Athletes
from Germany
(GER) have appeared in 22 of the 26 Summer Olympic Games, having
competed in all Games except those of 1920, 1924 and 1948, when
they were not permitted to do so. Germany has hosted the
Summer Olympic Games twice; the 1936 Games in Berlin
, and the
1972 Games in Munich
.
The nation appeared 12 times as a single country (IOC code GER),
before
World War II and again after
German reunification in 1990.
Three times, from 1956 to 1964, German athletes from the separate
states in West and East competed as a
United Team of Germany, which is
currently listed by the IOC as EUA, not GER.
Due to partition under occupation that resulted in three post-war
German states, German athletes took part seven times for the
contemporary states in which they lived in 1952, and again from
1968 to 1988.
The all-time results of German athletes are
thus divided among the designations GER, EUA, FRG, GDR and SAA (the
Saarland
, which only
took part in the 1952 Summer Games and won no medals).
Timeline of Germany at the Summer Olympics
1896 - 1912
1896-1912
Germany
entered all Olympic Games starting in 1896, even though the
relations between the German Empire
under Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the French Third Republic where Pierre de Coubertin revived Olympic
games and held the 1900 Summer
Olympics, were strained following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.
The country's overall medal ranks varied from second through
seventh.
The worst result, seventh, occurred in the
1900 Paris Olympics. The German
gymnasts were judged no better than 53rd in
the single gymnastic
contest organized by the French, behind dozens of Frenchmen,
who occupied the first 18 places and thus won all three medals. In
contrast, the
Gymnastics at the 1896
Summer Olympics in Athens had seen eight contests, with Germans
scoring five gold, three silver and two bronze medals.
The anticipated
1916 Summer
Olympics, which were to be officially known as the Games of the
VI Olympiad, were to have been held in Germany's capital, Berlin.
At the outbreak of
World War I in 1914,
organization continued, as no one foresaw the war dragging on for
four years. Eventually, though, the games were canceled.
1920 - 1948
.svg/80px-Flag_of_Germany_(3-2_aspect_ratio).svg)
1928-1932
After
World War I, the German
Empire became a republic informally known as Weimar Republic
, a change which was reflected in a new flag of Germany that in fact was older than
the former one, dating back to early 19th century democratic
movements. In the
Paris Peace Conference, the
outbreak of the war was blamed on Germany and other
Central Powers allies. These nations, which
by now had new governments, were banned from the
1920 Summer Olympics. While all other
banned nations were invited again for the
1924 Summer Olympics, held for the
second time in
Pierre de
Coubertin's home town of Paris, the ban on Germany was not
lifted until 1925. This was likely related to French
Occupation of the Ruhr and the
Rheinland between 1923 and 1925.
After 16 years of absence, a new generation of German athletes
returned in the
1928 Summer
Olympics, scoring second overall. Four years later, the
worldwide Great Depression prevented many athletes from competing
in the
1932 Games in Los
Angeles. Winning only three gold medals, the German team was ranked
ninth, though it did finish tied in silver medals, with 12.
1936
In the spring of 1931 the
1936
Summer Olympics were awarded to Berlin, 20 years later than
originally planned. From 1933 onwards, the
Nazi Party ruled Germany, a change being marked
by the use of the Nazi flag. In the games, the 348 German athletes
not only outnumbered the 310 Americans, but outscored them for the
first time in the medal count in which Germany ranked first. Also,
German gymnasts
Konrad Frey and
Alfred Schwarzmann won the most medals,
with six and five in total, of which three each were gold, while
American
Jesse Owens had won four gold
medals himself.
Leni Riefenstahl
documented the games in the film
Olympia.
The
1940 Summer Olympics as
well as the
1944 Summer
Olympics were canceled due to
World War
II. For the
1948 Summer
Olympics, with the war a recent memory, Germany and Japan were
not invited.
Separate German teams 1952 - 1988
1952-1956
since 1972
A
United Team of Germany with
athletes from two states appeared three times at the Olympic games
from 1956 to 1964. The IOC currently does not attribute these
results to Germany (GER), but lists them separately as the
Equipe Unifiée Allemande (EUA).
In the
1952 Games, only athletes from
West
Germany
and the Saarland
took part. The former represented the Federal Republic
of Germany
(GER), which as the only independent democratic
state, covering the largest part of Germany, claimed exclusive mandate to represent the entire
country. Athletes from the Saarland (SAA) competed as a
separate team, as the French-occupied state would not join the
Federal Republic of Germany until 1955.
West Germany used the code GER at the Games from 1968 to 1976,
although its athletes' participation is now coded as FRG by the
IOC, a code introduced in 1980.
