Germany and the Olympics following the end of World War Two

[Gordon Craig]

Germany and the Olympic Games following the end of World War Two.

This topic is applicable to bot the East and West German Forums so I will be posting this article in both locations.

The Olympic Games scheduled to take place in London, England in 1944 were cancelled in 1939 after the out break of war in Europe. The first Olympic Games following the end of WWII took place in London in the summer of 1948. Germany was not allowed to participate in the 1948 games. Europe was still recovering from the war and these games were referred to as the “Austerity Games”. There was no Olympic Village and participants were asked to bring their own towels!

In 1949, the National Olympic Committee for Germany (Nationales Olympisches Komitee für Deutschland) was founded in the Western Federal Republic of Germany. It was later recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as representing both German states.

A separate National Olympic Committee for East Germany (Nationales Olympisches Komitee für Ostdeutschland) was founded on 22 April, 1951. It was not recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for over a decade.

The small French occupied area of the Saarland founded an NOC in the Spring of 1950 (Nationales Olympisches Komitee des Saarlandes). They sent athletes to the 1952 Summer Olympic Games but did not win any medals. In 1955 they joined the West German Olympic Team.

Germany was permitted to send athletes to the 1952 Olympic Games. As the IOC refused to recognize the East German NOC, which demanded a team of their own, they did not send athletes to the 1952 games. West Germany did and was the recognized German team with the Saarland competing as a separate entity. Having a recorded history of over 500 years of coal mining, the Saarland donated a miner's safety lamp in which the flame of the torch relay of the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki could be carried safely aboard aircraft. At the opening ceremony, athletes from the Saarland marched in ahead of the team of Germany, which is called "Saksa" in the Finnish language.

The East German NOC agreed to let their athletes participate in a united team with the West German athletes for the 1956 games. Since both countries used the same national colours of black-red-gold it was agreed that the flag of the joint team would have the Olympic Rings, in white, superimposed on the central red stripe. East German politicians were not eager to have East German athletes compete under a West German flag. As use of the recently adopted East German national anthem “Deutschlandlied” , or a possible combination of it and the West German national anthem was not acceptable, Beethoven’s melody to Schiller’s “Ode an die Freude” (Ode to Joy) was played for winning German athletes as a compromise in lieu of a national anthem.

The joint team competed in the Olympic Games of 1956, 1960, and 1964. The erection of the Berlin Wall by East Germany in 1961 made travel within Germany by the joint team very difficult. Especially for such contests and training camps as those that were located in the Alps. The East German NOC was renamed the “National Olympisches Kommittee der DDR” in 1965. It was recognized by the IOC in 1968. This led to separate East and West German teams competing, for the first time, in the summer “Games of the XIXth Olympiad” held in Mexico City from 12 to 22 Oct in 1968. The compromise flag and the Ode to Joy continued to be used in 1968. The separation was complete in the 1972 Summer Olympics, when the two countries used separate flags and anthems.

While the country was divided, each of the two German states boycotted the Summer Games: in 1980 West Germany was one of 65 nations which did not go to Moscow in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and in 1984 East Germany joined the Soviet Union (and several others) in the boycott of the Summer Games in Los Angeles.

Including the Winter Games of 2010, German athletes have won 1618 medals : 528 gold, 542 silver and 548 bronze. The IOC currently splits these results among four codes.

IOC Codes;

1956 to 1964

GER but today is called the United Team of Germany - EUA, "Equipe Unifiée Allemande";

1968 to 1990

GER for Federal Republic of Germany and;

GDR for German Democratic Republic

In 1980 the West German code was changed to FRG (which is currently also applied by the IOC in retrospect)

This makes it some what convoluted trying to figure out who won what medal when. During the 1968 games the DDR competed as “East Germany” and from 1972 until 1990 as the GDR.

After the GDR ceased to exist in 1990, and its states joined the Federal Republic of Germany, Germany once again was represented by a single team, designated GER.

I only have one artifact from the German participation in the post WWII Olympic Games. This is a jacket worn at the Games of the 19th Olympiad in Mexico city. This particular jacket was reportedly worn buy a member of the West German team. I have not been able to locate any information on the clothing the two German teams wore during these games. Whether they wore the same uniforms or different ones is a question I have yet to answer. Since the flag and substitute anthem were the same, in 1968, as for the years of the unified team it is always possible that both teams wore the same uniform. If anyone has pictures here that would help resolve this question please post them to this thread.

Regards,

Gordon

The flags of the German teams that participated in the post WWII Olympic Games.

Saarland - 1952

[Gordon Craig]

Flag of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Unified German Team.

[Gordon Craig]

The jacket mentioned earlier.

[aubagne98]

Hi Gordon,

here are some of my results of pictures according to the uniforms of the olympic teams searching with German language in google.

