Arnold Landvoigt

Contrary to previous publications Arnold Landvoigt was not British but American. He studied music (cello) and played alongside his brother, Thomas Elmer Landvoigt, in a string quartet ensemble after their return from Germany. His maternal grandparents lived in Wiesbaden, where Landvoigt frequently visited them. His grandfather William Harald Arnold was an American educated doctor in Wiesbaden and his Praha-born grandmother Rose Arnold was an opera singer.

Landvoigt was the most prominent athlete and rugby player of the Heidelberg-based English boarding school “Neuenheim College” which was founded in 1835 and existed until 1906. He played on the SC Frankfurt 1880 rugby team that lost to France in the 1900 Olympic final, 27-17. He was also a member of the South German team at the very first representative rugby game, North vs. South (result: 11-3) on 4 November 1900 at Carls-Aue in Kassel. According to the former guidelines of the DSBfA, foreigners who had lived at least a year in Germany were eligible; therefore, Landvoigt also participated in the 1899 German Athletics Championships, winning the title over 100 metres. His brother, Thomas, also competed as a sprinter. Arnold Landvoigt may have been an early entrant in the sprints at the 1900 Olympics but did not compete due to illness.

Landvoigt’s sports background also includes having played one brief season (1907) of minor league baseball with the Franklin Millionaires of Franklin, Pennsylvania in the Interstate League. He played in only six games, but later managed a local team called the Manifolds for several years, and in his later life, he returned frequently for Old-Timers Games in Franklin.

Landvoigt was born in Washington, DC, to William H. Landvoigt, a high-ranking civil servant in Washington. Arnold Landvoigt worked initially for a printing company in Franklin, but later moved to Washington and became chief of police in Washington, DC. In 1916, he became a government employee as a US Secret Service agent, and during that employ guarded the lives of US Presidents Taft, Wilson, Harding, Hoover, and F. D. Roosevelt. In 1919 Landvoigt was assigned to accompany President Woodrow Wilson during the Paris Peace Conference in Versailles.