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0 3 - 0 3 - 2 0 0 5 Drug claim could be a bitter pill
By Craig Lord
Former East German athletes are demanding compensation from the firm that made their steroids VICTIMS of East Germany’s state-run doping programme are fighting for €3.2 million (about £2.2 million) in compensation from the drugs company whose steroids fuelled the former communist state’s Olympic medals factory until the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Lawyers representing the doping victims’ help group argue that Jenapharm created anabolic substances, such as Oral-Turinabol, with the specific intention of enhancing sporting performance to present the German Democratic Republic in a better light. Some of the drugs, they claim, were never approved, nor were they tested on animals before being administered to athletes. Dr Michael Lehner, one of the two lawyers who will meet Jenapharm representatives at the Board of Arbitration in Hamburg over the next two months in an attempt to settle out of court on behalf of 160 clients, said: “This company was part of the GDR system. They not only produced the pills but they developed substances for the specific purpose of doping athletes. Their representatives were at the meetings when the whole thing was planned.” In a statement, Jenapharm acknowledged that the company was obliged to “collaborate in the GDR ‘Staatsplan 14.25’, but that it was not a driving force behind the national GDR doping programme”. The blame rested with politicians, sports doctors and coaches. The athletes’ claims were unfounded, the company said. Among those whose expertise supports the athletes’ case are Dr Werner Franke, the Heidelberg biologist who first brought to public attention the Stasi (secret police) files recording the doping regime, and Dr Rainer Hartwich, director of clinical research at VEB Jenapharm in communist times but no longer with the company. In an interview with a local radio station in Germany, Hartwich said: “The plan at Jenapharm was not to develop the drug (Oral-Turinabol) into a medication for normal use. The interest in it would have been much bigger and we would have had to have published the data and clinical research for the central advisory board of the GDR . . . that was not desired, in our aim to keep it a secret.” The Stasi listed the doping programme under the codename “Komplex 08”. The files show that Hartwich tested and oversaw the development of the anabolic steroids OralTurinabol and “STS 646” in a clinic at Erfurt. He is quoted in Stasi files as saying that “the new drugs will be of immense value to our sport”. However, Hartwich warned the Stasi in 1988 that “illegal” use of steroids had reached alarming levels. He now says that “Jenapharm has a moral duty to support the doping victims”. Among the 160 victims are a number of former Olympic and world champions from various sports, including Petra Schneider, the swimmer who defeated Sharron Davies, of Great Britain, in the 400 metres medley at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, Karin Koenig, a member of the world record-holding freestyle relay in 1984, and Jürgen Grundler, the world junior biathlon champion in 1976. Many have suffered health problems — some life-threatening — since being among the estimated 10,000 athletes, some as young as 11, who were given anabolic substances to enhance their sporting performance in the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Jenapharm — now owned by Schering, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical firms — is based in the town of Jena, near Weimar, from which its name is derived. Its plant lies some 60 miles west of Kreischa, the Saxon laboratory that was at the time approved by the International Olympic Committee and responsible for ensuring that athletes never tested positive when they left the country for competition. No East German athlete ever failed an official drugs test, though Stasi files show that many did, indeed, produce positive tests at Kreischa. If Jenapharm does not agree to settle out of court, Lehner and Dr Jen Steinigen, a former winter Olympic biathlon champion for East Germany and a fellow lawyer, are likely to take the cases of “three or four athletes” before a judge in Jena this year. Victory would force Jenapharm to compensate all 160 victims, with average compensation estimated at about £14,000 per person. Stasi files held by Franke demonstrate, according