Enrique Deichler

Enrique Deichler was a Chilean career officer and one of the country’s first competitive equestrians. His first major success came in 1910, when he earned the first place with Chile’s team in the equestrian competition held to mark the Centennial of the Argentine Republic. The team also included Elías Yáñez, who competed alongside Deichler at the 1912 Olympic Games. In the years leading up to World War I, both spent some time at the Military Equestrian Institute Hanover in Germany. This allowed them to participate in the Stockholm Olympics, where Deichler and his horse Chile placed 16th in the individual show jumping.

As a captain of the 1st Cavalry Regiment “Grenadiers”, Deichler ranked first school in his year in the final tests of the Chilean cavalry school. In the 1920s he was successively promoted to lieutenant colonel and colonel and held the position of head of the personnel department. From 1929-31, he was director of the Directorate of Remount, Breeding, and Development of the cavalry. His highest rank was eventually that of general.

Deichler was also active in sport shooting and became an official of Chile’s Target Shooting Federation. At the beginning of World War II, after his retirement, he joined the pro-German movement in Chile, which leaned on the large German population share.