East Germany's Secret Doping System
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- čas přidán 25. 02. 2024
- Many thanks to Joseph Tudor for his support!
Recommended books:
• Synthetic Medals - East German Athletes’ Journey to Hell - Joseph Tudor [amzn.to/42RjJa4]
• Faust’s Gold: inside the East German doping machine - Steven Ungerleider [amzn.to/48Bo2aJ]
• Sport under Cummunism: behind the East German ‘Miracle’ - Mike Dennis & Jonathan Grix [amzn.to/3UUcv3f]
[By using the link and making an Amazon purchase, I will receive a small commission]
Documentaries used:
• Doping for Gold (Secrets of the dead documentary) -
• All doped up - Jakob Wastek & Hans Rodriguez
• Staatsgeheimnis Kinderdoping
• Menschenversuche - Die heimnlichen Experimente im DDR Sport - ARD
• The Andreas Krieger Story
• Doping und Dichtung - Das schwierige Erbe des DDR-Sports
Pictures & others:
• Ines Geipel - By Amrei-Marie - Own Work, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
• Jenapharm - By Reise Reise - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
• Funktion und Instrumentalisierung des Sports in der DDR: Pharmakologische Manipulationen (Doping) und die Rolle der Wissenschaft - Werner Franke
Doping within the GDR. Many swimmers from the GDR (Kristin Otto, Cornelia Sirch, etc) were caught for using illegal substances. Cornelia Sirch was competing against the young Krisztina Egerszegi of Hungary. Everyone saw how "pumped" Cornelia was on the podium. She was taller than the winner on the top spot of the podium. Krisztina Egerszegi was nicknamed "little mouse" because she was young, short and slim. Yet... had incredible talent. She became the youngest Olympic Champion of the time, as she was only 14.
The bizarre part of it.. there was East German woman athlete who because of this doping + puberty, she turned & became physically a male!
Just when a little "Ostalgie" starts to creep in, we get another hard-hitting exposé, well, at least for an English audience, of some atrocity the East German authorities perpetrated against their own people. Good job!
My dad, one of the organizers of NYC Marathon in the 1980’s, tried to get some of the garbage GDR runners were leaving before the start. It was impossible- their handlers were taking everything, literally everything!
I’m not sure what you’re saying, stealing, early starts, what.
@@DaveSCameron ok, GDR runners were all staying in a closed up tent before the start of the marathon. We all knew they are getting doped, but needed proof. Proof could be in anything they would leave behind. My jod was to get it, anything, ever a scrap of paper, discarded tissue, and garbage. And they would not leave anything behind, they always took everything with them, even the smallest piece of garbage.
It is interesting to note how the GDR barely participated in sports where doping was not making a big difference, and where strong western or asian competition existed. Table tennis, badminton, golf, basketball and high jump are examples. Sports involving mostly female athletes like in weight lifting or swimming are what they liked to train athletes for. The seven olympic gold medals won by Mark Spitz in Munich in 1972 was something very unlikely for a male GDR swimmer to ever achieve. Giving male hormones to a male may help a bit, but far less than it does improve the performance of a women.
One particularly interesting sport in, which in my opinion, would warrant an entire episode of its own is ski jumping. This was one of the disciplines where East Germany was extremely strong, with legendary athletes in every decade of the country's existence - from Helmut Recknagel, through Hans-Georg Aschenbach to Jens Weißflog, and an incredible story of Claus Tuchscherer, who defected to Austria, and started representing them. He suffered a terrible fall during the 1978 world Championships, where he lost one of his skis mid-flight. It was suspected that a stasi agent tampered with the bindings as a punishment for betraying the nation.
It is kind of interesting but would anyone benefit from doping?
@@TheFrewah I heard stories about Hans-Georg Aschenbach allegedly using doping, not sure if that was the case. But in the old era of ski jumping there may have been some benefits, as the sport used to require much more outright physical strength, though doping surely had much less of an impact than in other disciplines
@@jmakiola Hmm.. That can be. I have to admit there are sports that I don’t understand very well. Ski jumping and Curling are among them.
@TheFrewah Among swimmers, it was openly discussed. We would lament that the East German female swimmers won many competitions unfairly and posted many records which were there only because of drugs.
About your question. Yes, the doping was very "helpful" especially for women. Testosterone supplements make a woman's physique masculine in proportions and muscles. A boost for most men too, but not anywhere to the same degree as for the women.
