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They blitzed the Olympics and smashed world records. But East Germany's sporting prodigies were powered by drugs. Now they regard themselves as forgotten victims - and they want someone to pay. By Luke Harding in Berlin.
Rica Reinisch was just 14 when her swimming coach approached her one day after training and gave her a blue pill. The year was 1979. Reinisch, a swimming prodigy, had already spent four years at an elite sports school in the East German city of Dresden. "My coach came up to me and gave me a tablet," Reinisch says. "He told me: ‘Take it. It's good for you. It will make your body regenerate more quickly.' He made it sound as if it were completely normal."
Just before the 1980 Moscow Olympics the tablets stopped. "It was madness," she says. "But at the time I put my improved performance down to all the hard training. I was, after all, spending seven or eight hours a day in the pool."
The 15-year-old swimmer was one of the games' sensations - winning three gold medals and setting three new backstroke world records, including an astonishing 1 minutes 00.86 seconds for the 100 metres. The next year she set three European records. In 1982, however, Reinisch collapsed at a training camp in the Ukraine, suffering from inflamed ovaries. She was flown back to her training base in Dresden by helicopter.
"I went to see the doctor. He seemed distressed. He told me simply that I should give up top-level sport. My parents were speechless."
Reinisch is one of the forgotten victims. For three decades, East Germans ran, swam and shot-putted their way to glory, winning Olympic gold medals, setting world records and - so it seemed at the time - demonstrating the superiority of communism. But this month the human cost of East Germany's extraordinary sporting success will be laid bare in a courtroom in Hamburg.
About 190 East German competitors are launching a case against the German pharmaceutical giant Jenapharm. They claim that the East German firm knowingly supplied the steroids that were given to them by trainers and coaches from the 1960s onwards until East Germany's demise in 1989. Jenapharm, now owned by Schering, argues it was not responsible for the doping scandal and blames the communist system.
Last month, meanwhile, Germany's athletics federation announced that it was checking 22 national records set by East German athletes. The investigation came after Ines Geipel, a member of the recordholding East German women's 4x100 metres relay team, asked for her record from 1984 to be struck off. She revealed she had been doped. In a separate case another former East German swimmer, Karin Konig, is suing the German Olympic committee for damages. Konig claims that she was also a victim of doping between 1982 and 1987.
This state-sponsored doping regime played a decisive role in the dazzling success of East German athletes in international competitions - most notably at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and the 1980 Moscow games. But it also left a terrible legacy, the athletes' lawyers argue.
The victims all received Oral-Turinabol, an anabolic steroid containing testosterone made by Jenapharm. The "blue bean" had astonishing powers - accelerating muscle build-up and boosting recovery times - but its subsequent side-effects were catastrophic: infertility among women, embarrassing hair growth, breast cancer, heart problems and testicular cancer. An estimated 800 athletes developed serious ailments.
The most public face of the doping scandal is Andreas Krieger, a shot-putter who took so many male hormones she decided to have a sex change.
Reinisch, one of the few other victims to have spoken publicly about her plight, says: "The worst thing was that I didn't know I was being doped. I was lied to and deceived. Whenever I asked my coach what the tablets were I was told they were vitamins and preparations."
She decided to retire at 16. It was only after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that Reinisch discovered what she believed to be the whole truth: that her coach, Uwe Neumann, had been supplying her with Oral-Turinabol, manufactured by Jenapharm. Records compiled by the Stasi, East Germany's secret police, later revealed how much the drugs had boosted her performance - 6.5 per cent. The East German sports authorities halted the supply of steroids just before the Moscow Olympics, the documents showed, so that Reinisch and others members of the team all passed doping tests. "I was an immense swimming talent," Reinisch says. "They robbed me of a chance to win the gold medal without drugs."
Neumann says: "As far as I know Rica Reinisch has two children … the case has been dealt with years earlier in the courts." Asked whether he gave her Oral-Turinabol he replied: "I don't want to comment on this."
Unlike other women victims, Reinisch's premature retirement meant she has been able to lead a relatively normal life but she has also suffered from several health problems: two stillbirths and an irregular heart condition that prevents her from doing any serious sport. Now aged 40, she works as a TV sports presenter and lives in the former West Germany.
She says that she is not interested in getting money from Jenapharm. She and the other victims of the doping scandal, merely want an apology, she says. "It's absurd for Jenapharm to try and wriggle out of this."