to the athletes’ lawyers, that certain Jenapharm substances were not only illegal in international sports law but also in state law. “On the one hand they were working for the state to produce Oral-Turinabol, on the other they were creating and distributing drugs such as ‘substance 12’ and ‘STS 646’ that were never approved by the state and never tested on animals, ” Franke said. Lehner and Steinigen will also rely on the testimony of Dr Manfred Höppner, head of a committee euphemistically named the Working Group on Supporting Means and one of the masterminds of the doping regime. Höppner, who received a one-year suspended sentence and fine at his trial in 1998, stated that during meetings between the Ministry for Research and Technology and other state officials of the German Democratic Republic, Jenapharm representatives were present when decisions on doping were made. Jenapharm may attempt to raise the statute of limitations as a reason why the case should never reach court in Germany: a moratorium on the hearing of all doping cases was declared in October 2000. The athletes argue that their new case deals with evidence brought to light since that deadline. Franke said he hoped for an out-of-court settlement, but added: “Jenapharm is not being very co-operative. The problem is one of German law. If you cheat on your taxes you go to jail for 3½ years and pay a very big financial penalty, but if someone rips your eye out in the street, you’ll be lucky to get €10,000. The integrity of the body is not something of high value in law here.” One ray of hope for the group rests, ironically, with a ruling given in the case of the late Manfred Ewald, head of East German sport and prime architect of the doping regime. Though he received what many saw as a lenient two-year suspended sentence and fine at his trial in 1998, Ewald’s testimony prompted judges to rule that administering androgenic hormones to those who did not need them for medical reasons constituted “elevated criminality”. That and the fact that some of the victims live outside Germany and could choose to take their action to courts in countries such as the United States, where bodily harm can carry much more serious penalties. “Hell will be unleashed if one of the victims living abroad takes action through a foreign court in a place where the claim would be much higher than in Germany,” Franke said. Isabel Rothe, the chief executive of Jenapharm since March last year, said: “What is most important is to discover those who were really responsible for the national GDR doping programme.” She pointed the finger at the East German Government, who “wanted to demonstrate the abilities of the GDR” through sport, and the “sports physicians and trainers who used the doping substances on their athletes”. However, there was no mention of the man she replaced at the helm of Jenapharm last year: Dr Dieter Taubert, who headed the company throughout East German times and is now chief executive of Schering Deutschland GmbH. Rothe noted that Oral- Turinabol was a legally approved drug. Jenapharm’s lawyers were in the process of reviewing Franke’s “extensive” statement before the hearings begin in Hamburg. 0 9 - 0 6 - 2 0 0 5 Auf das NOK und Jenapharm rollt eine Prozesswelle zu
Musterklagen im Juli - Anwalt Lehner: Es wird Zeit, endlich Druck zu machen
erstellt 31.05.05
Berlin/dpa. Auf das Unternehmen Jenapharm und das Nationale Olympische Komitee (NOK) soll in den kommenden Wochen eine Prozesswelle von Doping-Opfern des DDR-Sports zurollen. «Ich werde spätestens Anfang Juli Klage mit Prozesskostenhilfe-Anträgen gegen Jenapharm wie auch gegen das NOK einreichen», sagte der Anwalt der Dopingopfer, Michael Lehner, am Dienstag der «Netzeitung». «Es wird Zeit, endlich Druck zu machen.» Offen ist, wo Lehner seine Klage einreichen will: «Das lasse ich mir noch offen, aber es kommen mit Berlin, Jena und Frankfurt drei Orte in Frage.» Der Heidelberger Anwalt vertritt fast 160 durch Doping in der DDR Geschädigte. «Alle meine Mandanten haben derzeit die Formulare auf Prozesskostenhilfe zu Hause. Wir eruieren gerade, wer Anspruch darauf hat. Im Juni rechne ich mit dem Rücklauf, dann werden wir uns entscheiden, mit wie vielen Anträgen wir vor Gericht ziehen werden. Eines steht aber fest: Die ersten Musterklagen wird es im Juli geben«, sagte Lehner. Von dem zum Schering-Konzern gehörenden Unternehmen Jenapharm und dem NOK fordert der Jurist in seiner 30-seitigen