Victims talk about sexualized violence in GDR sports | > – News

Status: 04/26/2023 7:37 p.m

A lot of research has been done on doping in GDR sport, but sexualized violence remains a blind spot to this day. At a specialist conference in Schwerin, former athletes talked about their experiences.

Rhythmic gymnastics determined Susann Wegner’s childhood and youth. In 1989, at the age of 17, she ended her career because she could no longer endure the extreme physical and psychological torture. The fact that she was also a victim of sexualized violence during this time only came up again decades later through a private experience. Suddenly she remembered a doctor from the training camp in Zinnowitz: “I had to go to his dark office alone. The door was closed. I had to undress, I don’t remember how much. But he touched me, I remember that. ” Decades later, Susann Wegner exchanged ideas with other athletes from her training camp at the time and found out that all of them had such vague memories – or even today they are afraid and disgusted with this doctor.

Young people in GDR sports were particularly at risk

Daily humiliations such as “You are too fat”, unwanted touching during sports exercises and sexual assaults by trainers – such forms of violence also existed in West German competitive sports. The case of the former water jumper Jan Hempel shows that the abuse could last for decades and even extend to reunified Germany. However, a current case study shows that young people in GDR sports were particularly at risk.

Bettina Rulofs from the German Sport University in Cologne says they were monitored and isolated from a particularly early age in sports schools: “On the one hand, the children wanted to please and do something for the regime and their parents, on the other hand, the danger was great poor performance and to be singled out again quickly. Because of this dependency, they were particularly at the mercy of adults.” To this day, however, many questions on this topic are still unanswered, according to Rulofs. It is still unclear how many people have been abused in the context of sport.

State Commissioner Drescher: “Legal work-up is complete”

The state commissioner for dealing with the SED dictatorship, Anne Drescher, has advised many former GDR athletes on the subject of doping in recent years. But the violence that happened to them is often more complex. Victims often only mention experiences of sexualized violence at the second or third meeting. In order to get support and long-term therapies in the case of physical and psychological late effects, they would then have to deal with numerous forms, applications and reports – and provide evidence.

“Those affected contact us, tell us what happened and we see what we can do to relieve them,” explains Anne Drescher. “The question of the perpetrator is then on a completely different page, because the legal work-up is over.” At the symposium, those affected also complained that those responsible for the suffering suffered had often not apologized. To date, leading sports officials would not be willing to face the issue.

Wegner: “You don’t see any limits anymore”

For those affected who describe their experiences of violence, it is therefore particularly important that they are believed, says Drescher. Even in exchange, it took Susann Wegner and other former athletes a long time to talk about their experiences with sexualised violence. They found an explanation for why these traumatic experiences only came up again much later: “We were children, we trained and when we were in pain, it was ignored and then you can no longer separate it from each other, whether it’s with coaches or parents, whatever. You don’t see any boundaries anymore.”