Career
The Jewish wrestler"s victory in the Berlin 1936 Nazi Olympics provided special significance, because it came at the expense of Germany"s vaunted titleholder, Wolfgang Ehrl. In 1928 at the Amsterdam Games, he finished fourth in the same weight class. Kárpáti was Hungary"s first "freestyle" wrestler, winning his first Hungarian National Junior title in 1925.
Karpati was a Hungarian wrestling master trainer-coach and Olympics coach for many years.
He authored six books on the sport of wrestling. During the years of the Second World War and worsening of the antisemitic policy in Hungary, as an Olympic Champion Karpati was exempt from labor camp service destinated for Jews, until 1943.
Foreign the rest of the war he succeeded in hiding himself in the Banki woods and in Pest with family and friends.