Manfred Ewald

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Manfred Ewald (right) and Waldemar Cierpinski (left) at the 1980 GDR “Sportsman of the Year” award

Manfred Ewald (born May 17, 1926 in Podejuch , Randow district , Pomerania ; † October 21, 2002 in Damsdorf ) was President of the DTSB and the most influential sports functionary in the GDR . In 2001 he was convicted of bodily harm in connection with state-ordered doping in competitive sport in the GDR .

Life

Manfred Ewald was a pupil of a national political educational institute and was trained as an administrative clerk in the city administration of Stettin from 1940 to 1943 , after which he received training as a tank grenadier in Kalisch . Ewald was the head of the Hitler Youth patrol service for four towns in the vicinity of Stettin. He later claimed to have been a member of the resistance group around Walter Empacher and Werner Krause , which is not only doubted by Giselher Spitzer . Ewald became a member of the NSDAP on April 20, 1944 , but later stated that it had been a deception because he belonged to the resistance group around Empacher and Krause. In 1952, Ewald's role in National Socialism was scrutinized by the GDR authorities. Since no documents were available about Ewald's possible activity in the resistance, the widow of the resistance fighter Empacher was interrogated, who testified to the Ministry for State Security that only her husband, a fellow-member who had also been executed, and she herself had known that Ewald was a member of the resistance group. Spitzer came to the conclusion: "Ewald was formally exonerated without written documents and with completely contradicting testimonies." In a file of the Ministry for State Security from October 20, 1952, it says, "that practically all witnesses were executed for anti-attitude or with Ewald are related ". The historian listed files from the Rostock police in which an officer accused Ewald, among other things, of having handed over a saboteur to the Gestapo, of having "been 'HJ-Stammführer' with four towns". Ewald had been " sworn in personally by Otto Grotewohl ", so nothing could be done against him. On December 2, 1944, Ewald was wounded and two fingers on his right hand were lost, and he was taken prisoner by the Soviets.

After the war ended, Ewald was one of the founders of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in Podejuch, Stettin and Löcknitz in the early summer of 1945 . After the Germans were expelled from Pomerania, he settled in Greifswald and became head of the “anti-fascist youth committee” there. In 1946, as a member of the KPD by the forced merger of the SPD and KPD member of the SED and as a member of the Anti-Fascist Youth Committee member of the FDJ . From 1946 to 1948 he was FDJ district secretary in Greifswald and from 1947 also a member of the Central Council of the FDJ in Berlin. Because of the increasing confrontation with his National Socialist past, he soon moved to Berlin.

From 1952 to 1960 he was chairman of the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sport (Stako). In 1961 Ewald became president of the central sports organization of the GDR, the German Gymnastics and Sports Association (DTSB) , which had been founded a few years earlier . At the age of 38, he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold , making him the first sports official to receive this honor. In 1973 he also took over the presidency of the National Olympic Committee of the GDR . From 1963 Ewald was a member of the Central Committee of the SED . After the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, he was awarded the Karl Marx Order .

Following this central position within the sports system of the GDR, Ewald is still seen today as the decisive organizer of the “GDR sports miracle”. According to journalist Klaus Huhn , the history of GDR sport was "unthinkable" without Manfred Ewald. Ewald has advanced to "one of the most successful personalities in the country", which has earned him "not just friendships". Sometimes he abused his position, "but those who knew him well knew that he seldom 'dropped' someone," said Huhn, who classified the critical view of Ewald, especially by the West German media, as a campaign against the sports official. Sports historian Hans Joachim Teichler assessed Ewald's position in GDR sport as follows: "He had the backing of the party, was able to control and rule in this absolutist state." As chairman of the competitive sports commission, according to Herbert Fischer-Solms , Ewald had " the complete decision-making power over high-performance sport in the GDR ”. On the occasion of Ewald's death, the newspaper Neues Deutschland wrote "that under his strict Prussian direction, which was increased to perfection, the GDR competitive sport experienced an unbelievable worldwide boom". He was a “capable man”, “with a high level of sports expertise, great detailed knowledge and enormous organizational skills”. At the same time, Ewald was a man "who tended to be high-handed, often switched and managed at will," and "who would probably have made a career in any social system."