Athletes
from the Soviet-occupied German Democratic Republic
(GDR) appeared in a separate team after the United
Team effort was discontinued. In five Games, from 1968 to
1980 and again in 1988, they represented the GDR before the East
German states joined the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990, and
the GDR ceased to exist.
Since 1990, the enlarged Federal Republic of Germany has been
simply called Germany (GER). West Germany's six Olympic teams (from
1952, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1984 and 1988) are still listed by the IOC
under FRG, though, and not attributed to GER.
In the 1980s, each of the two states participated in one of the
multinational boycotts of Summer Games. Many
Western countries, including the Federal
Republic of Germany, boycotted the
Moscow Games of 1980 due to the
Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan the year before. In return, 14
Eastern Bloc states, including the GDR,
boycotted the
Los Angeles Games in
1984. Thus, only one German team was present in each of these two
Olympics.
FRG (West Germany)
The
Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), often called West Germany during the Cold
War, was founded in 1949 as the largest of the three German
states formed under occupation after the division of Germany
following World War II.
The West
German NOC continued the tradition of the German NOC that had
joined the IOC in 1895, and continued to represent the Germany that
was enlarged after the Saar
protectorate (SAA) joined the Federal Republic of Germany in
1956, and after the states of the former German
Democratic Republic (GDR) (East Germany
) had joined in the process of German reunification in
1990.
German teams competed in the
1952
Summer Olympics under the designations of GER and SAA. In the
Games of 1956, 1960 and 1964, German athletes competed as a
United Team of Germany (EUA),
but 1968 until the end of the Cold War, the two states sent
independent teams designated as West and East Germany, until the
separate East German state ceased to exist.
United Team of Germany 1956-1964
1960-1968
After
three German states had been founded in Germany under
occupation after World War II, athletes
from the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) competed together as the United Team of
Germany (EUA for , ) in the 1956, 1960, and 1964 Winter and Summer
Olympics.
Prior to that, German athletes from West Germany and the
French-occupied Saarland took part in the 1952 Summer Olympics
organized in different teams designated as GER and SAA. The
Saarland joined the Federal Republic after 1955, while the East
German authorities, which had not taken part in the 1952 Games,
agreed in 1956 to let their athletes compete in a united team that
used the black-red-gold
tricolour, but
with additional
Olympic rings in
white placed upon the red middle stripe, as East German politicians
were eager not to compete under the traditional
German flag used both by West Germany and
even themselves. Only in 1959, the GDR added socialist symbols to
create a distinct
Flag of East Germany.
As the use of the
Deutschlandlied, dating back to 1841
and 1797, of the recently created East German anthem, or of
possible combinations was also rejected, Beethoven's melody to
Schiller's
Ode an die Freude (
Ode to Joy) was played for winning German
athletes as a compromise in lieu of a
national anthem.
During the Games of 1956, 1960 and 1964 the traditional
abbreviation
GER for Germany was used, or rather
the equivalents in the language of the host country. In Innsbruck
in 1964, the Austrian officials used the
international license plate
code of D for
Deutschland (Germany) for the country.
The
IOC code currently
uses
EUA (from the official
French-language IOC designation,
Equipe
Unifiée Allemande) and applies this in hindsight for the
United German Team. No reasoning is given, it may be done to allow
for the political circumstances during the German divide between
1949 and 1990, and the involvement of two
National Olympic Committees
rather than only one.
Despite
initially calling for a "united Germany" in the East German anthem, the socialist
East German government intensified its separation in Germany, with
the erection of the Berlin
Wall
in August 1961 obstructing travel within Germany
even more. The travel of GDR athletes, such as to contests
and training sites in the
Alps, was limited due
to fear of
Republikflucht.
As a result of this development, from the
1968 Winter Olympics onward, German
athletes competed as separate West and East teams, while still
using the compromise flag and Beethoven anthem that year. The
French organizers of the Grenoble Games used the codes ALL
(
Allemagne, Germany) and ADE (
Allemagne de l'Est,
East Germany), which roughly correspond to the IOC codes of GER and
GDR.
1968-1988
The separation was completed at the
1972 Summer Olympics, when the two
countries used separate flags and anthems. This continued until the
German Reunification of 1990
caused East Germany to cease to exist.
Medal tables
Medals by Games
Medals by sport (as GER)
These totals do not include the one gold and one silver medal
won by Germany in figure skating at the
1908 Summer Olympics.
Medals by sport (GDR)
Medals by sport (as FRG)
Medals by sport (as EUA)
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