He competed individually and with the team at the 1932 and 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics and won three gold and one bronze medals.

In the fall of 1935, the Nazi regime in Germany had passed the anti-Semitic Nuremberg laws which stripped German Jews of citizenship, opportunities to receive a public education, and access to many professions and public facilities including municipal hospitals.

Jewish businesses had been boycotted and Jews could not serve in the legal profession, the civil service, teach in secondary schools or universities or vote or hold public office.

During World War II he was interned for five months in a forced labor camp in Vax.

[1] He was called up in June 1944 to work at labour camps for Jews at the village of Felsöhangony, where he was teaching army officers the use of sabre fencing.