The Individual and the State: A Social Historical Analysis of the East German ‘Doping System’

Abstract

The literature on East Germany, sport and performance-enhancing drugs emphasizes the power of the state in totalitarian society and the abuse of athletes. Doping is referred to as a system or machine, which was state-sponsored, mandatory, secretive, abusive and corrupt. This fits easily with both political understandings of East German society and understandings of the cultural values of sport. In this article, we map the flawed and simplistic model of East German society that over-emphasizes structure and under-emphasizes agency. From there, we will draw from individuals' accounts of their experiences to develop a more complex, nuanced and sophisticated account of doping in East Germany.

Notes

1. Paul Dimeo, ‘Good Versus Evil?: Sport, Drugs and the Cold War’, in East Plays West: Essays on Sport and the Cold War, eds S. Wagg and D. Andrews (London: Routledge 2006).

2. ‘Sport's greatest cover-up’, BBC World Service, August 7, 2009.

3. The historical literature on political and social aspects of East Germany life more generally might touch briefly upon this issue, but does not go into much detail. See for example, Mike Dennis, The Rise and Fall of the German Democratic Republic, 1945–1990 (Harlow 2000)

4. Barbara Cole, ‘The East German Sports System: Image and Reality’ (PhD diss., Texas Tech University 2000).

5. Barbara Cole, ‘The East German Sports System: Image and Reality’ (PhD diss., Texas Tech University 2000)., 373.

6. Brigitte Berendonk and Werner Franke, ‘Hormonal Doping and Androgenization of Athletes: A Secret Program of the German Democratic Republic government’, Clinical Chemistry 43 (1997); John Hoberman, Mortal Engines: The Science of Performance and the Dehumanization of Sport (New York: Free Press, 1992); Giselher Spitzer, ‘Ranking Number 3 in the World: How the Addiction to Doping Changed Sport in the GDR’, in Doping and Doping Control in Europe, ed. Giselher Spitzer (Aachen: Mayer and Mayer 2006); Steven Ungerleider, Faust's Gold: Inside the East German Doping Machine (New York: Thomas Dunne, 2001).

7. Hoberman, Mortal Engines, 222.

8. Hoberman, Mortal Engines, 222.

9. Franke and Berendonk, ‘Hormonal Doping’.

10. Ivan Waddington, Sport, Health and Drugs: A Critical Sociological Perspective (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 143.

11. It is curious that the ‘negative’ stories about drugs in sport are so easily accepted by sports historians and sociologists that so few critical questions have been asked about the sources of information and political nature of specific claims. Some of the flawed claims that are frequently repeated include the following: that the first doping death was Arthur Linton in 1886, that Knud Enemark Jensen died from an amphetamine overdose in the 1960 Rome Olympics, that steroid use can lead to death, and that around 20 cyclists died from EPO poisoning in the late 1980s–early 1990s.

12. Doug Gilbert, The Miracle Machine (New York: Coward, McCann & Georghegan, 1980).

13. Franke and Berendonk, ‘Hormonal Doping’, 1273.

14. For an overview see Susan Backhouse, Andrew Atkin, Jim McKenna. and Simon Robinson, ‘International Literature Review: Attitudes, Behaviours, Knowledge and Education – Drugs in Sport: Past, Present and Future’. Report to the World Anti-Doping Agency (2007).

15. Franke and Berendonk, ‘Hormonal Doping’, 264.

16. Franke and Berendonk, ‘Hormonal Doping’, 1269.

17. Franke and Berendonk, ‘Hormonal Doping’, 1264.

18. Rob Beamish and Ian Ritchie, Faster, Higher, Stronger: A Critique of High Performance Sport (New York and London: Routledge, 2006)

19. Cole, ‘The East German Sports System’

20. Steven Ungerleider, Faust's Gold: Inside the East German Doping Machine (New York, 2000)

21. Waddington, Sport, Health and Drugs, 143–4; see Hoberman, Mortal Engines; James Riordan, Sport, Politics and Communism (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1991)

22. Spitzer, ‘Ranking Number 3’, 66.

23. Spitzer, ‘Ranking Number 3’, 57.

24. David Gerrard, ‘Playing Foreign Policy Games: States, Drugs and Other Olympian Vices’, Sport in Society 11, no. 4 (2008): 459–66, 461.