Fuck me bro, story of Geipel is horrifying. You don't have to read dystopian novels when there is real life stories of people like her.
When I was a kid watching the 1980 Moscow Olympics, my Father joked that the GDR female athlete looked like men. I letter learn't why.
Could you please do a video on the American singer Dean Reed.
What a horrific story. I don't care about the sanctity of sport, but putting these young athletes in such danger for their health is appalling.
I know lots of countries have a culture of abusing children as part of sports training, but this seems particularly nasty.
A fine video as always Olaf! Looking forward to when your channel gets the recognition it deserves!
I would really like it if you made a video about Helmut Borufka, the former head of the NVA. His story is really interesting, as we wasn't ethnic German but Czech as his hometown was absorbed into the Sudetenland and forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht. There is almost nothing on him in English. I also have another idea, could you do an analysis of the Kampfgruppen der Abrbeitsklasse? Their organization fascinates me.
Great stuff, Olaf!
I would also highly recommend the book "The Race Against the Stasi: The Incredible Story of Dieter Wiedemann, the Iron Curtain and the Greatest Cycling Race on Earth" by Herbie Sykes to everyone who is interested in this topic.
Thanks for the recommendation!! I’m following your instagram page and I was really positively surprised to see your comment on this channel.
Hey, I love your stamp videos. Keep up with the great content!
Thanks for this.
Wow - another excellently researched and presented video! Really interesting material.
Don’t know if anyone has mentioned it yet but the opening intro tune is mixed extremely well from an audio engineering perspective. Fits the feel of the channel very very well.
Nope, I’m pretty sure just you but I have thought highly of this channel’s production from the time I discovered it. 🇬🇧📚⚓️
Another great video Olaf!
I think the thing that comes across is not the doping itself, but the lack of consent - how can a 10 year old child possibly give any informed consent to that? That's a terrible thing to have done...
Another excellent and interesting video, thanks. I'd love to see the justice system in the GDR covered as a topic maybe?
Turinabol is an incredible compound. Serious muscle gain, delts and traps just blow up, hip flexors too, improves endurance, no aromatization, and the pumps and muscle contractions on it are insane. Thank you, JenaPharm - you really knocked it out of the park with this one!
Hopefully your nuts don't turn into raisins.
So that's why they rotate so quickly and each new starlet is better than the previous one. Makes sense! Poor girls. In our country such things happen usually in ice skating scene. It turned into a kind of showbiz, like what Korea does with its singers.
The implication and darkness of the statement from a coach to a pre/teen athlete of "Oh you aren't having enough sex" likely hints at the widespread, further 'assistance' those children were offered by their coaches.
They made those girls pregnant because it liberated some hormones, then they had to abort.
It's a widespread phenomenon among sports coaches today, and if the east german government will look the other way about doping it shouldn't be surprising it also ignored other abuses.
Excellent presentation, thank you.
Thanks again for the new great video!
Dope video!
Excelent, interesting and unique...as always.
Thank you so much for your content. Greetings from Chile!
nice presentation with lots of interesting inside information.thank you
Wild that East Germany was so poor at football, you'd have thought they would have done better
Soccer*
@@FlopFan69 Football in Germany and the rest of the world, Soccer in North America - so that it's clear to everyone.
Even today there’s still a massive East-West divide in the domestic leagues. What happens when the Stasi own the biggest club in the nation.
The women should have shaved their armpits 🤢
It would have been more hydrodynamic
@@FlopFan69football 🙄
The legacy of this was long in road cycling, with Ullrich and other DDR compatriots emerging together under Team Telekom (in the white and pink of Deutsche Telekom, later T-Mobile). Eventually Ullrich admitted to having been doping since his first professional year with Telekom in 1995, eventually being caught by Operación Puerto as a client of Dr Fuentes. Erik Zabel and Andreas Klöden were also doping within Team Telekom at the same time, along with West German Udo Bölts.
introducing a forign object/substance into someones body without their consent is at the very least adjacent to assult
one can not consent if one is being purposefully misinformed
Billions of people around the world have been assaulted and misinformed since 2020 and 2021.
