In the middle of the Cold War, the GDR and FRG compete in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964 with a joint team.
Tokyo – in 1961 the GDR closed the border with western Germany, a year later the world was on the brink of nuclear war as part of the Cuba crisis – and yet in 1964, as in 1956 and 1960, the two German states were supposed to form a team for the Olympic Games send to Tokyo; In view of the events of the past few years, it’s actually unimaginable. Avery Brundage, President of the International Olympic Committee, hoped that sport would help to overcome the German-German conflicts; a pious wish, as history has shown.
What may seem like a footnote in sports history from today’s perspective, and especially for people under sixty, has left unforgettable memories on those involved. For most athletes, taking part in the Olympic Games is the culmination of their careers, but these were something special: Japan, according to the ARD documentary “Die Kaltenringen”, was as far away for Europeans back then as the moon is today.
“History in the First: The Cold Rings” (ARD): Athletes could not simply drive to the neighboring country
Even the elimination competitions were extremely unusual, because even the athletes could not simply drive to the neighboring country during this time of mutual boycott. In the NATO countries there was an entry ban for athletes from the GDR. The Cold War posed real organizational challenges for the sports associations in both countries. Some competitions therefore had to take place in Prague and Helsinki.
For documentation
“History in the First: The Cold Rings”, July 19, ARD, 11.50 p.m. or in the ARD media library.
Prestige was at least as important as the battle for airline tickets. Each Olympic delegation is headed by a “Chef de Mission”, and in this case that should be provided by the country that sent the majority of athletes to Japan; In the end, thanks to team sports, that was the GDR. Hurdler Karin Balzer remembers that she had to start an unscheduled hundred-meter run to snatch the ticket from her West German competitor. The former world record holder then won gold in her favorite discipline.
“History in the First: The Cold Rings” (ARD): West had no chance
In athletics, the winners of the individual competitions flew to Tokyo. In fencing and riding, the West clearly dominated. When it came to gymnastics for women, the matter was also clear: the honest performances of the young women from the west had no chance against the squad from the east who, like most of the members of the GDR’s Olympic team, trained under professional conditions. Walter Ulbricht, who was already a sports enthusiast, was not only a great fan of the sport, he also recognized early on how prestigious victories at world championships and the Olympic Games were. As in football today, youth performance centers should guarantee that no talent has been overlooked.
As in most documentaries of this kind, in the ARD documentary, however, it is above all the reports from contemporary witnesses, most of whom are over eighty years old, that this ARD film by René Wiese (book) and Thomas Grimm (book and director) is his most touching Owes moments. Some of the men and women have since died, including Balzer and decathlete Willi Holdorf, who also won a gold medal. With moving words he describes how Karin Balzer sprinted across the finish line very close to him during his own competition; He wasn’t allowed to congratulate her.
“Story in the First: The Cold Rings” (ARD): Contact forbidden
Contacts with the class enemy should be avoided at the behest of the SED; whoever was caught was threatened with expulsion. The swimming relay, for example, was mixed, but there was only joint training for the changes. All the more astonishing that the quartet won silver in the end; And all the better that friendships have been formed despite these adverse conditions. The East German soccer team defied the contact block anyway and got West German Adidas shoes; the famous three white stripes were simply blackened with shoe polish.
With the eighth Olympic Games, the first in Asia, in a sense, the modern age began in sport. Japan, devastatingly defeated by the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II less than twenty years earlier, invested a staggering sum of 2.8 billion dollars in the sports facilities, the Olympic village and the infrastructure. A state-of-the-art data center ensured that the journalists were immediately provided with all important data on the competitions that were recorded electronically for the first time.
Tokyo was considered one of the most modern cities in the world at that time; the athletes are still impressed today; especially when you think of the swimming pool, which for you was more like an opera. In addition to the contemporary film recordings, Grimm also presents some curious-looking finds on ARD: The headlines of the western press always mention the “Zone”, while the medals in the East German newspapers listed West Berlin separately because the class enemy was otherwise before the GDR would have. (Tilmann P. Gangloff)