Klageschrift Schadensersatz in Höhe von rund 20 000 Euro pro Opfer. Bestandteil der Klageschrift wird ein Gutachten des Heidelberger Molekularbiologen Werner Franke sein. Franke war zu dem Ergebnis gekommen, dass der VEB Jenapharm unter anderem als Produzent der Anabolika-Präparate Oral-Turinabol am Staatsdoping in der DDR beteiligt war. Wie Franke ausführt, war jeder Einsatz «der androgenen Präparate, die von der Firma VEB Jenapharm unter den Code-Bezeichnungen STS 646, STS 648, STS 482 bzw. Substanz 12 hergestellt und heimlich zur Verabreichung in Umlauf gebracht worden waren, beim Menschen, erst recht ohne ärztliche Indikation, in der DDR kategorisch verboten, weil es für diese Präparate keine Zulassung durch die Arzneimittelbehörde gab.» Ursprünglich hatten die Dopingopfer auf eine außergerichtliche Einigung abgezielt, doch das Unternehmen lehnte bislang jede Entschädigungszahlung ab. Das gleiche trifft auf das NOK zu: Auch dort wies man das Ansinnen der Dopingopfer zurück. Die Dopingopfer argumentieren, dass das NOK bei der Wiedervereinigung in den Besitz des Vermögens in Höhe von 5,4 Millionen Mark des DDR-NOKs gekommen sei. Das deutsche NOK ist zwar nicht Rechtsnachfolger des DDR-NOKs, aber es besteht ein zivilrechtlicher Schadensersatzanspruch. Das hatten Richter des Oberlandesgerichts Frankfurt im noch laufenden Verfahren zwischen der ehemaligen Schwimmerin Karen König und dem NOK festgestellt. 1 1 - 0 6 - 2 0 0 5 Sex-change athlete sues pharmaceutical company
By Roger Boyes
MORE than a hundred leading athletes who ran, swam and lifted weights for the greater glory of communism are girding themselves for the toughest contest of their lives, a courtroom battle against the eastern German company that made the performance-enhancing drugs that they allege broke their health. The class action against Jenapharm, the drugs company, will expose how talented teenagers were systematically given steroids to build muscle and transform them into world-class competitors. East Germany became one of the top five sporting nations, but hundreds of athletes are paying the price. The athletes were angered this week by the company’s decision to hire a historian to investigate the case at a cost of €250,000 (£167,000). German companies have hired historians to research their role in the Nazi era but never before their connection with the East German Communist regime or its secret police, the Stasi.
The athletes see it as a delaying tactic. Andreas Krieger, perhaps the most dramatic victim of the drugs, said: “Why can’t the company put this kind of money into a fund to help the victims?” Out of thousands of athletes who were given Oral- Turinabol, an anabolic steroid that was nicknamed the “blue bean”, an estimated 800 developed serious ailments. The case against Jenapharm is scheduled to begin next month and has been sponsored by 160 of the athletes who are claiming damages of €17,000 each.
Krieger is a gruff-voiced 40-year-old man who is married to another sporting victim, the athlete Ute Krause. In 1986, however, he was a she, Heidi Kreiger, the shotputter who won the European Championships with an astonishing put of 21.10m. The championships were held in Stuttgart, West Germany, and the East Berlin regime was determined to beat the Western capitalists in all disciplines.
For years before the championships, athletes were put on a crash steroids programme. From the age of 15 Heidi was given the blue pill: 885 mg of male hormones in 1982, rising to 2,590 mg in 1984. Heidi’s training book shows how her performance benefited. “It didn’t bother me that my hair was growing up to my belly button or that my voice was becoming deeper,” she said. “I just wanted to do well.”
But after the championships, her hormones were in disarray. The West Germans dubbed her Hormone Heidi because she was so obviously bulked up with medication. Her body screamed with pain and she became suicidal. Eight years ago, she had a sex change.
“The doping probably didn’t directly cause my transsexuality but it certainly intensified it,” Krieger said. He runs a clothing shop in Magdeburg and needs an injection of male hormones every three weeks — “otherwise I become tearful and depressed”. Roland Schmidt, once a leading weightlifter who is a lifeguard in a Saxon town, was also given Oral-Turinabol. He developed huge breasts that had to be amputated. “I was completely stunned because I was in a more or less pre- cancerous condition,” he said.
