Hans Georg Herzog

Hans Georg Herzog was born in 1915 in Mühlbach in Transylvania, which became part of Romania at the end of World War I. Herzog participated in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin as a member of the Romanian field handball team, which consisted almost exclusively of Transylvanian Saxons and finished the tournament with a win against the United States to rank fifth. In 1938 Gerch, as his friends called him, was part of the Romanian field handball squad participating in the World Cup in Germany, where Romania also placed fifth.

Herzog studied law, first in Paris and then in Berlin from the summer of 1935 to autumn 1936, thus having a very short trip to the Olympics. He finished his studies in 1938 in Bucureşti, where he helped to build up the handball section of the Bukarester Turnverein and founded a law firm in 1942. At the end of 1943, Herzog became ill with polio and went to Wien (Vienna) in order to rehab. In Wien he initially worked for the French occupying forces as a secretary and English translator and in 1951 opened a law office, where he practiced until 1983. After World War II Herzog also helped Transylvanian Saxons to be integrated within Austria. He was the last surviving member of the 1936 Romanian handball team, dying nine months before his 100th birthday.