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United Team of Germany at the Olympics

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United Team of Germany at the
Olympics
"Olympic" Flag of Germany,
defaced with white Olympic rings,
used 1960, 1964 (and 1968 by separated teams)
IOC codeEUA
Summer appearances
Winter appearances
Other related appearances
 Germany (1896–1936, 1952, 1992–)
 Saar (1952)
 East Germany (1968–1988)
 West Germany (1968–1988)

The United Team of Germany (German: Gesamtdeutsche Mannschaft) competed in the 1956, 1960, and 1964 Winter and Summer Olympic Games as a united team of athletes from West Germany and East Germany. In 1956 the team also included athletes from a third Olympic body, the Saarland Olympic Committee, which had sent a separate team in 1952, but in 1956 was in the process of joining the German National Olympic Committee. This process was completed in February 1957 after the admission of Saarland into the Federal Republic of Germany.

History

As East Germany had introduced its own national anthem in 1949, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 melody to Schiller's Ode an die Freude ("Ode to Joy") was played for winning German athletes as a compromise. In 1959, East Germany also introduced an altered black-red-gold tricolour flag of Germany as the flag of East Germany. Thus, a compromise had to be made also for the flag of the unified sports team. It was agreed upon to superimpose the plain flag with additional white Olympic rings. This flag was used from 1960 to 1968.[citation needed]

At the Games of 1956, 1960, and 1964 the team was simply known as "Germany" and the usual country code of GER was used, except at Innsbruck in 1964, when the Austrian hosts used the German language "D" for Deutschland.[1] Yet, the IOC code EUA (from the official French-language International Olympic Committee (IOC) designation, Équipe Unifiée d'Allemagne) is currently applied retrospectively in the IOC medal database, without further explanation given. Only in 1976 did the IOC start to assign standardized codes. Before that time, the local Organizing Committees of each Olympic Games had chosen codes, often in the local language, resulting in a multitude of codes.

In the 1968 Winter Olympics, East and West German athletes competed as separate teams while still using the compromise Olympic flag and Beethoven anthem. While today listed under the IOC codes of FRG (West) and GDR (East), respectively, in 1968 they were asymmetrically called in French Allemagne (Germany) and Allemagne de l'Est (East Germany), and in Spanish Alemania and Alemania del Este. The codes for Germany (West) were ALL (in Grenoble) and ALE (in Mexico City), and ADE for East Germany.

The separation was completed at the 1972 Summer Olympics with the use of separate flags and anthems. Because of the boycotts of the 1980 and 1984 summer games, only in 1972, 1976, and 1988 did two different German teams with different symbols compete against each other at Summer Olympics (not counting the Saar team of 1952). The German Democratic Republic ceased to exist after 1989, when it joined the Federal Republic of Germany in the process of German reunification in 1990.

Medal tables

Medals by Summer Games

Games Athletes Gold Silver Bronze Total Rank
1956 Melbourne 158 6 13 7 26 7
1960 Rome 293 12 19 11 42 4
1964 Tokyo 337 10 22 18 50 4
Total 28 54 36 118

Medals by Winter Games

Games Athletes Gold Silver Bronze Total Rank
1956 Cortina d'Ampezzo 63 1 0 1 2 9
1960 Squaw Valley 74 4 3 1 8 2
1964 Innsbruck 96 3 3 3 9 6
Total 8 6 5 19

Medals by summer sport

Equestrian 5 5 4 14
Athletics 4 18 8 30
Canoeing 4 5 2 11
Rowing 4 4 1 9
Diving 3 1 0 4
Swimming 1 5 6 12
Wrestling 1 5 3 9
Cycling 1 4 2 7
Boxing 1 3 2 6
Fencing 1 1 2 4
Gymnastics 1 1 1 3
Sailing 1 1 1 3
Shooting 1 0 1 2
Judo 0 1 1 2
Field hockey 0 0 1 1
Football 0 0 1 1
Total 28 54 36 118

Medals by winter sport

Luge 2 2 1 5
Alpine skiing 2 1 2 5
Figure skating 1 2 0 3
Speed skating 1 1 0 2
Nordic combined 1 0 1 2
Ski jumping 1 0 1 2
Total 8 6 5 19

See also

References

  1. ^ Mallon, Bill; Ove Karlsson (May 2004). "IOC and OCOG Abbreviations for NOCs" (PDF). Journal of Olympic History. 12 (2): 25–28. Retrieved 2008-06-09.
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