University of Plymouth PEARL https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk 04 University of Plymouth Research Theses 01 Research Theses Main Collection 2014 German-German Relations in the Fields of Sport, with Particular Reference to the Olympic Games 1952-1972 Raeke, Bernd http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/3203 Plymouth University All content in PEARL is protected by copyright law. Author manuscripts are made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the details provided on the item record or document. In the absence of an open licence (e.g. Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher or author. I N T R O D U C T I O N In 1952 the Soviet Union, after years of having castigated the Olympic movement as a ‘vehicle of capitalism and imperialism’, began to realize the tremendous propaganda value of participating in the Olympic Games. In the tow of Moscow, East Germany also tried to enter the Olympic arena. Its main objective was not the development of sports per se but rather to use the Games for the country’s predominant ambition to be formally and internationally recognized as an independent, sovereign state. This had been an intent pursued ever since the foundation of the East German Democratic Republic (GDR) three years earlier, and was just as vehemently frustrated by the Federal Republic of West Germany (FRG), which claimed the status of being the only legal, democratically elected German state. Primarily through the initiative of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), joint German-German teams participated – with the Winter Olympics always preceding the Summer Games – in 1956 at Cortina d’Ampezzo/Italy and Melbourne, in 1960 at Squaw Valley/USA and Rome, and at Innsbruck/Austria and Tokyo in 1964; not under a German flag but rather under one with the five Olympic rings. The astonishing fact of this being possible in the middle of the Cold War, how and why this came about and under what conditions, forms the central theme of the thesis. In government circles in both Germanys there was only limited interest in fostering inter-German sports relations. In West Germany there prevailed an overriding concern, as seen under Chancellor Adenauer, in power throughout the 1950s, in trying to re- integrate the FRG into the Western fold; at the expense of neglecting contacts with the other Germany. This would change only from 1969 onwards in the framework of 1 Chancellor Willy Brandt’s neue Ostpolitik, embarking on a ‘policy of change through approximation’1 with other East Bloc countries – much to the dislike of the GDR. The year 1972 was a partial victory for the GDR not only in sports but also in international politics; at that time a separate East German team joined the Olympic Games at Munich under its own national flag, dresses and anthem. Yet the end of the inter-German Cold War would come only in 1987 with the visit of Erich Honecker, the East German leader, to West Germany (this, as an irony of history, to be followed only two years later by the implosion of his country). In the meantime East Germany, for its part, had for most of the Cold War also spurned inter-German sporting relations, except for a short period from 1959 to 1961. However some maintain that, on the ‘ground level’, there remained an invisible bond of earlier, pre-war friendly relations between clubs and local sports organizations in West and East during most of the post-war period, especially so until the foundation of the GDR in 1949. While so-called West-Kontakte could be criminalized by the GDR’s omnipresent Stasi, its state security police, there remained the possibility of meeting western sportspeople in ‘all-German’ summer holiday destinations like Lake Balaton in Hungary, or Bulgaria’s Varna Black Sea resort. Full normalization of sporting contacts between German sports-men and -women came only after the thaw of East-West political relations in the late 1980s. The difficulties in maintaining such contacts throughout more than four decades of separation would gradually become a remote memory even for the older generation. These and related problems have, more than two decades after German re-unification, been somewhat of a 1 This maxim, first coined as Wandel durch Annäherung by Brandt confidant Egon Bahr at the Evangelist Academy Tutzing/Bavaria on 15 July 1963, would become the tenet of Neue Ostpolitik from 1969 onwards. Quoted in DIE ZEIT, 8 May 2013, p. 4. 