“Sexual Abuse in GDR Sports: DOSB Criticized for Lack of Action”

At the specialist conference on sexual abuse of children in GDR sports, the DOSB was criticized. Those affected wish for a more active sports association.

Please don’t make waves: the sport has a problem in dealing with its victims Photo: Camera 4/imago

“How can you go public with that now?” That’s what Jan Hempel’s last coach asked after he first reported on the massive sexual violence he had experienced as a competitive athlete in an ARD documentary last year. The abuse had started in GDR times and lasted 14 years until 1996. The perpetrator was his then coach Werner Lange, who later took his own life.

Hempel, one of the most successful German water jumpers, told the story on Wednesday in Schwerin at the expert discussion “Sexual child abuse in the GDR – focus on sport.” SED dictatorship, invited to the event.

Hempel’s biography shows how perpetrators of the medals were unquestioningly welcomed into the structures of all-German sport. And his anecdote illustrated what three other victims of sexualized violence in GDR sports had previously reported on the podium. The defensive reflexes of organized sport to deal with this dark chapter are still strong almost 34 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The repeated wish of those affected for the German Olympic Sports Confederation to take responsibility and for an apology ran like a red thread through the symposium. A former track and field athlete, who took part in the event under the pseudonym Karin, reported that she had sent an email to a DOSB representative and asked for an interview because of the inactivity of the umbrella organization and offered her cooperation as a person affected.

She didn’t get an answer. DOSB President Thomas Weikert said in a later video call that he could not bring all the mistakes of his employees to the table.

“I will communicate back”

In Schwerin, Elena Lamby, who is responsible for “Child and youth protection” in the sub-organization German Sports Youth, was the specialist on site. However, no one from the DOSB leadership showed any interest in giving this topic greater importance as a listener to the conference. Lamby promised, “I’ll take everything with me and I’ll communicate it back so it doesn’t get lost.”

Bettina Rulofs from the Cologne Sports University spoke of a sports system of “multiple injuries” in the GDR. In a number of cases, sexualized violence was added to emotional violence, physical violence through extensive training and forced doping. The specific structures in the GDR, such as early selection and boarding sports schools, would have encouraged abuse.

Rulofs dealt with 12 cases from the context of GDR sports for the evaluation of hearings by the Independent Commission for the Study of Child Sexual Abuse. But there are more questions than answers. A big problem, according to Rulofs, is the lack of studies. For a long time, research focused on the topic of doping. In 2017, the Doping Victims Assistance Association reported that people who came forward were increasingly reporting experiences of sexualised violence.

The number of those affected is difficult to estimate. How challenging it is for them to turn their stories outwards was also noticeable in Schwerin. There were complaints that in the extremely bureaucratic struggle for compensation payments this was repeatedly demanded, even if one’s own life story had already received recognition elsewhere.

The lack of nationwide contact points for victims of abuse in GDR sport and the difficulty of finding suitable therapists who can offer more than just a very limited number of hours were also lamented. Carsten Spitzer, specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy, suggested that organized sport could also take responsibility in this area, like the professional associations do in the case of accidents at work.

The final question was how processing should be designed in the future. Angela Marquardt, who sits on the Council of Affected Persons for questions of child sexual abuse, said: “As long as sport is not willing to question itself and its culture, you can make 100,000 review commissions.” That would do little because they only ever work along with the individual case and not with the system.

System errors in all-German sport stem from the East and West German past. Steffen Sindulka, child protection officer in Thuringian sport, made a clear statement on the provocative question of whether competitive sport and child protection are currently compatible. He said: “The way the structures are at the moment, that’s impossible.”