Again an interesting, good and well done video - thank you
It wasn't secret. East Germany didn't admit it, but everyone knew. There were even funny beer ads in the United States the hinged on it. Here's a classic from the 1980s:
czcams.com/video/YoqWiJyb9Cs/video.html
Thanks for the link. Hilarious
Agreed. It was more like an open secret. Even as early as 1984 in Val Kilmer’s movie Top Secret, the “women” athletes were openly mocking them. 😂
czcams.com/video/YNYeEDpOEM8/video.html
Yet another glaring failure of communism.
That Miller Lite commercial with Joe Piscapo was really funny.
The Bud Lite tranny promotion with Dylan Mulvany, not funny.
Another very interesting video. Many Thanks
Another great video!
Needless to say that this was again a very interesting episode of EGI. Many thanks for that!!
I feel the urge now to go revisit Quedlinburg.
Very interesting topic and very well researched as usual!
Absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much for this.
This video needs to be seen by millions of Britons.
Just wanted to say I picked up the book about Interflug that you recommended and it was very entertaining! I'll be checking this book out too
Awesome! Loved it
By the time of the Montreal Olympics in 1976, the doping by the GDR was widely known. Famous quote concerning the low voices of his female athletes from the GDR trainer: "We didn't come for singing". "Beim Olympia in Montreal fielen die Möbelpacker-Kreuze und tiefen Stimmen der DDR-Olympiasiegerinnen besonders auf. DDR-Trainer Rolf Gläser dazu: »Die sind doch nicht zum Singen hier.«" Spiegel, 1977.
Quality as usual, Olaf!
Sad subject but one of your best reports yet. Mach weiter so!
Great video. I just ordered the book
excellent video
Another great video, thank you!
Growing up in Magdeburg in the 1970's and 80's I don't remember the sad story about Jörg Sievers - I guess is was kept very much hidden. As a schoolboy, I was quite good at swimming and remember taking part in competitions but obviously not quite to the same level. Jörg most likely trained in the 'Elbeschwimmhalle' and this is where I completed a course to be a lifeguard. That pool is still there today, you can look it up on Wikipedia.
I'm looking forward to the next mention of my home town on your channel😀
Thanks for your post!
Visiting Magdeburg would be interesting.
Let me know if you need any info😀 I'm living in Ireland now but go back there at least once a year to visit family.
The "Gedenkstätte Moritzplatz Magdeburg" is probably very interesting.
@@mgunther68 If you like, please drop me an email, so that I can contact you directly.
I just found your channel. With channels like yours, I worry sometimes that they really just exist to glorify the autocratic regime they discuss. It is really cool to see a video of yours that is critical of East Germany. I am glad I am subscribed.
They gave Shirley Babashoff such a hard time for complaining about this at the 1976 games in Montreal. Turns out her suspicions were absolutely correct.
13:04 Respect and best wishes to Ines Geipol . 💙😎🙏🇬🇧
16:52 did anyone find it suspicious that a medium sized European country where doping was legal was doing so well in the Olympics ?
Like seriously imagine if in Slovakia doping was legal and started doing extremely well in the Olympics
It would be pretty obvious
Thank you. Hope you are well.
How is it for your morale, that to look in any direction for your research, there is much sadness and injustice waiting to be discovered?
Interesting, fascinating, saddening and not surprising. Great to see some gave back their medals, but I fully understand that some wouldn’t return them, one can’t blame all for the crimes one can only prove in several cases.
Is there history behind the "Fernsehturm" (Berlin Tv Tower)?
Its how they put the emphasis on sport & culture.
Its how they didnt want to lose but show the best...
"The East German 'women...'"
--- Kent Brockman, The Simpsons.
The East German olympic team was glorious!
Modern althletes have the advantage of nutrition, modern healthcare, and sanitation. Sports just entertainment. Doping s hi ould be allowed.
A Wartburg is just a Trabant on steroids
Doping polities were very common procedure in Germany overall. For example let's not forget doping the Wermacht troops during WW2 or the totally drogued Mannschaft during the World Cup of 1954.
16:53 Classic case of having cake and eating it too.
Best drug i ever took, so thankful for the gdr
My man got his ears lowered
On CZcams there are many interesting documentaries, mostly in German, with eye witnesses. In the series Weissensee the theme of doping on a young boy is part of the story.
And Russia still does it today, years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, albeit a little less regimented than in the past. Fascinating video. 👍
How would you even know that? Or are you simply projecting, being an ukor-lover and all that?
@@Malvictis Systemic Russian sports doping has been going on long before the 2014 invasion. Literally no one doesnt know that.
