SPORTS AND SOCIETY 527
trug, in which they provided evidence of the state doping system in the
GDR through numerous documents that they had found in their own re-
search. This book also attested to the years of complicit involvement on
the part of the East and West German doping doctors and professors.^130
In particular, the fi ndings presented by Franke and Berendonk played an
important role in the public debates about the continued employment of
those who had been involved.
After all, not only the top East German athletes, but also successful
trainers and sports doctors from the GDR were part of a much sought-af-
ter elite in unifi ed German sport. This stood in stark contrast to other
areas of society and the state in which East German personnel was often
not welcomed at all because of the generally perceived lack of “formal
qualifi cations, informal skills, and moral integrity.”^131 West German sports
organizations often turned a blind eye to the involvement of many former
coaches and doctors from the GDR in doping, much of which was known
and even documented. This led to ongoing controversies in the sports
world. A short phase began at the end of the 1990s in which swimmers as
well as track and fi eld athletes hoped to invalidate any suspicions through
“formal declarations of honor.” The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, on
the other hand, hinted at one possible eff ect of this practice: whoever
wanted to be able to compete in the future should never admit that they
had doped.^132 The German Swimming Association (DSV) followed a sim-
ilar principle in dealing with the past. After signing a statement under
oath, East German coaches and doctors were allowed to accompany the
national team that competed at the World Championships in January 1991
in Perth, Australia. It should be noted, however, that they did not have to
fear any legal consequences for giving falsifi ed testimony because these
statements were not made before a court.^133 This made it possible, for
example, for a sports doctor who was later proven to be legally guilty of
underage doping to become one of the offi cial team doctors for the DSV
at the championships in Perth.^134 The ski association, which faced similar
personnel issues, argued relatively openly that it did not want to have to
make do without these coaches who had been involved in doping in the
past because other countries were waiting in the wings to snap them
up.^135 As of October 1991, four former head coaches from the GDR who
were tainted by their involvement in doping were working in Austria, in-
cluding the swim coach Rolf Gläser, who was later sentenced.^136
The public debates and internal sport controversy came to a head in
the case of the former GDR head coach Bernd Schubert, who had been a
head coach for the German Track and Field Association (DLV) since Janu-
ary 1991. He celebrated a stellar performance with the GDR national team
at the European Championships in Split in 1990, which made him much