2 backwater of historians’ attention and writings, as can be gauged by reviewing the key secondary literature of relevance. LITERATURE REVIEW Thousands of books in dozens of languages have been written about the Olympics. Although most of the best published scholarships is in French, German, and Italian, the materials available in English are ample enough to satisfy most non-academic 2 readers. As the quotation above by Alan Guttmann indicates, there exists a huge body of literature in a variety of languages, though little of this specifically addresses German- German sporting relations. In what follows, a selection of key books and journal articles are divided for convenience into two main categories. The first category contains material considered to be of general interest regarding the Olympic Games, some of which briefly touches upon the issue of German-German Olympic cooperation. The second category reviews relevant works published by German writers and academics, and is finally followed by a short assessment of the limited items of secondary literature on this topic published in English. As will become clear, there remains scope for a detailed study of the origins, evolution and consequences of one of the most curious episodes in the history of the Cold War. General Histories of the Olympics Among the most important of general works on the Olympics is Guttmann’s The Olympics, A History of the Modern Games : [It reflects] the intended and actual meaning of the modern Olympic Games (…) recounting the memorable and significant events of the Olympics in terms of their social and political impact [and demonstrating that] the modern games were revived 3 to propagate a political message and continue to serve political purposes. 2 Guttmann, Allen, The Olympics, A History of the Modern Games, Second Edition. Champaign IL: University of Illinois Press (2002), p. 197. 3 Guttmann, The Olympics, back cover. 3 Guttmann goes back to the re-founding of the idea of Olympic Games in 1896 by Baron de Coubertin, the first modern Games of that year in Athens, and through to events of the XXVIIth Games in Sydney in 2000. Particular attention is given to national – and nationalistically motivated – tendencies by member nations of the movement like that of the Greeks, the Americans and especially by the Germans trying to usurp the Games in what he calls ‘the most controversial Olympics’, Hitler’s XIth Olympics in 1936.4 A central theme of Guttmann’s book is the life of Baron Pierre de Coubertin (1863- 1937). In 1892 de Coubertin had written: ‘Nothing in ancient history has inspired more reverie in me than Olympia’. The book vividly details the role of de Coubertin as the undisputed creator as well as successful organizer of the modern Games, President of the IOC for 29 years, from its inception in 1896 until his 1925 retirement. During the first two decades of his IOC presidency de Coubertin faced major problems with the Greeks, then the Germans and even his own French countrymen, who insisted on developing their own national systems, but his first major success was the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games. More breakthroughs for the efforts of the IOC followed until the outbreak of the world wars cancelled those planned for Berlin in 1916 and Tokyo 1940/London 1944. Guttmann points out that the 1925 Olympic Congress tried to solve what became a long-running problem and that de Coubertin’s diplomatic talent led to a key definition, voted for by a majority of IOC members: An amateur is one who devotes himself to sport for sport’s sake without deriving from it, directly or indirectly, the means of existence. A professional one is one who derives the means of existence entirely or partly from sport. The relationship between amateurism and professionalism was to be central to the evolution of the post-WWII Olympic movement. Guttmann’s book also has some 4 Guttmann, The Olympics, p. 11, 13, 53 ff. 4 relevant comments in the context of this thesis – to be assessed in the second category of this review – dealing with German-German sporting matters during the Cold War. Another book by Guttmann,5 albeit primarily concentrated on one personality, should be mentioned here. It is dedicated to the American Avery Brundage, involved with the Olympics for sixty years and arguably the pivotal personality in what follows as President of the IOC for two decades. In June 1955 Brundage virtually dictated the formation of a German-German Olympic team, eventually accepted by East Germany for ulterior motives far from Olympic ones, and also by rather hesitant West German officialdom. His activities, successes and frustrations in fostering his dream of the 1950s will be followed throughout the main chapters of thesis, ending with his failure by the time of the 1972 Olympic Games. A high point in Brundage’s involvement, reflecting also on his considerable ego, was an event at the XVIIth Olympics at Rome in 1960. Standing next to Italian President Giovanni Gronchi, who marvelled at the sight of the joint German team entering the Stadium, and while commenting that such demonstration was unthinkable to have been achieved by politicians, Brundage exclaimed ‘in sport we do such things’.