The swimmer Petra Schneider, a gold medal-winner in the 400m medley in the 1980 Olympics, has serious heart and back problems. Rica Reinisch, who broke numerous world records in the backstroke, has recurrent ovarian cysts and has had several miscarriages.
Jenapharm argues that it was merely a cog in the communist machine. “Oral-Turinabol was legally approved by the East German Government and available on the market,” Isabelle Roth, the chief executive of the company, said. “The drug was misused by the sports physicians and trainers. Jenapharm cannot be held responsible.”
The former East German sporting community is unsure how far it wants to pursue legal action against the pharmaceuticals company. Previous attempts to gain compensation from convicted sports trainers and communist sports administrators have failed and it seems that this case could continue for years.
Herr Krieger is not sure whether he can withstand the stress of a public trial. “It’s a bit like being a rape victim,” he said. “You have to stand up in the dock and defend yourself, be treated as if you were a willing conspirator rather than a victim. I don’t want to be defined by my illnesses the whole time. I just want to live my life.”
2 9 - 0 7 - 2 0 0 5 "Eine gewisse Geheimniskrämerei"
Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten Online Das war eine nette Überraschung für die Mitarbeiter der Forschungsabteilung des VEB Jenapharm. Damals, nach den Winterspielen 1980 in Lake Placid, die DDR hatte in der Medaillenwertung erstmals Platz eins belegt, tauchte unverhofft Besuch aus Leipzig auf: Dr. Winfried Schäker, Hormonexperte am Forschungsinstitut für Körperkultur und Sport (FKS), dem Geheiminstitut des DDR-Sports. Er verteilte Prämien. Auch für Professor Michael Oettel - Forschungsdirektor bei Jenapharm lange vor und lange nach 1990 - gab es "als Anerkennung ein Fachbuch von etwa 15 Mark". Dass Schäker unangemeldet kam, deutete der Stasi-IM in seinem Bericht als "eine gewisse Geheimniskrämerei". Die Spendierfreude war ungewöhnlich, die Geheimniskrämerei nicht. Denn viel öfter holte Biochemiker Schäker persönlich etwas ab bei den Jenaer Kollegen, um es an Sportmediziner zu übergeben. Zum Beispiel Zehntausende Pillen und Kapseln der Steroidsubstanz (STS) 646, eine "Sonderanfertigung" für den Spitzensport - nie für Menschen zugelassen. Die Folgen der jahrelangen, auch nach DDR-Recht illegalen Zwangsvergabe solcher Hormon- und anderer Präparate an etwa 10.000 Athleten, unter ihnen Zwölfjährige, sind bekannt: Leberschäden, erhöhtes Risiko für Krebs- oder Herzerkrankungen, Vermännlichung bei Mädchen, weibliche Brüste bei Männern, schwere Akne bis hin zur Veränderung der Persönlichkeit aufgrund der Suchtwirkung, behindert geborene Kinder. Der Bundesgerichtshof bestätigte die Urteile gegen Trainer und Mediziner nicht nur, sondern stufte den Missbrauch von Sportlern als mittelschwere Kriminalität ein. Mit zwei Millionen Euro aus dem Hilfsfonds der Bundesregierung wurden 300 Anträge bearbeitet und knapp 200 Geschädigte unterstützt. Rund 6000 Euro für jeden - nicht eben viel, wenn man Therapien braucht, die keine Kasse zahlt, oder berufsunfähig ist. Die inzwischen zum Schering-Konzern gehörende Firma Jenapharm (Jahresumsatz 2004: 135,2 Mio. Euro) wollte nichts für den Hilfsfonds geben. Die absurde