Hans Baumann (handball)

Hans Baumann an internationally renowned architect, is born in 1906. He served as President of International Handball Federation from 1950 to 1971. He had already been Vice-President of International Handball Federation for four years under Gösta Björk. Since 1939, he had been a member of the management committee of the Swiss Handball Federation that allowed Baumann to participate in several international matches too. Baumann helped the IHF with a lot of flair in getting through the difficult post-war period from a sports political point of view. This politically neutral Swiss citizen seemed to be really predestined to undertake the difficult task of mediating between the power blocks of East and West Europe. Unfortunately, it was not granted to him to witness that Handball would again be included in the Olympic Programme, as he would have wished. On 7 February 1971 Hans Baumann died - one year and a half before the Olympic Handball Tournament in Munich.

References