25. Molly Johnson, Training Socialist Citizens: Sports and the State in East Germany (Leiden: Brill, 2008)

26. Molly Johnson, Training Socialist Citizens: Sports and the State in East Germany (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 6.

27. Mike Dennis and Jonathan Grix, ‘Behind the Iron Curtain: Football as a Site of Contestation in the East German Sports “Miracle”’, Sport in History 30 (2010): 447–74, 449.

28. Konrad Jarausch ‘Beyond Uniformity: The Challenge of Historicizing the GDR’, in Dictatorship as Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR, ed. K. Jarausch (New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 1999).

29. Konrad Jarausch ‘Beyond Uniformity: The Challenge of Historicizing the GDR’, in Dictatorship as Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR, ed. K. Jarausch (New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 1999), 5.

30. Konrad Jarausch ‘Beyond Uniformity: The Challenge of Historicizing the GDR’, in Dictatorship as Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR, ed. K. Jarausch (New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 1999), 8.

31. Konrad Jarausch ‘Beyond Uniformity: The Challenge of Historicizing the GDR’, in Dictatorship as Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR, ed. K. Jarausch (New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 1999), 8.

32. Dennis and Grix, ‘Behind the Iron Curtain’, 450.

33. Jutta Braun, ‘The People's Sport? Popular Sport and Fans in the Later Years of the German Democratic Republic’, German History 27, no. 3 ( 2009): 414–28; see also Mary Fulbrook, The People's State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008)

34. Cole, ‘The East German Sports System’, 86.

35. Cole, ‘The East German Sports System’, 74.

36. Cole, ‘The East German Sports System’, 104.

37. This speculation was simply based on rumour, though it was taken seriously and became an oft-repeated part of doping ‘folklore’. Later investigations showed it was highly unlikely that Jensen did indeed take amphetamines. See Verner Møller ‘Knud Enemark Jensen's Death During the 1960 Rome Olympics: A Search for Truth?’, Sport in History 25, no. 3 (2005): 452–71.

38. Paul Dimeo, A History of Drug Use in Sport, 1876–1976: Beyond Good and Evil (London and New York: Routledge, 2007).

39. Paul Dimeo, A History of Drug Use in Sport, 1876–1976: Beyond Good and Evil (London and New York: Routledge, 2007).

40. Manfred Höppner, ‘Deposition Transcript’, May 21, 1996, 2, in Steven Ungerleider Collection at the University of Texas's Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.

41. Manfred Höppner, ‘Deposition Transcript’, May 21, 1996, 2, in Steven Ungerleider Collection at the University of Texas's Dolph Briscoe Center for American History., 2–3

42. Manfred Höppner, ‘Deposition Transcript’, May 21, 1996, 2, in Steven Ungerleider Collection at the University of Texas's Dolph Briscoe Center for American History., 5.

43. Franke and Berendonk, ‘Hormonal Doping’, 1264.

44. Franke and Berendonk, ‘Hormonal Doping’.

45. Franke and Berendonk, ‘Hormonal Doping’.

46. Paul Dimeo, Thomas Hunt and Matthew Bowers, ‘Saint or Sinner?: A Reconsideration of the Career of Prince Alexandre de Merode, Chair of the International Olympic Committee's Medical Commission, 1967–2002’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 28, no. 6 (2011): 925–940.

47. Dr Buhl, ‘Witness Deposition’, Berlin, November 12, 1997, 4, steven Ungerleider Collection at the University of Texas's Dolph Briscoe Center for American History (hereafter SUC).

48. Dr Buhl, ‘Witness Deposition’, Berlin, November 12, 1997, 4, steven Ungerleider Collection at the University of Texas's Dolph Briscoe Center for American History (hereafter SUC)., 3.

49. Birgit Boese, ‘Witness Deposition’, November 21, 1996, 3, SUC.

50. Birgit Boese, ‘Witness Deposition’, November 21, 1996, 3, SUC.

51. Birgit Boese, ‘Witness Deposition’, November 21, 1996, 3, SUC., 6.

52. Dr Elke Karin Schramm, ‘Witness Deposition’, September 11, 1996, 6, SUC.

53. Dr Elke Karin Schramm, ‘Witness Deposition’, September 11, 1996, 6, SUC., 4.

54. Manfred Höppner, ‘Deposition Transcript’, May 21, 1996, SUC.

55. Cole, ‘The East German Sports System’.