Ewald himself was assumed to have supported this interpretation after the fall of the Wall, for example in his biography with the symptomatic title "I was the sport". The systematic selection and promotion of talent, research into the basics of training, the systematic use of competitive sport for international profiling of the GDR are among the merits of Ewald. In fact, Ewald rejected the title of the book, which was indicated in the book with a reference that the title did not correspond to Ewald's intentions. In fact, Ewald was always subordinate to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the SED responsible for the sport department: Erich Honecker until 1971, Paul Verner 1971–1984 and Egon Krenz 1984–1989, but the content was what Ewald and his team had prepared. In November 1988 Ewald was ousted and had to give up his position as President of the DTSB. Health reasons were given, Ewald was alcoholic, among other things there had been an alcohol-related incident on the return trip from the Olympic Winter Games in 1988, and, according to Spiegel , he also lost the confidence of the SED, as he "became more and more arrogant with increasing success".

Condemnation

Eleven years after the German reunification was Ewald in September 2001 by the Federal Court because of " aid for injury to the detriment of 20 high-performance athletes, those without their knowledge, with the consequence of ill-health and Risk Aspects of anabolic steroids had been administered" to a prison sentence for probation of 22 months sentenced. Forced doping was recognized by the Federal Court of Justice as “moderate crime” as well as “willful bodily harm”. Thus Ewald's decisive complicity in the doping system of the GDR was legally established, which had been organized under the name State Plan Topic 14.25 and systematically largely kept secret from the athletes. According to Thomas Köhler , the former Vice President of the German Gymnastics and Sports Federation, Ewald was an accessory to the administration of illicit doping agents to minors: “The responsibility was distributed in such a way that everyone except the President of the DTSB only knew as much as for his own Area was required ”. In the book "Ich war der Sport", Ewald defended himself with the words: "Unfortunately, it turns out today that doping abuse was more widespread in sport in the GDR than our management knew or assumed, taking into account an unreported number".

Fonts

  • Reinhold Andert , Manfred Ewald: Manfred Ewald - I was the sport. Truths and legends from the winner's wonderland. Elefanten Press, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-88520-526-2 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Manfred Ewald  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Giselher Spitzer: Manfred Ewald embodied "the right Hitler leadership type". In: The world . July 13, 2000, accessed April 16, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Manfred Ewald in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  3. ↑ a b Giselher Spitzer: From the old Nazi to the leading SED functionary. In: The world . July 12, 2000, accessed April 16, 2018 .
  4. ^ A b Herbert Fischer-Solms: Manfred Ewald: I was the sport? In: bisp-surf.de. 2012, accessed December 7, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b GDR sports guide: Manfred Ewald is dead . In: Spiegel Online . October 22, 2002 ( spiegel.de [accessed December 7, 2019]).
  6. ↑ High state awards given. Karl Marx Order. In: New Germany . September 10, 1976, p. 4 , accessed on April 10, 2018 (online at ZEFYS - newspaper portal of the Berlin State Library , free registration required).
  7. ^ Klaus Huhn: Commemoration: Manfred Ewald (May 17, 1926 - October 21, 2002). In: Contributions to the history of sports, issue 16/2003. Accessed December 7, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Competitive sport in the GDR: loyalty is good, total control is better . In: Spiegel Online . August 31, 2007 ( spiegel.de [accessed December 7, 2019]).
  9. ↑ a b Jürgen Holz: Organizer of the rise (new Germany). Retrieved December 7, 2019 .
  10. ↑ a b New Germany editorial team: “I was the sport” (new Germany). Retrieved December 7, 2019 .
  11. ^ Arnd Krüger : Algo mas que dopaje. El deporte de alto rendimiento en la antigua República Democrática Alemana (1950-1976). Materiales para la historia del deporte 6 (2008), 1, 9 - 29 (ISSN 1887-9586). https://www.upo.es/revistas/index.php/materiales_historia_deporte/article/viewFile/501/695
  12. ^ BGH, decision of September 5, 2001, Az. 5 StR 330/01, full text
  13. ↑ BGH press release No. 66/2001, full text
  14. ^ Eva A. Richter: Doping in the GDR: Only the medals counted , Deutsches Ärzteblatt 97, issue 30, July 28, 2000, SA-2014 / B-1702 / C-1598
  15. ↑ Doping Trial , Der Spiegel
  16. ↑ https://www.landtag-mv.de/fileadmin/media/Dokumente/Parlamentsdokumente/Drucksachen/6_Wahlphase/D06-5000/Drs06-5104.pdf
  17. ↑ Autobiography: Ex-GDR sports functionary confirms nationwide doping . In: Spiegel Online . September 14, 2010 ( spiegel.de [accessed December 7, 2019]).
personal data
SURNAME Ewald, Manfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sports functionary of the GDR
DATE OF BIRTH May 17, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Podejuch
DATE OF DEATH October 21, 2002
Place of death Damsdorf