How doping scandal changed face of German sport forever

Dubai: It happened quite by accident in 1990, a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Germany had officially completed its formal process of reunification.

The jaw-dropping breakthroughs and aftermath that followed blew the lid on history’s most closely guarded, state-sponsored scientific sports doping programme in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), which was conducted in a clandestine manner, to win international recognition and endorse the philosophy of communism as a superior ideology.

Dr Warner Franke, a German molecular biologist and then President of the European Cell of Biologists, is the man credited with exposing this state-sponsored project.

Franke quite literally stumbled upon a set of highly classified documents locked securely in a room.

His observations and methods of decoding experiments not only exposed a carefully constructed series of criminal acts perpetrated by East German politicians, coaches and doctors, but he also saved the lives of many athletes who had been subjected to the most inhuman scientific tests — which included the process of injecting androgenic steroids that could bring about sex changes in an individual — and who are now seeking recourse through legal means.

“My colleagues and me had been asked to evaluate the institute of the academy of sciences of the former GDR,” said Franke, speaking to Gulf News in a telephone interview from his office at the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg.

“They [East German officials] didn’t have too many personnel, but they wanted to achieve a certain set of standards through benchmarking in the field so I was assigned to help them. In the course of my daily tasks I noticed one day that a number of documents which were labelled ‘top secret’ had not been destroyed. They were not shredded, so to speak.

“In those days, the shredder machines were running ‘hot’ thanks to former East German administrators and members of the secret police, Stasi, destroying all documentary evidence that could incriminate them to crimes, or human rights abuses. I noticed that there was one place — Badsaarow, a spa town 50km east of Berlin — where documents, put together at PhD and MD stages, were largely untouched.

“Badsaarow was a prominent town — the central hospital — Military Medical Academy — of the National People’s Army was set up there. The thesis were lying in a locked room. My curiosity got the better of me. Since I was a scientist I got the allowance to study the materials. I managed to get the thesis out and realised that the documentations in it pertained to the effects of doping substances in relation to increase in performance. This essentially was the basis of the state-sponsored doping project funded by the GDR. My wife Brigitte and me were given the documents for a period of two weeks to carry out an evaluation and a part of German history which till then had never been exposed was finally out in the public domain.

“We discovered that the government of a country had taken part in a series of illegal experiments carried out on human beings. It had played with prohibited substances and drugs in a bid to boost human performance in the arena of sport.”

The world of athletics was rocked as skeletons started tumbling out.

World record times of many East German athletes, who were then under the scanner for recording performances that were deemed to be out of the ordinary, were brought back under the microscope. Some succumbed to interrogation and admitted to the state sponsored doping scheme, some failed the drug tests, while others faded away. Many world records, however, still stand for lack of proper evidence and conclusive proof.

“What we discovered was a typically well regulated system. It was very Germanic and orderly,” Franke said.

“There was enough material for me to decode. Athletes who were part of this programme were evaluated before they left the country for competitions. They were ‘controlled’ to ensure that they appeared ‘clean’. The doping process started six weeks before competitions. The key individual behind this project was a man called Hauptner. He was a Prussian and a great believer in protocol. I went to court in 1991 and submitted the documents to the prosecutors in Berlin. It took them seven years to bring in more documents and confessions after which we went to criminal court and then to the Supreme Court. I finally succeeded in extracting a criminal sentencing against 100 individuals including doctors, coaches and politicians.”

Fuelled by the discoveries Franke and his wife, a former German discus champion and Olympian, wrote a book on the entire scandal after extensive research.

It was titled Doping Documents — From Research to Cheat. The book itself went through five injunctions and court cases all of which the couple won in their bid to tell the entire story.

Franke and his wife were, however, thrown headlong into one of the most sordid chapters of Cold War politics and became a target for secret-service activities carried out against them.

Reminiscing about those times he said, “We appreciated the attention. We were given an order of merit by the German Federation, but at the same time we were also labelled as traitors because we revealed what was seen to be state secrets. My wife and I were closely shadowed. It went so far as a threat being issued to our children. When we realised this we took a three month vacation just before the release of our first book. A fight is a fight. We knew what we were standing up against.”

“It is important to understand that many of these criminal acts were carried out against young girls who had just entered puberty. The issue was important for my wife since she was a speaker for the German athletics team and a sports teacher. She feels responsible that female sports should be kept clean. As a result of this extensive doping programme so many women were being turned unnaturally into men. This process is known as ‘virilisation’ and it starts from a very young age.”