Have you been living in a cave? There are mountains of evidence and the subject has been extensively covered since the ludicrous Winter Olympics in 2014. The 2017 Netflix documentary film Icarus covers it in pretty gobsmacking detail.
Sweetheart, state supported dopping program existed everywhere.
Pumping children with drugs will have massive long term effects.
I can recommend Dark Mermaid by Anne Lauppe Dunbar for an exploration of the doping system through fiction
0:39: 💉 State-supported doping program in former East Germany was highly structured, secretive, and involved the Stasi.
3:24: 💊 Covert administration of performance-enhancing substances to athletes in East Germany.
7:06: 💉 Health consequences and deaths due to doping in East Germany's athletes and their children.
11:00: ⚠ Devastating effects of secret doping on East German athletes, leading to health issues and identity struggles.
14:04: 💉 Revelations of widespread doping experimentation on East German athletes during the sixties.
18:10: ⚖ Legal consequences and support for victims of GDR doping, including compensation and new laws.
21:26: ⚖ Not all GDR athletes were involved in doping, as lack of evidence suggests innocence.
Recap by Tammy AI
Despite the humour around the issue of female doping with testosterone (see the film 'Top secret!') it is really tragic, several of these athletes suffered horrifically. And some underwent doping and still didn't make the cut - so were dumped out of the programme without any post 'treatment' care.
In Romania we even had some "politically incorrect" jokes about Est German swimmers.
Yeah, Est Germans were notorious for dropping in the socialist world.
It's a shame that none of those involved never saw prison. They should have been sentenced for their crimes for destroying the lives of the athletics.
pobres atletas despues quedaron discapacitados
Well, the 1972 Olympics didn't turn out much better for any other swimmers in the world because Mark Spitz won 7 gold medals - all in world record times.
It's a bit comical too how they mention giving back trophies and the bicycle racing comes up. If I recall correctly, the Tour de France had to go pretty deep in the fields until they found someone clean enough to accept the relinquished First-Place awards!!
👏👍🙂🇸🇪
Fascinating story. The DDR had a win-at-all-costs mentality with little thought for the welfare of the athletes. Not surprised to hear that Katarina Witt was subject to constant surveillance-that was also the norm for hockey players in Eastern Europe. (Still, what a beautiful and talented woman!) This is a great channel and I look forward to learning more about the DDR.
based! the pharmaceutical industry should contribute to the physical betterment of the people
Drugs are bad period
Ask your doctor if cancer is right for you.
@@TheBadCivilServant I Will be real honest. I am waiting to get a terminal illness. My Health is in a process of decay. My Heart can drop in one jump scare. I can easily faint. So close to a Annourism. My Brain cells are dying.
Maybe in Five months I will have Peace. I hope. As each day is agony for me.
@@TheBadCivilServant Keep in mind. Someone had to do what what to be done my friend.
This guy looks high all the time
He’s Dutch.
is there a scrupulous way to dope?
I'm only 3 minutes in and have already heard four, 8-syllable German words. In German it seems the number of syllables is directly proportional to level of sinister activity.
"Farfegnugen" is as far as I can get in German.
Or not so secret looking at the average ladies East German Shot-Putter in the 1970s… 😂😂😂😂
what about american barry bonds, lance amstrong etc.
What about them . This was state sanctioned not comparable .
I would say that the difference was they knew what they were doing. In the GDR the people were given excuses and the truth hidden. As the end of the video says, doping still goes on today.
The oddest situation was someone who had been caught doping was then banned by the UK Athletics for life, and yet still managed to get that ban over turned by Court order, sadly.
Exception rather the rule. Once it was learned they were doped, they were stripped of their records. Bonds won’t make the hall of fame. Armstrong and Bonds brought disgrace to their respective sport and themselves.
Yeah, “what about”? Plenty of films about them too, you know. This is about doping in the GDR.
Interesting topic
I cannot stop asking myself if this country was in advance in matter of sport
I have the feeling that all countries use more or less a doping system
Was it a secret tho? Women's athletes having rather masculine facial features and body
Sorry for whom still have nostalgic feelings for that failed state, happy to live in a united Deutchland, poor athletes.
I have nostalgia and i agree...