Uniform and marching in Saar

http://www.wochenspiegelonline.de/content/sport/olympia-2012/article/vor-deutschland-ins-olympiastadion/

http://www.saar-nostalgie.de/Olympia1952.htm including results and picture of the lamp

http://www.dosb.de/de/service/sport-mehr/news/detail/news/fahnentraeger_von_helsinki_1952_wird_85/ 85. birthday of the standard bearer 1952

http://geo.uni.lu/joomla/images/stories/articles/territories/1815/076/1/Saarland_1952_Helsinki_Informator-Verlag_FfM.jpg

Melbourne 1956

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=2636&language=german

Rom 1960

http://www.phoenix.de/content/227914

Tokio 1964

http://www.sport-ddr-roeder.de/hochleistungssport_1960_1964.html

click on little arrows at the right side

http://m.zdfsport.de/;page_beitrag/ZDF/zdfportal/xml/object/22437756

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/sport/olympische-spiele-von-wegen-unpolitisch-1.590158-3

Greetings

Michael

[aubagne98]

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Olympiade-MELBOURNE-Australien-1956-Olympia-Olympische-Spiele-Einmarsch-K-HAAS-/150873342941?pt=Sport_1&hash=item2320c083dd

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Olympiade-Melbourne-1956-Teilnehmer-der-DDR-/390506893030?pt=B%C3%BCro_Papier_Schreiben&hash=item5aec064ee6

http://www.ebay.de/itm/1956-Olympiade-MELBOURNE-Leo-POHL-Bert-STEINES-Einmarsch-Fahne-Gesamt-Deutschl-/150873361170?pt=Sport_1&hash=item2320c0cb12

[Gordon Craig]

aubagne98,

Thanks for taking the time to do this research and adding to the thread. It makes very interesting reading. Here are a couple of relevant pictures from this topic running on another forum.

Colour picture of of the DDR contingent in Mexico City in 1968. This picture shows a good photo of the joint flag in use up until this point. The last couple of men in the BRD contingent can be seen on the right hand side of the picture.

Regards,

Gordon

Edited December 30, 2012 by Gordon Craig

[Gordon Craig]

BRD,

[speedytop]

Hi,

there are a few pieces representing this time, for example a cloth arm patch:

http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/4648866

and a needle:

Uwe

[speedytop]

Or the late use of the symbol on a "Volksmarsch" (Volkswandern) medal from the police sports club in Cologne (PSV Köln) in 1972:

Uwe

[Gordon Craig]

Uwe,

Interesting items. Thanks for adding them to the thread. Any idea of what would have been on the medal for the VOLKSWANDEREN?

Regards,

Gordon

[speedytop]

Hi Gordon,

"Any idea of what would have been on the medal for the VOLKSWANDEREN?"

Plesae, what do you want to know?

Regards

Uwe

[Gordon Craig]

Uwe,

Sorry that I wasn't clearer. There appears to be three holes in the ribbon on this medal indicating that there may have been some device attached to it. Was there something attached to the ribbons of these medals, and if so, what?

Regards,

Gordon

[speedytop]

Gordon,

I really don't know. But I think, that the medal had been attached with pushpins on a board, together with other "walking" medals.

You can often find such a composition, sometimes changed for a new arrangement with other walking medals.

In 1972 we had two German teams, each with the normal flag BRD and DDR. Therefore I'm wondering about the police sports club, that they used the old symbol on a 1972 medal.

Uwe

[Gordon Craig]

Uwe,

Thanks.

Regards,

Gordon

[aubagne98]

Hi,

maybe there was a pin on it showing the distance.

like here http://www.ebay.de/itm/Medallie-2-VOLKSWANDERUNG-CONTWIG-1975-20km-CONTWIG-PFALZ-SEIT-1237-VT-CONTWIG-/121048059343?pt=Sport_1&hash=item1c2f06cdcf

[Gordon Craig]

Uwe,

Thanks again.

Regards,

Gordon

[aubagne98]

Hi,

watch this http://sammlung.sportmuseum.de/

maybe you can find some interesting fotos.

And this http://www.bild.bundesarchiv.de/cross-search/search/_1360337444/

Michael

[Gordon Craig]

Michael,

Thanks for adding to the thread but I do not see any fotos on your links. The first link shows an Olympic torch and the second one just gives me a page to search for something.

Regards,

Gordon

[aubagne98]

Hi,

well, the first Link...klick on "Sammlung", choose "Olympische Spiele" or "Olympische Winterspiele" and there you can klick on the Games you want to watch.

The second link you have to fill in "Olympische Spiele" and than klick on search "suche"

Michael

[aubagne98]

Hi,

searching for an other sports award I found this

http://www.lothar-nest.de/ln01161/mufoe2.html

Scroll down, in the 2nd Half you will find a complete 1964 suite.

Michl