The GDR sport system in the 1980s After the Second World War sport in the GDR was effectively restructured following a number of organisational changes. At the same time the significance of and the concentration on top-level competitive sports grew continuously. Typical of this development was the centralisation and politicisation of sport which, partly because it was anchored in the leading committees of the SED, made it a political force (Niese 1997:116). “Sport functioned as part of the system of domination in which the will of the party was imposed entirely” (Niese 1997:115). Whether the long arm of the state and the party had the same access to all areas and all levels and how much scope the players had for individual decision-making is a question which is currently the subject of intense debate (cf. the bibliography in Baur & Braun 2000). In foreign policy the goals were integrating the GDR into international sports bodies, gaining influence in sport politics and favourably representing the socialist system. There is no question today that the “diplomats in tracksuits” were expected to represent the system at home as well as abroad, offering something for people to identify with and furthering the cause of socialism in all possible ways (Erbach, 1996). The centralised control and management of sport through the SED, the state and the DTSB, as analysed by Baur, Spitzer and Telschow (1997) on the basis of systems theory, greatly contributed to the GDR’s success in competitive sports since, although the subsystem of sport had diversified, it was still embedded at the same time in the overall system as a result of counter-diversification processes and centralised supervision and control. Therefore, the sources of friction that were to be found in the West German sport system (where, for example, conflicts between sports training and school work had to be individually solved) did not exist in the GDR “officially”. On the other hand, concealed behind the seemingly monolithic structure of sport were numerous complex disputes and power struggles, for example between the DTSB, which fought for an increasing amount and range of training, and the Ministry of Education, which was not always willing to give in to these demands (see, for example, Fetzer 1999). Apart from competitive sport and its “basis”, i.e. the “sport of the younger generation”, as well as “pre-military and military exercising”, sport in the GDR was divided into two large categories: firstly, the “training, coaching and competition sector” at the sport-for-all (Breitensport) level and, secondly, “leisure and recreational physical activities” (Freizeit- und Erhoungssport), which were not attached to the traditional competition system.8) By providing recreational physical activities, the state endeavoured to motivate sections of the population that had so far abstained from physical activity to take up a sport and, in addition, to ensure continuity, regularity and achievement-orientation in sporting activities.9) Both sport-for-all and recreational physical activities were run by the sports groups (SG – Sportgemeinschaften) of companies or state institutions while elite sports were in the hands of children’s and youth sport schools and sports clubs.10) In the 1980s there were around 30 of these sport clubs in the GDR, in which roughly 11,000 athletes were supervised by about 1,900 coaches. They were the breeding grounds for the GDR’s elite sports and athletes were only admitted to them after a lengthy selection process, intensive training and fulfilment of the required standards of athletic performance. Because of their links with funding organisations the sports groups had access to a great many resources with regard to equipment and staff. As a number of case studies have revealed, the affiliation of sports to the workplace had numerous other effects: it amalgamated the work sphere with people’s private lives, it forged bonds between groups of workers and it helped, among other things, to make ‘work brigades’ seem like closed societies or brotherhoods. The centre of the GDR sport system was unquestionably occupied by top-level competitive sport, and even sport for all and physical education at school were dominated by traditional sport disciplines as well as competitive sports. Physical activities which combined different sports, which were oriented to a target group and in which the focus was on recreation and having fun were of minor importance in comparison. Sport was more or less synonymous with achievement (Baur, Spitzer & Telschow, 1997). In spite of its regulatory nature and its centralised and hierarchic structures, the GDR’s state-controlled sport system left a small amount of scope for interpreting, redefining and using state directives to suit one’s own purposes. Especially recreational and leisure physical activities provided opportunities for individual patterns of interpretation: caught up between authoritarian rule and everyday life and between being instrumentalised and existing in a world of their own, they proved to be a way “of being able to circumvent sporting practice and the formal structures if organised sport” (Hinsching 1998:29). Numerous questions concerning women’s sport are raised by this brief account of the development of sport in the GDR. What effects did the objectives and the organisation of sport have on women and their participation in sporting activities? Did the affiliation of sport for all to the workplace mean that women were given the choice of a wide range of attractive sports? How great were the obstacles for women desiring access to sports? How was it possible to combine sporting activities with the multiple duties expected of women mentioned above? How were the gender arrangements and hierarchies in the organizations and institutions? Here I try to answer the question how women could and did influence the sport system and the sport activities in the GDR.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 12:56:32 +0000