Reflecting on the reasons behind such a barbaric programme Franke argued, “A few countries — not just East Germany — wanted to use the medium of sport to ensure international recognition. Some even succeeded. There is nothing more potent than standing on the winner’s podium with your national anthem being played in the background and your national flag being raised higher than the others. East Germany fought for its recognition as an independent state. This was its declared intention. More publicity adds to more recognition. This was no secret.”

Franke’s findings brought him face to face with accounts that were beyond human comprehension. He struggled to maintain his objectivity in the face of impossible odds, guided solely by his mission to unearth the truth, however revolting it turned out to be.

“There were many major discoveries. But I am a German first and foremost. I can work long and hard. For me it was a challenge and people do not understand this. I was approaching it from a totally different angle, which was to highlight the abuse of science. I wanted to stand up and talk about this exploitation. If you modify molecules in certain ways it can be used successfully to boost sporting performance in females. This is an exploitation of fact.”

The years that followed since his path-breaking discovery have turned Franke into a campaigner against drug abuse in sport. He is also a staunch molecular biologist by profession, continuously pushing the parameters in his field.

When asked to dwell on drugs in sport and the system’s attempts to stay one step ahead of the athletes, he said, “Both athletes and the system are trying to stay ahead of each other. The effects of the GDR’s doping project can be studied thus: If you look at the world record time (47.6 seconds) in the 400mts for women — which stands in the name of Marita Koch of former East Germany (October 6, 1985) — and study it against the current times (51.6 seconds) being recorded by German sprinters today it amounts to a distance of 30-35 metres. The first time has still not been bettered. The distance in the shot put before was at least 23 metres. Today it is thrown to a maximum 19-20 metres. A lower scale of doping can also have an effect on success though not on a very high scale.

“I am a molecular biologist,” added Franke.

“I develop tests for cancer research. So I ask the question: why don’t we use our resources to develop and define substances. I fight for development, in this context I restrict my arguments to that of a scientist. They are not primarily sport oriented.”

Franke, however, detailed that drug use was 100 per cent rampant in the sport of bodybuilding.

When asked if he felt that justice had been served to those who indulged in this activity Franke reasoned, “Roughly 2,000 young women were brought into a pool of athletes with the sole expectation of winning medals. They were inducted into a process of virilisation roughly from the age of 12. This was sentenced as a criminal act. It amounted to bodily harm. Success was not the criteria, even assistance was bodily harm. Many of the doctors who were sentenced have gone on to become physicians in major multinational companies. Nobody cares, because, after a few years, things slip through the cracks. I have exposed many, some directly on television, but action against them has been lacking.

“One of the well known figures in this controversy is Dr Bernd Pansold,” added Franke.

“I have no hesitation in naming him since he was sentenced for the doping of underage persons.”

Since 2003, Pansold has been working for Red Bull GMBH as the director of the company’s Diagnostic and Training Center.

An entire generation of sportsmen and women have come up through the system since that fateful day when Franke and his wife submitted their startling observations to the government. Many contemporary sportspeople still do not gauge the impact of his discoveries.

“In 2006, 16 years after the GDR had disappeared, doping was still rampant,” he stated.

“We had a criminal case brought against a trainer, Thomas Springstein, who had received the distinction, two years before, as ‘coach of the year’. Springstein’s former pupils were star German sprinters Katrin Krabbe and Grit Breuer. A 16-year-old athlete claimed that she was getting vitamin pills from him. She kept them and gave it to her mother. The coach’s methods were exposed.”

Franke and his wife then found a novel method to ensure that the methods used by former GDR authorities remain relevant in public memory.

“The documents containing our findings have been donated to the ‘archives of the doping victims association in Berlin’. They are now in public domain and subject to scrutiny. Another copy has been donated to the Lyndon P. Johnson library at the University of Texas. Because it is open to the public no court or individual can challenge that,” he said.

Never weary from his efforts Franke’s next stop is to the east of Berlin.

“I have to travel with a lawyer and a former shot-putter to a social court. There are victims who are still suffering from long term doping induced damages. It is our duty to take care of them. Some doctors don’t do it as it appears to be against the national interest for them. It is up to me and my wife to defend them.”

The battle to keep unearthing the truth and the search for justice, as it were, has never stopped.