All-German team
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As an all-German team , athletes from the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic as well as from Saarland in 1956 took part in three Olympic Winter and Summer Games:
- 1956 in Cortina d'Ampezzo and Melbourne
- 1960 in Squaw Valley and Rome
- 1964 in Innsbruck and Tokyo .
Emergence
In 1951, the IOC initially only recognized the National Olympic Committee for Germany (NOK), founded in West Germany in 1947, as the NOK responsible for Germany. Due to the West German NOK's claim to sole representation for all of Germany and because the National Olympic Committee for East Germany should not be equally involved in the formation of a German team, the representatives of the East German NOK, which was not recognized by the IOC, under the leadership of Kurt Edel , terminated the agreement on a common team. Karl Ritter von Halt had the talks with the GDR representatives about the formation of an all-German team in such a way "that they had to be fruitless". In Oslo 1952 and Helsinki 1952 , Germany only competed with West German athletes.
It was only after Kurt Edel had handed over the office of NOK chairman in the GDR to the more diplomatically skilled Heinz Schöbel , who in 1955 achieved the provisional admission of the East German NOK to the IOC, was it agreed that an all-German team should be nominated for the Olympic Games . The West German National Olympic Committee for Germany had contradicted this joint team . However, Avery Brundage , as President of the IOC, convinced Karl Ritter von Halt that one had to go the American way of the Olympic qualifications. Since the Federal Republic has three times as many inhabitants as East Germany, it is certain that the Federal Republic will also provide the Chef-de-Mission as spokesman for the team. In the all-German Olympic team in the summer of 1956 there were also athletes from Saarland , which at that time was not yet incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany and still competed under its own flag in Helsinki in 1952. Two years after the Games , the National Olympic Committee for Germany and the National Olympic Committee for East Germany jointly received the IOC-awarded Alberto Bonacossa Trophy for the formation of the all-German team .
implementation
During the games from 1956 to 1964, the all-German team competed under the Olympic team abbreviation GER. In retrospect or retrospectively, this was presented differently on the modern Internet presence of the IOC than EUA for Équipe unifiée d'Allemagne, similar to what was the case for the United Team (Équipe unifiée) EUN of the former USSR in 1992 , in order to take account of the political situation at the time wear. The reality of the joint team, however, looked like that at most you saw each other at meals, lived separately, trained and the athletes (east) were strictly shielded.
Qualification battles between the East and West German athletes took place for the starting places in the all-German team. These were always fiercely contested and made difficult or even prevented the targeted optimal preparation of the athletes for the Olympics. In addition, the Olympic qualifications were made more difficult by travel restrictions. In 1960, as a deliberate provocation, Karl Ritter von Halt chose the GDR refugee Josef Nöcker as Chef de Mission. After the Wall was built on August 13, 1961, the federal government banned the West German sports associations from the hitherto severely obstructed domestic German sports traffic. At the urging of Avery Brundage, these restrictions on the eliminations for the 1964 Olympics were lifted. For the first time, more East German athletes than athletes from the more populous West Germany were able to qualify for the 1964 Summer Olympics . In 1964, the GDR therefore provided Manfred Ewald as head of the all-German mission. How disadvantageous the domestic elimination competitions were for the German team as a whole is shown by the example of the 4 x 100 meter relay. Although the sprinters from the Federal Republic were clearly superior due to their individual best times, the GDR relay, which was victorious in the eliminations, traveled to Tokyo.
In 1965, four years after the construction of the Berlin Wall , the IOC gave in to reality and separated the all-German team, so that two German teams started for the first time at the winter and summer games of 1968 , albeit under the German Olympic flag introduced in 1960 ( black-red -Gold with white Olympic rings in a red stripe) and with the same hymn, the song from the final movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony , “ Joy, beautiful spark of gods ”.
In the official French and English-language reports from 1968, the team of the Federal Republic of Germany is listed as Allemagne or Germany, with the Olympic country abbreviations ALL (for Allemagne, in Grenoble) and ALE (for Alemania, in Mexico). The team of the German Democratic Republic is called Allemagne de l'Est or East Germany, the abbreviation ADE is used in each case.
Quote from Spiegel: - “Ulbricht's NOK was only accepted 'provisionally' in 1955 on the condition that it would participate in an all-German team. The zones - Politruks then posted their best athletes for the all-German Olympic teams in 1956, 1960 and 1964. But their real goal remained: their own Olympic team. "
Medal of Honor of the GDR
On the occasion of the Olympic Summer Games in Melbourne in 1956, the state porcelain manufacturer Meissen created a medal of honor in 300 copies. The front is inscribed with the words: "National Olympic Committee of the German Democratic Republic ." The reverse of the medal shows the Olympic rings with the words: "Citius - Altius - Fortius". The prototype of this medal of honor was cast in bronze . Contrary to the later porcelain version, the words: “All German Olympic Team - Melbourne 1956” - were embossed on the front. The reverse was identical to the later Medal of Honor from the Meissen porcelain factory.
End of togetherness
In the next winter and summer games in 1972 , teams from the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany took part. The FRG and GDR codes were introduced later, but are listed on the IOC website retrospectively in contradiction to the reports.
In 1992, for the first time since the Olympic Games in 1964 , a German team from reunified Germany took part in the competitions.
The term “all-German team” only refers to the time together between 1956 and 1964.
See also
literature
- Volker Kluge : Olympic Winter Games, The Chronicle. Sportverlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-328-00831-4 .
- Harry Valérien , Christian Zentner: Olympia '68 - The youth of the world in Grenoble and Mexico City. Südwest Verlag, Munich 1968.
- Harald Lechenperg (Ed.): Olympic Games 1968 Grenoble - Mexico City. Copress-Verlag Hermann Hess, Munich 1968.
- Eike Birck : The all-German Olympic teams - a paradox in sports history? , Dissertation University of Bielefeld, 2013, PDF. Retrieved January 1, 2014 .
Web links
- Official Olympic Reports
- Official Olympic Reports at the Olympic Games Museum
- Official Olympic Report Grenoble 1968 ( PDF file , 20 MB)
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl Ritter von Halt to Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer , May 25, 1951; Quote from Tobias Blasius: Olympic Movement, Cold War and Germany Policy 1949-1972. Peter Lang - Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, Frankfurt am Main, 2001, ISBN 9783631381823 , p. 85
- ^ Arnd Krüger : Sport and Politics. From gymnastics father Jahn to state amateur . Torchbearers, Hanover 1975.
- ↑ Gunnar Meinhardt : “It was partly a farce. We were like strangers ” , Welt Online , October 14, 2014.
- ^ Arnd Krüger (1982). Germany and the Olympic Movement (1945–1980). In H. Ueberhorst (ed.). History of Exercise . Volume 3/2 (pp. 1051-1059, 1069-1070). Berlin: Bartels & Wernitz.
- ^ Spiegel.de - All German team