Werner Scharch

Werner Scharch as President of the Cycling Section of the GDR at an award ceremony in 1956 at the Weißensee Velodrome

Werner Scharch (* 1912 in Rendsburg ; † 1990 ) was a German sports official and author.

Early years

Werner Scharch was a professional chemical engineer . From 1929 he was involved in the socialist workers' youth . Nothing is known about his life between 1933 and 1945. After the end of the Second World War he became politically active in Halle in the FDJ and SED and sometimes drove a tough course. From 1947 to 1949 he studied at the Karl Marx party college in Berlin . He was an active athlete himself and played soccer; in 1949 he gave a lecture at a course for soccer trainers in Leipzig, which was led by Helmut Schön .

Sports official in the GDR

From 1949 Scharch was one of the leading sports officials in the GDR in various functions . In 1951, as treasurer of the newly founded National Olympic Committee for East Germany, he was part of a delegation that signed an agreement on a joint German Olympic team with the IOC under Avery Brundage and a West German delegation in Lausanne . In this agreement, however, the West German team was confirmed as the lead in an all-German team and therefore later declared null and void by the GDR sports management in Berlin. Scharch and the other delegation members, all of whom were inexperienced internationally, were reprimanded or transferred. He later stated that he did not understand the English text of the agreement; the GDR delegation, to which Kurt Edel belonged, had to have the hotel porter translate the already signed text.

From 1950 to 1958 Scharch was President of the Cycling Section, from 1958 to 1960 President of the German Cycling Association of the GDR (DRSV) and in 1960 responsible for the organization of the UCI World Championships on track and road in Leipzig and Karl-Marx-Stadt . For some time he was also the personal assistant to the President of the German Sports Committee , Rudi Reichert . For several years he acted as team leader of the GDR team at the International Peace Tour . In 1955 he was able to persuade the West German cyclists Emil Reinecke and Wolfgang Grupe to move to the GDR. It was mainly thanks to him that the 1960 World Championships were awarded to the GDR; He campaigned for the President of the Union Cycliste Internationale , Adriano Rodoni , to be invited to the Peace Tour and to be decorated with the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver. The Bulletin du Comité International Olympique wrote about him in 1961: "Man of great value, he was greatly appreciated for his uprightness and honesty."

In the Federal Republic of Germany

Shortly after the World Cup in 1960, Werner Scharch sat in a meeting with representatives of the Federal German cyclists in casting by Austria , and thus left the first leading sports official East Germany. At the time, Scharch explained his escape by saying that "things happen in the East German cycling association for which I simply could no longer answer" . The SED central organ Neues Deutschland read under the heading “Scharch betrayed the republic” that the reasons for his “humanly indecent and politically treacherous actions” were to be found in “his deep moral decline” . Scharch has recently given himself more and more to alcohol and had dealings with “dubious women” . That led to irreconcilable differences with the athletes and coaches of the GDR team during the Olympic Games in Rome, who demanded that he be replaced and punished immediately. Scharch had to be admitted to a hospital in Rome as a result of excessive alcohol consumption and was sent back to the GDR. During his escape, he "abandoned" his wife and children . A little later, an investigation was initiated against Scharch in the GDR for continued embezzlement and fraud, and an arrest warrant was issued; As President of the German Cycling Association, he embezzled funds entrusted to him and used them for personal purposes.

In an interview with journalist Serge Lang for the French sports magazine L'Équipe in October 1960, Scharch explained the system of state amateurism . Even then, he proposed a standard license for amateurs and professionals . The President of the GDR-NOK, Heinz Schöbel , dismissed Scharch's statements as “most shocking lies”. Scharch then renewed his information in an official letter to the IOC . In 1972 he also reported on " experiments with doping ". In 1965 he was invited by Willi Daume to report on the "disguised profit" in the GDR and to what extent the GDR violated the Olympic idea at an IOC meeting in Madrid , during which the GDR's NOK was to be officially recognized , but was not heard.

In the Federal Republic of Germany Werner Scharch worked for a chemical company in southern Germany. From the mid-1960s Werner Scharch was active in the federal committee for competitive sport. In the 1970s he also made a name for himself as the author of books on cycling.