Skating Club. A silver medallist at the World and European Championships, Rittberger was credited with inventing the loop jump. He worked with several talented Toronto skaters, including Canadian Champion Veronica 'Biddy' Clarke.
1936 - Osborne Colson won his first of two Canadian senior men's titles. Colson went on to tour with the Ice Follies and coach a who's who of Canadian figure skating. His great-grandmother was born in Germany.
Joe Geisler. Photo courtesy "The Canadian Skater" magazine.
1941 - German born F.K. Jaochim 'Joseph' Geisler won the Canadian Waltz title with partner Helen Malcolm. Geisler went on to play an important role in the development of many skating clubs in Quebec and serve on the CFSA Board of Directors and Executive Committee. He was inducted to the Skate Canada Hall of Fame in 2001.
1943 - Austrian born Edi Rada won the German 'Ostmark' Championships. Rada won the bronze medal at the 1948 Winter Olympic Games in St. Moritz and the 1949 European title before emigrating to Canada. His students included Karen Magnussen, Jay Humphry, Betty and John McKilligan, Cathy Lee Irwin, Linda Carbonetto and Gary and Neil Paterson.
Wally Distelmeyer. Photo courtesy "The Canadian Skater" magazine.
1948 - Wally Distelmeyer won the bronze medal at the Winter Olympic Games in St. Moritz with partner Suzanne Morrow. Morrow and Distelmeyer were both Canadian and North American Champions and Distelmeyer was a Canadian Champion in singles and ice dance as well. Both of Distelmeyer's parents were born in Ontario, but their families were German immigrants to Canada.
1963 - The Lunenburg Figure Skating Club became a CFSA member club. Settled by German immigrants, the historic town of Lunenburg, on Nova Scotia's South Shore, was the building place of the Bluenose - the ship on the Canadian dime.
1980 - Hans Peter Ponikau won the bronze medal in the senior ice dance event at the Canadian Championships. Hans Peter's father Horst emigrated to North America from East Berlin, skating at the Conrad Hilton Hotel before coaching at several clubs in the Maritimes.
1981 - Former West German Champion Uschi Keszler began working as Brian Orser's choreographer. Keszler choreographed programs for many other top skaters, including Canada's Elvis Stojko, Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz, Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler, America's Elaine Zayak and Germany's Tanja Szewczenko.
Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz. Photo courtesy Library and Archives Canada.
1993 - Victor Kraatz won his first of ten Canadian senior ice dancing partners with partner Shae-Lynn Bourne. Bourne and Kraatz represented Canada at three Winter Olympic Games and won an incredible six medals at the World Championships, including Canada's first gold in ice dancing in 2003. They were also three time winners of the Four Continents Championships. Kraatz was born in West Berlin and grew up in Switzerland. His family emigrated to Canada in 1987.
1996 - Michael Hopfes won his first of five consecutive medals in the senior men's event at the German Championships. He represented Germany on the Champions Series (Grand Prix) circuit and at the 1997 World Championships. He now coaches at the Mariposa School of Skating in Ontario.
1996 - Derek Schmidt qualified for his first Canadian Championships after seven years of trying. Born in Germany, Schmidt finished in the top ten in the senior men's event at the Canadian Championships three times. He went on to coach 2022 Olympian Madeline Schizas.
2004 - Constanze Paulinus won her first of three medals in the senior women's event at the German Championships. After retiring from competitive skating, she moved to Canada and now coaches in Delta, British Columbia.
2018 - Christiane Berger, a three-time medallist in the women's event at the German Championships, moved to Canada. She is now a dentist in Cobourg, Ontario.