The doping of athletes in the former East Germany: A critical assessment of comparisons with Nazi medical experiments

Abstract

A number of prominent writers on the social history and policy of sports doping in the former East Germany have compared that system with the atrocities of Nazi medical experimentation. This article draws from a range of primary and secondary sources to discuss and challenge the Nazi comparison argument. We argue that while there were many cases of secretive abuse and experimentation that led to severe side-effects, there are also examples of athletes who knew what they were taking. Moreover, the doping administrators did not have complete control over how doctors and coaches implemented the system - it was not a closed, totalitarian system that denied individual agency. We further argue that when set in the wider context of crimes within the former GDR, sports does not register as the most serious. The comparison with Nazi Germany is an over-statement constructed by writers whose emphasis on traditional sporting ethics had led them to exaggerate their argument. As such, the discussion of individual experiences opens up dilemmas, contradictions, and the space for agency, that simplistic top-down sociological and political models have so far denied

(Un)Becoming a Fitness Doper: Negotiating the Meaning of Illicit Drug Use in a Gym and Fitness Context

“…Second , a process that also provides tools for controlling and supervising the health status of the body in transformation. Implicit in this process is also the gradual shifting of the individual’s perspective on doping, partly disconnecting it from arguments related to the legislative context and moralistic ideals, and connecting it to a scientific and medical discourse (Dimeo & Hunt, 2011).…”

Philosophical Perspectives on Doping Sanctions and Young Athletes

“…The sociohistorical literature that addresses youth and doping often returns to the experimental doping studies undertaken during the Cold War, which subjected a large but unknown number of young people to untested drugs, particularly anabolic androgenic steroids, to gain insight into how to enhance performance with drugs. In most cases, athletes did not consent to their inclusion in these experiments, and many faced longterm negative consequences from their forced participation (Dimeo and Hunt, 2012). While public opinion continues to associate the era of state sponsored systemic doping with the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), teenaged athletes from many countries were required to take part in similar experimental protocols (Franke and Berendonk, 1997).…”

Would Relaxation of the Anti-doping Rule Lead to Red Queen Effects?

“…Individual cases such as that of the death of Knud Enemark Jensen in the Rome Olympics of 1960 and that of Tom Simpson during the 1967 Tour de France are repeatedly cited as proof, even though the role of doping in their deaths remains unclear (López, 2013;Møller, 2005). Overall, there is no indication of excess morbidity or mortality among athletes in the heyday of doping with an exception for state-imposed doping of -especially femaleathletes with anabolic steroids in East-Germany (Dimeo & Hunt, 2012;Franke & Berendonk, 1997). In contrast, there is good evidence that longevity is better among former Olympians According to historian Lopez such anti-doping discourse is an example of fear mongering at the service of a social control and surveillance agenda.…”