In 1936 Germany hosted what would be the last Olympic Games before the Second World War, an event that became infamous as a showcase for Nazi Germany. At the first Games after the war (1948) Germans were banned from participating, but in 1950 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) formally recognised a new German National Olympic Committee, paving the way for German participation in the 1952 Games.

However, there was one major problem: by 1950 there were officially two German states, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in the West and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the East. The FRG had founded the Olympic Committee and claimed that it represented the whole of Germany, in keeping with its policy of not recognising the GDR as a legitimate state. The GDR quickly set up their own National Olympic Committee and also sought recognition from the IOC, but this was refused. Instead, the IOC suggested that the two states should form a single committee and compete as a single team, but NOC members on both sides, under political pressure from their governments, refused, and only West Germany took part in the 1952 Games. (Although the Saarland, later to become part of the FRG but in 1952 a French Protectorate, also competed for the only time as a separate entity.)

The IOC, and in particular its new Chairman, Avery Brundage, felt that the situation in 1952 went against the ‘Olympic spirit’ of international and apolitical camaraderie in sport. In the years leading up to the 1956 Games they sought a solution. In 1954 the East German NOC was given provisional recognition on the understanding that the two German states would still compete as a single team. This time both sides accepted the compromise, and in 1956 what later became known as the ‘Unified German Team’ took part as ‘Germany’ in both the summer and winter Olympics.

Members of the East and West German Olympic Committees during negotiations over the 1956 Games. From Grit Hartmann, Brigitte Berendonk, Goldkinder: die DDR im Spiegel ihres Spitzensports (Leipzig, 1997) YA.2000.a.19519

This may have solved one problem, but it threw up several others, including that of which flag and anthem the team would use. The flag issue was not initially too hard to solve since in 1956 both countries used the same black red and gold tricolour as their national flag, but by 1960 the GDR had superimposed its national emblem of a hammer and compass in a garland of corn onto its flag. After some wrangling, it was agreed that from then on the team would compete under a German tricolour with the Olympic rings displayed in white in the central red panel. Meanwhile, the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony was chosen as the anthem for the team. Team members were selected in qualification competitions held in both Germanies, and it was agreed that the state with the highest number of qualifying athletes would provide the team’s ‘Chef de Mission’ and flag-bearer.

The flag of the German Unified Team, used at the 1960, 1964 and 1968 Olympic Games (Image from Wikimedia Commons)

When the Unified Team first appeared at the 1956 Olympics, Brundage triumphantly declared that in uniting the two German states in this way, the IOC had “succeeded where the politicians could not”. He would continue to express similar sentiments throughout the lifetime of the Unified Team, but the reality for German politicians, athletes and fans was somewhat different. Politicians in both East and West Germany tried to use participation in the Games to promote their own ends. For the FRG this was primarily to boost its the claim to be the only legitimate German state; conversely, for the GDR it was to gain recognition on the international stage. On the personal level too, the Unified Team was far from united. The athletes from East and West generally lived and trained separately in the Olympic villages and had little personal contact. Sports fans, used to watching the two Germanies compete as rivals in other situations, probably felt a closer allegiance to their own athletes than to those of the other state or to any concept of a united Germany.

The German Unified Team at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Tokyo (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-C1012-0001-026 / Kohls, Ulrich / CC-BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

This separation grew more marked over the years as the political situation between the two states deteriorated. Uta Andrea Bailer, writing about the Unified Team, describes its history as “also the history of the continued drifting apart of the two German states.” By 1964 this had come to a head following the building of the Berlin Wall three years earlier. In a dissertation on the team, Eike Birck quotes West German Olympic skier Rita Czech-Blasel: “Who came up with this crazy idea? A ‘unified German team’! The Communists put up a wall, finally chopped Germany in half, and we athletes were supposed to act as if it was all sweetness and light ...” Also in 1964, for the first time the GDR had more qualifiers for the Games, giving them the coveted post of Chef de Mission, something seen in the FRG as a serious humiliation.

Cover of Matthias Fink, Das NOK der DDR - zwischen Olympia und Politik: die olympische Bewegung der DDR im Spannungsfeld der deutsch-deutschen Geschichte 1945-1973 (Göttingen, 2012) YF.2015.a.21269

In the following years, the IOC bowed to the inevitable. In 1965 the East German NOC was given full recognition, and in 1968 a separate East German team competed, although they were still required to use the flag and anthem of the Unified Team. By 1972 the separation was complete and both the FRG (the host of that year’s summer games) and the GDR competed as separate countries under their own flags. It was around this time that the GDR began the state-sanctioned doping programme that brought spectacular Olympic success throughout the 1970s and 80s but had devastating effects on the lives and health of East German athletes.

In 1992 a single German team once more appeared at the Olympics, but this time it was representing a newly politically unified Germany. Despite Brundage’s hopes of sport achieving what politics could not, it was in the end politics that brought German Olympians truly together again.

Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections

References/further reading

Uta A. Balbier, Kalter Krieg auf der Aschenbahn: der deutsch-deutsche Sport, 1950-1972: eine politische Geschichte (Paderborn, 2007) YF.2007.a.31226. Also available online at https://digi20.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb00052124_00044.html

Uta A. Balbier, ‘“Flaggen, Hymnen und Medaillen”. Die gesamtdeutsche Olympiamannschaft und die kulturelle Dimension der Deutschlandpolitik.’ In: Susanne Muhle, Hedwig Richter und Juliane Schütterle (ed.), Die DDR im Blick: ein zeithistorisches Lesebuch. (Berlin, 2008), pp. 201-209. YF.2010.a.1880. Also available online at https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/sites/default/files/uploads/files/2021-06/balbier_flaggen_hymnen_und_medaillen_ddr_im_blick.pdf

Christian Becker, Edelfrid Buggel, Wolfgang Buss, Der Sport in der SBZ und frühen DDR: Genese, Strukturen, Bedingungen (Schorndorf, 2001) YA.2003.a.25310

Eike Birck, Die gesamtdeutschen Olympiamannschaften – eine Paradoxie der Sportgeschichte (Doctoral dissertation, University of Bielefeld, 2013) https://pub.uni-bielefeld.de/download/2638227/2638228/Dissertation_Eike_Birck.pdf

Horst Geyer, Olympische Spiele 1896-1996: ein deutsches Politikum (Münster, 1996) YA.1999.a.12770

Juliana Lenz, Zwischen Politik, Protokoll und Pragmatismus: die deutsche Olympiageschichte von 1952 bis 1972 (Berlin, 2011) YF.2013.a.15633 (Original dissertation available online at https://rosdok.uni-rostock.de/resolve/id/rosdok_disshab_0000002138)

David Maraniss, Rome 1960: the Olympics that changed the world (New York, 2008) m08/.26791