Begründung: Nur "Arzneimittel" seien im Sport "missbräuchlich angewandt" worden, an Dopingforschung habe man sich nicht beteiligt. Der Verein Doping-Opfer-Hilfe wird, sollte ein Schiedsgerichtsverfahren nichts bringen, Entschädigung von 20.000 Euro pro Athlet einklagen. Das könnte spannend werden: Erstmals würde damit die Verantwortung der Wissenschaft von Gerichten verhandelt. Als kompetenter Zeuge käme Winfried Schäker in Frage. Strafrechtlich ist er aus dem Schneider, denn belangt werden kann nur, wer Dopingmittel verabreicht. Das hat Schäker, 20 Jahre am FKS, nicht getan. Dafür ist er Erstautor bizarrer Studien, etwa "Zur Anwendung von Steroidsubstanzen im Training und Tierexperiment sowie zur Qualitätsprüfung der STS-Präparate". Sie dokumentiert Versuche mit dem Jenapharm-Präparat STS 646 an Athleten aus zehn Sportarten. Schäker empfahl das Anabolikum, weil es keine Gewichtszunahme nach sich zog und "höhere Belastbarkeit" garantierte. Nebenwirkungen interessierten eher nebenbei, weshalb andere Tests zeitgleich liefen - an Mäuseböcken. Ähnlich aufschlussreich sind des Professors Experimente mit Neurohormonen wie Oxytocin. Eifrig tüftelte er, welches Aroma (Krokant oder Menthol) die Zurückhaltung der Athleten gegen die als "Vitamin B 17" getarnten Tabletten aufhebe. Sogar einen Hormonkaugummi mit Oxytocin erfand er. Schäker also hätte einiges zu erzählen, auch über Jenaer Präparate, die nie als Arzneimittel zugelassen waren. Doch es scheint fraglich, ob er sein Know-how für die Geschädigten - von denen bis heute viele nicht wissen, was sie bekommen haben - offen legen wird. "Man kann mir doch nicht vorwerfen, dass ich Anabolika erforscht habe", gab er sich unlängst ahnungslos. Außerdem ist Schäker derzeit mit der juristischen Verteidigung seines guten Rufes beschäftigt - als Vorsitzender des Vereins Städtepartnerschaft Leipzig -Addis-Abeba. Als diese im Dezember beschlossen wurde, verteilte die frühere Sportlehrerin Claudia Iyiaagan im Rathaus einen Ausdruck der Internet-Seite www.dieterbaumann.de. "Professor Winfried Schäker aus Leipzig reicherte Kaugummis und Zahnpasta mit anabolen Steroiden an, um sie doping-unwilligen Athleten verabreichen zu können", heißt es da. Die Stadträte sollten wissen, "wer Schäker ist". Das Papier ging aus dem Rathaus an den Professor, der Iyiaagan prompt auf Unterlassung verklagte - und Recht bekam. Denn er versetzte Kaugummi, nicht Zahnpasta, mit einem Neurohormon, nicht mit Anabolika. Iyiaagan wird die Gerichtskosten von rund 1000 Euro nicht zahlen. Sie findet, "dass jemand wie Schäker von mir keinen Cent bekommen soll". So hat sie das auch dem Gerichtsvollzieher gesagt, der sie zu Hause überraschte. Seit ein paar Tagen ist Haftbefehl beantragt. Iyiaagan droht ein halbes Jahr Zwangshaft, weil sie auf die unschöne Vergangenheit eines Partners der Stadtverwaltung aufmerksam gemacht hat mit einem Ausdruck aus dem Internet. Dort steht der inkriminierende Satz noch immer. Unsere Autorin ist auch Verfasserin des Buches "Goldkinder", in dem das DDR-Sportsystem kritisch beleuchtet wird. 3 0 - 1 0 - 2 0 0 5 German Olympic team faces crisis as drugged athletes sue
MURDO MACLEOD GERMANY'S Olympic team faces a financial crisis because of a £1m lawsuit by former East German athletes who were forcibly drugged by their Communist masters.