According to Prof Dr Werner Franke, a microbiologist who exposed the doping scandal after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany's secret police kept meticulous records of the impact the drugs had on performance. A top-secret sporting medical committee including members of the Parteiburo, East Germany's communist leadership body, met to decide which members of the national squad were to be given the drugs. The aim was to show the superiority of the communist regime to its capitalist neighbour West Germany.
The strategy worked. In the 1972 Munich Olympics, East Germany - a country of 17 million - reached the top three in the medals table with the US and the Soviet Union. Four years later, East German women won 11 of the 13 swimming events.
Franke contends that scientists from Jenapharm attended these secret committee meetings. He claims documents also suggest that Jenapharm scientists collaborated with the Stasi in an informal capacity. "There was no medical reason to give steroids. It was against the law of the German Democratic Republic. It was against medical ethics," Franke says. "Everybody knew these drugs were not allowed. The people who participated in this clandestine operation knew that they would lose privileges if they refused to take part.
"But they also knew they wouldn't be executed. Some of the arguments now resemble those brought forward in the Third Reich. Those involved disapproved of what they were doing. They knew it was wrong. But they also knew it was a matter of national prestige, and was good for their careers. The Jesuits have a saying: ‘For the greater glory of God.' This is what happened here."
Whereas Germany has an exemplary record in the way it has dealt with its Nazi past, much of what happened during communist East Germany has been swept under the carpet - in the apparent interests of national reconciliation. In the late 1990s criminal cases were brought against Manfred Ewald, the former East German team doctor, and Dr Manfred Hoppner, a former team medical consultant. They were given suspended sentences.
Schering, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, has so far refused to pay any compensation. Isabelle Rothe, Jenapharm's chief executive, says she can give only some general background in advance of the trial, but she says she has "sympathy" with the victims of the doping scandal, and admits that many of them were "under age" when they were given the steroids.
"I'm convinced that the claims for damages against Jenapharm are not justified," she says. "After everything we now know the company was not involved in concrete doping or training plans. This is also true of doping experiments on athletes." She called for further research, saying it would reveal previously unknown aspects of the case. It is not clear yet whether the firm will cave in when both sides meet this month for an arbitration hearing or tough out the inevitable bad publicity and fight the case.
Lawyers for the victims are hoping for up to $19 million in compensation, with most of the money going to former competitors whose lives have been ruined. Germany's parliament has already given $17,000 each.
Intriguingly, some of the world records set by East German athletes while using Oral-Turinabol have not been bettered.
Rica Reinisch was just 14 when her swimming coach approached her one day after training and gave her a blue pill. The year was 1979. Reinisch, a swimming prodigy, had already spent four years at an elite sports school in the East German city of Dresden. "My coach came up to me and gave me a tablet," Reinisch says. "He told me: ‘Take it. It's good for you. It will make your body regenerate more quickly.' He made it sound as if it were completely normal."
Just before the 1980 Moscow Olympics the tablets stopped. "It was madness," she says. "But at the time I put my improved performance down to all the hard training. I was, after all, spending seven or eight hours a day in the pool."
The 15-year-old swimmer was one of the games' sensations - winning three gold medals and setting three new backstroke world records, including an astonishing 1 minutes 00.86 seconds for the 100 metres. The next year she set three European records. In 1982, however, Reinisch collapsed at a training camp in the Ukraine, suffering from inflamed ovaries. She was flown back to her training base in Dresden by helicopter.
"I went to see the doctor. He seemed distressed. He told me simply that I should give up top-level sport. My parents were speechless."
Reinisch is one of the forgotten victims. For three decades, East Germans ran, swam and shot-putted their way to glory, winning Olympic gold medals, setting world records and - so it seemed at the time - demonstrating the superiority of communism. But this month the human cost of East Germany's extraordinary sporting success will be laid bare in a courtroom in Hamburg.
About 190 East German competitors are launching a case against the German pharmaceutical giant Jenapharm. They claim that the East German firm knowingly supplied the steroids that were given to them by trainers and coaches from the 1960s onwards until East Germany's demise in 1989. Jenapharm, now owned by Schering, argues it was not responsible for the doping scandal and blames the communist system.
Last month, meanwhile, Germany's athletics federation announced that it was checking 22 national records set by East German athletes. The investigation came after Ines Geipel, a member of the recordholding East German women's 4x100 metres relay team, asked for her record from 1984 to be struck off. She revealed she had been doped. In a separate case another former East German swimmer, Karin Konig, is suing the German Olympic committee for damages. Konig claims that she was also a victim of doping between 1982 and 1987.
