Martin Harden

Dr. Martin Harden was born in 1876 in Brăila, Romania, and attended school in Graz and Trieste. He then studied medicine in Vienna, Prague, Lausanne, and Vienna where he earned his dental degree in 1901. He worked as an assistant in a Berlin dental polyclinic from 1903 to 1905.

Harden began fencing in Trieste in 1890 and started entering competitions in 1892 where he met the top fencing masters Pini and Barbasetti. He then studied fencing under Barbasetti for the next two years. In 1895 he returned to Vienna where he promoted the adoption of the Italian school of fencing.

During 1896 and 1897 he was a member of the Riegel Fencing Club in Prague and then returned to Vienna and joined the Wiener Athletiksport-Klub. From 1900 to 1905 he competed in and won medals in competitions in both foil and sabre in Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Romania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.

After the 1906 Intercalated Games in Athens, he set up a dental practice in Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad), Czechoslovakia. In December 1911, he traveled to the United States to discuss dental practices with American dentists but by 1914 he was back in Europe.

In 1922, he traveled to the United States again and explored the possibility of becoming a US citizen but returned to Europe. In 1927 he took over the dental practice of a dentist in Monaco who had died. In 1930 was named the dental surgeon to Rainier III, Prince Grimaldi of Monaco. He remained in Monaco until returning to Czechoslovakia in 1935.

Harden was Jewish and on 3 April 1944, he left Czechoslovakia and went to Switzerland and then eventually to Monaco where, in 1952, he was granted citizenship by Rainier III, Prince Grimaldi. He died on 18 July 1968 at the age of 92 and was buried in Monaco.