A 36-year-old former women's World Championship swimmer, Karen König, will this week take her case to a Berlin court as the first of 137 pursuers who claim they were forced to take performance-enhancing drugs by the former East German sports system in the 1980s. The case is a final lap in a tortuous battle being fought through the German legal system amid arguments that the athletes' cases were time-barred or that the nation's present Olympic committee, being based on the old West German association, could not be held liable for the sins of its former sworn enemy. But court judgments have ruled the case should be heard and the new German Olympic Committee (GOC) can be held liable. Although König is suing for a relatively modest £7,200, the authorities fear if she wins then the other 137 athletes will push the costs through the £1m mark, forcing the already cash-strapped GOC into financial crisis. There could be as many as 10,000 additional claimants who will argue that their lives were affected by the doping programme. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) in the east, the West German Olympic Committee took over the assets of its former rival and athletes from the two nations competed in the same team. König was selected by East German swimming coaches at the age of 10 to begin special full-time sports training. At the time she regarded it as the fulfilment of a dream. Training was tough and lasted from six in the morning until eight at night. Of the 14 other swimmers she began training with, only she managed to survive the rigorous selection process. The doping began from the age of 11. As part of her nutrition regime she had to take daily drinks from a series of specially-marked beakers. Her trainers insisted they must watch as she drank from the beakers. She also took five white pills. It is still unclear what the white pills were. At the age of 14, she was given anabolic steroids, light blue pills, which her trainers explained helped the body recover during exceptionally hard phases of training. To stress the point, she said, the trainers would press the pills into her hands. The effects of the steroid was to quadruple testosterone levels in the body which helped spur dramatic muscle growth, essential for swimming. She told the German magazine Der Spiegel she had no idea she was being drugged. She said: "The people in charge told us that doping belonged only to the capitalist West. And we believed them." At the age of 15, König was part of a World Championship-winning women's swimming relay team which also set a new world record. As a reward for her services to East German sport, the Communist authorities sent her on a voyage to Cuba. But she was noticing some strange effects on her body, including severe attacks of acne. However, she says she did not believe that she was being drugged until a fateful meeting with her former trainer in 1990. The coach suggested that she should begin training again and said he still had a few of the old blue pills in the cupboard. Now 36, König is a sick woman. She speaks with a deep masculine voice, which makes her sound like an elderly chain smoker. She suffers from severe clinical depression and doctors have told her that the drugs will lead to future liver damage and abdominal problems. She said: "I was furious that I had been deceived for so long. Now I want to unveil the whole DDR doping system as every single person involved should be made responsible for what they have done. Not just the doctors and the coaches but also all those who were in charge of our sports system." Others who were part of the Communist sports apparatus have suffered even more dramatically. The most infamous is the case of Heidi/Andreas Krieger, the former female shot-putter who was physiologically turned from a woman into a man by the drugs she was given. Krieger now sports a beard and is married to a woman. For its part, the GOC is resisting the lawsuit and claims the athletes, and their parents, were made fully aware of what was going on at the time and took the drugs willingly. 0 1 - 1 1 - 2 0 0 5 Forgotten victims of East German doping take their battle to court
Athletes who were given drugs to compete in the name of communism seek £8m compensation
Luke Harding in Berlin They are the forgotten victims. For three decades, East Germans ran, swam and shot-putted their way to glory, winning Olympic gold medals, setting world records and - so it seemed at the time -demonstrating the superiority of communism. But this month the human cost of East Germany's extraordinary sporting success will be laid bare in a courtroom in Hamburg.