This state-sponsored doping regime played a decisive role in the dazzling success of East German athletes in international competitions - most notably at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and the 1980 Moscow games. But it also left a terrible legacy, the athletes' lawyers argue.
The victims all received Oral-Turinabol, an anabolic steroid containing testosterone made by Jenapharm. The "blue bean" had astonishing powers - accelerating muscle build-up and boosting recovery times - but its subsequent side-effects were catastrophic: infertility among women, embarrassing hair growth, breast cancer, heart problems and testicular cancer. An estimated 800 athletes developed serious ailments.
The most public face of the doping scandal is Andreas Krieger, a shot-putter who took so many male hormones she decided to have a sex change.
Reinisch, one of the few other victims to have spoken publicly about her plight, says: "The worst thing was that I didn't know I was being doped. I was lied to and deceived. Whenever I asked my coach what the tablets were I was told they were vitamins and preparations."
She decided to retire at 16. It was only after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that Reinisch discovered what she believed to be the whole truth: that her coach, Uwe Neumann, had been supplying her with Oral-Turinabol, manufactured by Jenapharm. Records compiled by the Stasi, East Germany's secret police, later revealed how much the drugs had boosted her performance - 6.5 per cent. The East German sports authorities halted the supply of steroids just before the Moscow Olympics, the documents showed, so that Reinisch and others members of the team all passed doping tests. "I was an immense swimming talent," Reinisch says. "They robbed me of a chance to win the gold medal without drugs."
Neumann says: "As far as I know Rica Reinisch has two children … the case has been dealt with years earlier in the courts." Asked whether he gave her Oral-Turinabol he replied: "I don't want to comment on this."
Unlike other women victims, Reinisch's premature retirement meant she has been able to lead a relatively normal life but she has also suffered from several health problems: two stillbirths and an irregular heart condition that prevents her from doing any serious sport. Now aged 40, she works as a TV sports presenter and lives in the former West Germany.
She says that she is not interested in getting money from Jenapharm. She and the other victims of the doping scandal, merely want an apology, she says. "It's absurd for Jenapharm to try and wriggle out of this."
According to Prof Dr Werner Franke, a microbiologist who exposed the doping scandal after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany's secret police kept meticulous records of the impact the drugs had on performance. A top-secret sporting medical committee including members of the Parteiburo, East Germany's communist leadership body, met to decide which members of the national squad were to be given the drugs. The aim was to show the superiority of the communist regime to its capitalist neighbour West Germany.
The strategy worked. In the 1972 Munich Olympics, East Germany - a country of 17 million - reached the top three in the medals table with the US and the Soviet Union. Four years later, East German women won 11 of the 13 swimming events.
Franke contends that scientists from Jenapharm attended these secret committee meetings. He claims documents also suggest that Jenapharm scientists collaborated with the Stasi in an informal capacity. "There was no medical reason to give steroids. It was against the law of the German Democratic Republic. It was against medical ethics," Franke says. "Everybody knew these drugs were not allowed. The people who participated in this clandestine operation knew that they would lose privileges if they refused to take part.
"But they also knew they wouldn't be executed. Some of the arguments now resemble those brought forward in the Third Reich. Those involved disapproved of what they were doing. They knew it was wrong. But they also knew it was a matter of national prestige, and was good for their careers. The Jesuits have a saying: ‘For the greater glory of God.' This is what happened here."
Whereas Germany has an exemplary record in the way it has dealt with its Nazi past, much of what happened during communist East Germany has been swept under the carpet - in the apparent interests of national reconciliation. In the late 1990s criminal cases were brought against Manfred Ewald, the former East German team doctor, and Dr Manfred Hoppner, a former team medical consultant. They were given suspended sentences.
Schering, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, has so far refused to pay any compensation. Isabelle Rothe, Jenapharm's chief executive, says she can give only some general background in advance of the trial, but she says she has "sympathy" with the victims of the doping scandal, and admits that many of them were "under age" when they were given the steroids.
"I'm convinced that the claims for damages against Jenapharm are not justified," she says. "After everything we now know the company was not involved in concrete doping or training plans. This is also true of doping experiments on athletes." She called for further research, saying it would reveal previously unknown aspects of the case. It is not clear yet whether the firm will cave in when both sides meet this month for an arbitration hearing or tough out the inevitable bad publicity and fight the case.
Lawyers for the victims are hoping for up to $19 million in compensation, with most of the money going to former competitors whose lives have been ruined. Germany's parliament has already given $17,000 each.
Intriguingly, some of the world records set by East German athletes while using Oral-Turinabol have not been bettered.
