ABSTRACT
Physical education teacher education (PETE) is historically linked in Germany with ‘Turnvater’ Friedrich Ludwig Jahn and the sportsman Carl Diem, who respectively initiated important developments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Jahn is unequivocally associated with the earliest attempts after 1810 to qualify students to organise and instruct their peers in German gymnastics on the outdoor gymnastic exercise areas (Turnplätze) in Berlin and other cities; Carl Diem is inextricably associated with the first institution of modern sport teacher training at university level, the Berlin College of Physical Exercise, founded in 1920. However, Jahn's work was terminated with the imposed ‘Ban on Turnen’ between 1820 and 1842 (see Chapter 2 in this volume) in Prussia; and Carl Diem's efforts in the early 1920s foundered because of lack of recognition of the Berlin College as an academic institution offering diplomas to certify teachers for state school employment.
