YEAR’S IMPRISONMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 June 1938, Page 12

YEAR’S IMPRISONMENT

SENTENCE ON VON CRAMM. ( TENNIS PLAYERS INDIGNANT. Ma’ny international tenniis players are likely to follow Budge’s lead and refuse to play in'. Germany, says the “Sunday Referee.” It adds that the fact that the trial was held in secret supports a belief that the offence against morality was trumped up. Mrs Wills-Moody said recently: “Cramm was my partner in California in 1936. He was charming.” Ellsworth Vines said: “If Cramm had beaten Budge in the last Davis Cup match all would have been forgiven, but because he lost he is in a German hoosegow.” Cramm led 4-1, 5-4 and 6-5 in the fifth set, but Budge won 6-8, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 8-6. Budge had already beaten Cramm in straight sets in the Wimbledon final. The “Sunday Dispatch” says Cramm’s Wimbledon friends declare that he is paying for indiscreet antiNazi attacks against which they warned him in 1936. His mother has been the only person allowed to see him. She said he had taken his sentence calmly.

The secrecy which surrounded the arrest of Cramm, which occurred some months ago, is shown, says the Berlin correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph,” by the fact that only recently a firm of sports outfitters published a catalogue giving prominence to photographs of Cramm in relation to the Davis Cup.

Cramm was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment.