Ralph Pöhland

Ralph Pöhland
Full name	Ralph Pöhland
nation	German Democratic Republic FR Germany
birthday	June 8, 1946
place of birth	Klingenthal / Sa., Germany
date of death	February 7, 2011
Place of death	Plauen
Career
End of career	1972

Ralph Pöhland (born June 8, 1946 in Klingenthal / Sa. , † February 7, 2011 in Plauen ) was a Nordic combined athlete from the GDR who attracted attention when he fled to the West in 1968. He was then able to record successes in West Germany.

Career

Ralph Pöhland was an essential hope for a medal in the GDR for the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble , but he had already planned his escape. In January 1968, pre-Olympic competitions took place in the Swiss winter sports resort Le Brassus . On January 20, Pöhland fled his quarters during the night, receiving help from the West German Nordic combiner Georg Thoma . His planned appearance for the West German team was prevented by political pressure from the GDR and the Soviet Union .

Pöhland was stylized as a “traitor” in the propaganda of the GDR. His parents lost their jobs and his father was imprisoned in the meantime. His friend Andreas Kunz won the bronze medal and was celebrated as a hero instead of Pöhland. However, since he maintained the personal friendship of the two, he was sidelined in 1970 and banned from the profession.

A few days after the Winter Games, Pöhland won the German ski championships on February 23, 1968, ahead of Olympic champion Franz Keller . He was able to defend this title in 1969. In Sapporo at the 1972 Olympic Games , he started for the Federal Republic and was tenth in Ulrich Wehling's Olympic victory .

After the escape, Pöhland lived for over a year with Georg Thoma in Hinterzarten , who found him a job with the community, for which he took care of the tennis courts. After Pöhland had already served in the GDR as a sports soldier in the National People's Army , he was subsequently accepted into the German Armed Forces. There he became a sergeant in the ski train of the training company 7/10 of the 10th Panzer Division in Todtnau -Fahl and worked as a trainer for top athletes, including Urban Hettich and Georg Zipfel . Pöhland was most recently retired.

Web links

• Ralph Pöhland in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)
• Ralph Pöhland in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Jutta Braun, Michael Barsuhn: Escape to a friend . Der Tagesspiegel , February 24, 2008
• Ralph Pöhland: top performers from over there. In: contemporary witness portal . Foundation for the History of the Federal Republic of Germany , September 28, 2011, accessed on April 6, 2020 . 
• Christoph Gunkel: Olympia 1968, GDR versus FRG: “He mustn't catch up with me!” One day on Spiegel Online , February 15, 2018

supporting documents

1. ↑ Karin König : Why the Stasi sniffed in Hinterzarten three decades ago. The file reads like a thriller: World and Olympic champion Georg Thoma helped GDR winter sportsman Ralph Pöhland escape to the West. In: Badische Zeitung . March 6, 1998.
2. ↑ Gunnar Meinhardt : The Olympic champion who helped his competitor to escape. In: The world . March 23, 2020 ( welt.de ).
3. ↑ Date: February 23, 1968 . History archive of the University of Magdeburg , April 18, 2005, accessed on February 12, 2018.
4. ^ Karlheinz Heckert: History: Ski jumping and Nordic combined - German championships . Sport-Complete, October 24, 2008, accessed February 12, 2018.
5. ↑ Dieter Maurer: Vanishing Point Black Forest: Combiner Ralph Pöhland, whom Georg Thoma once helped to escape in the Porsche, is dead . Badische Zeitung , February 9, 2011, accessed on May 10, 2015.