Wolfgang Hempel (sports journalist)

Wolfgang Hempel interviews Georg Buschner

Wolfgang Hempel (born December 8, 1927 in Neustadt an der Orla ; † December 4, 2004 in Erfurt ) was a German sports journalist and reporter .

Along with Heinz Florian Oertel, Wolfgang Hempel was one of the most famous sports reporters in the GDR . He was regarded as an expert with a high level of expertise and an enormous wealth of knowledge, which earned him the nickname "Doctor".

Life

He played soccer as a teenager and was at the sports club on the Erfurt Cyriaksburg until his military service. After the end of the war he finished his commercial apprenticeship in Erfurt. From 1948 he was a sports reporter for the Thuringian state broadcaster Weimar , where he commented on football in particular and demonstrated his expertise and ability as a reporter with a distinctive voice early on.

At the beginning of the 1950s , Hempel moved to Berlin and worked for the sports editorial team of the German broadcaster and later for Radio DDR I for over 45 years , thus gaining fame throughout the GDR. His sports here were also football and ice hockey . He commented on the DDR-Oberliga and the FDGB-Pokal for the DDR-Rundfunk , reported on seven soccer world championships , most of the Olympic games and 30 ice hockey world championship tournaments .

One of his best known and most difficult radio reportages during this period was the coverage of the finals of the World Cup in 1954 ( Federal Republic of Germany - Hungary ) serving as Miracle of Bern went down in history. He and his co-reporter Heinz Florian Oertel were sworn in at the direction of the political leadership to comment for the socialist brother country Hungary . Hempel implemented this as an expert without any great emotion, which at the time earned him a lot of criticism from football fans in the GDR, who of course believed in the Federal Republic. However, Hempel was never considered an emotionally charged reporter, not even with great GDR successes, in contrast to Heinz Florian Oertel. He shaped a much more sober and objectively more objective style. In 1972 he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze; In 1988 he received the Order of the Banner of Labor Level I.

After reunification , Hempel worked for Eurosport for several years , where he mainly commented on winter sports . At the end of his reporting career , he worked for the MDR -Landesfunkhaus Sachsen (TV program "Sachsenspiegel") and the radio station Landeswelle Thuringia .

Wolfgang Hempel died on December 4, 2004 at the age of 77 as a result of a stroke at the beginning of the year .

literature

• Short biography for:  Hempel, Wolfgang . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

• Berliner Zeitung: "Your friends are the Hungarians"