Thank you for this video. Concerning the judicial process against the state personnel who had devised and approved of state level doping, I find it interesting how history sometimes may repeat itself. After WW2, it was a real challenge to hold Third Reich medical personnel responsible in the Nuremberg Ärzteprozess. Those physicians claimed, too, that they had been acting upon orders, but in any case, the modern requirement of informed consent wasn't codified yet.
Not sure I like the implication that Andreas Krieger deciding to live as a man was a direct consequence of the doping regime (let alone a shocking, negative outcome). He himself says gender dysphoria started before the doping, is currently happy to be a man. He's most certainly still a victim though, no argument there.
If anything there's a chance the physical changes from the doping clued him in more
I second that thought, though it's probably more complex than that and in my opinion the video would have needed to allocate more time to Krieger's case to do it justice. In a New York Times article you get the sense that Krieger definitely links the doping to his gender transition, although he also says he already experienced gender dysphoria beforehand and that more than anything, the doping regime took that choice from him. The article is from 2004, so not all of it is great, but here are some quotes in chronological order of the article:
The taking of pills and injections of anabolic steroids created virile features and heightened confusion about an already uncertain sexual identity, Krieger said, influencing a decision to have a sex-change operation in 1997 and to become known legally as Andreas.
''They killed Heidi,'' Krieger said. [...]
He is glad that he became a man, Krieger said, explaining that Heidi felt out of place and longed in some vague way to be a boy. What makes Krieger angry, Krause said, is a belief that the steroids essentially made the decision for Heidi, leaving her unable to sort out her sexual identity on her own. [...]
[A]fter reunification, Heidi began to experience a deepening sense of dislocation, despair and ambiguity about her sexual identity. She never had a relationship with a man. She did have relationships with two women, but did not consider herself a lesbian, Krieger said. [...]
'I didn't have control,'' Krieger said. ''I couldn't find out for myself which sex I wanted to be.'' [...]
Ewald and Höppner were both convicted of accessory to the intentional bodily harm of athletes and were given probation. Upon testifying, Andreas said he lost his fear of the two men. And he got some confirmation of his beliefs from the verdicts.
''The words used in court were that the giving of relatively high doses of Oral-Turinabol to a girl around puberty has significantly contributed to development into transsexuality,'' said Franke, the molecular biologist whose research into the East German doping system formed the basis of the criminal prosecutions.
Although the complex decision to have a sex change could not precisely be connected to steroids, the psychologist Ungerleider said, ''Emotional fallout from high levels of testosterone can make people unsure who they are.''
Communists and drugs... Say no more. .... Surprising that Washington DC gave them so much help.
if an athlete didn't consent or know they were being doped it shouldn't count against them or their achievements as they did nothing wrong, wrong was done to them
So under communism the individual is absolutely nothing.
Vampires suck
Kamala blows.
@@TheBadCivilServant Joe Biden does not know how to run the Country. I was a part of the Alliance Party and am currently a Jim crow supporting Democrat!
Now the cheating is done by fellas pretending not to be fellas.
Yup. And now doping kids with hormones and surgery is OK to some sickos.
In today's military, "fruit salad" has taken on a whole new meaning
Another East Germany bashing Video? Why dont you admit that the WHOLE SYSTEM of "Breitensport" in East Germany was much better organized than in the west? Same with the education system- The East German education system was so good that scandinavian countries copied it. First do your homework before you try to bas the east!
Cope harder, tankie.
Thank you for your reaction. At the end of the video (23:29) I make a point about this. Also Joseph Tudor confirms that the system was unique and mentions some examples.
Yeah, East Germany was such a glorious paradise that hundreds of people died trying to get across the wall and thousands more "disappeared."
Bla-bla-bla… it’s so easy to judge the GDR in every single… I am absolutely sure that each and every every country (of course including the US) was involved in this
You don’t know what you’re talking about
US also had a government-led doping program.
Funny comment. 🤡🤡
Yes, it’s very easy to judge the GDR and every other failed communist experiment.
Yeah, all those people being improsoned or killed trying to flee the United States every year. Heartbreaking, isn't it?
This channel is pure whining
Get over it
This stuff happened. Deal with it.
I would really like it if you made a video about Helmut Borufka, the former head of the NVA. His story is really interesting, as we wasn't ethnic German but Czech as his hometown was absorbed into the Sudetenland and forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht. There is almost nothing on him in English. I also have another idea, could you do an analysis of the Kampfgruppen der Abrbeitsklasse? Their organization fascinates me.