Some 190 East German competitors are launching a case against the German pharmaceutical giant Jenapharm. They claim that the East German firm knowingly supplied the steroids that were given to them by trainers and coaches from the 1960s onwards until East Germany's demise in 1989. Jenapharm, now owned by Schering, argues it was not responsible for the doping scandal and blames the communist system. Last month, meanwhile, Germany's athletics federation announced that it was checking 22 national records set by East German athletes. The investigation came after Ines Geipel, a member of the record-holding East German women's 4x100 metres relay team, asked for her record from 1984 to be struck off. She revealed she had been doped. In a separate case another former East German swimmer Karin König is today suing the German Olympic committee for damages. König claims that she was also a victim of doping between 1982 and 1987. This state-sponsored doping regime played a decisive role in the dazzling success of East German athletes in international competitions - most notably at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and the 1980 Moscow games. But it also left a terrible legacy, the athletes' lawyers argue. The victims all received Oral-Turinabol - an anabolic steroid containing testosterone made by Jenapharm. The "blue bean" had astonishing powers - accelerating muscle build-up and boosting recovery times - but its subsequent side effects were catastrophic: infertility among women, embarrassing hair growth, breast cancer, heart problems and testicular cancer. An estimated 800 athletes developed serious ailments. The most public face of the doping scandal is Andreas Krieger - a shot-putter who took so many male hormones she decided to have a sex change. One of the few other victims to have spoken publicly about her plight is the swimmer Rica Reinisch, who at the age of 15 won three gold medals in the 1980 Olympics. "The worst thing was that I didn't know I was being doped," she told the Guardian. I was lied to and deceived. Whenever I asked my coach what the tablets were I was told they were vitamins and preparations." According to Prof Dr Werner Franke, a microbiologist who exposed the doping scandal after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany's secret police kept meticulous records of the impact the drugs had on performance. A top-secret sporting medical committee including members of the Parteibüro, East Germany's communist leadership body, met to decide which members of the national squad were to be given the drugs. The aim was to show the superiority of the communist regime to its capitalist neighbour West Germany. The strategy worked. In the 1972 Munich Olympics, East Germany - a country of 17 million - reached the top three in the medals table with the United States and the Soviet Union. Four years later, East German women won 11 of the 13 swimming events. Franke contends that scientists from Jenapharm attended these secret committee meetings. Documents also suggest that Jenapharm scientists collaborated with the secret police, the Stasi, in an informal capacity, he claims - protesting privately but not publicly - at the use of steroids in sport. "There was no medical reason to give steroids. It was against the law of the German Democratic Republic. It was against medical ethics," Franke said. "Everybody knew these drugs were not allowed. The people who participated in this clandestine operation knew that they would lose privileges if they refused to take part. "But they also knew they wouldn't be executed. Some of the arguments now resemble those brought forward in the Third Reich. Those involved disapproved of what they were doing. They knew it was wrong. But they also knew it was a matter of national prestige, and was good for their careers. The Jesuits have a saying: 'For the greater glory of God.' This is what happened here." Whereas Germany has an exemplary record in the way it has dealt with its Nazi past, much of what happened during communist East Germany has been swept under the carpet - in the apparent interests of national reconciliation. In the late 1990s criminal cases were brought against Manfred Ewald, the former East German team doctor, and Dr Manfred Hoppner, a former team medical consultant. They were given suspended sentences. Schering, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, has so far refused to pay any compensation. Isabelle Rothe, Jenapharm's chief executive, said she could give only some general background in advance of the trial, but she said she had "sympathy" with the victims of the doping scandal, and admitted that many of them were "under age" when they were given the steroids. "I'm convinced that the claims for damages against Jenapharm are not justified," she added. "After everything we now know the company was not involved in concrete doping or training plans. This is also true of doping experiments on athletes." She called for further research, saying it would reveal previously unknown aspects of the case. It is not clear yet whether the firm will cave in when both sides meet this month for an arbitration hearing or tough out the inevitable bad publicity and fight the case. Lawyers for the victims are hoping for €10-12m (£6.7m-£8.1m) in compensation, with most of the money going to former competitors whose lives have been ruined. Germany's parliament has already given €2m, €10,500 each. Intriguingly, some of the world records set by East German athletes while using Oral-Turinabol have not been bettered. 0 1 - 1 1 - 2 0 0 5 The prodigy whose body lasted two years
Case study Rica Reinisch
Tuesday November 1, 2005 Rica Reinisch was just 14 when her swimming coach approached her one day after training and gave her a blue pill. The year was 1979. Reinisch, a swimming prodigy, had already spent four years at an elite sports school in the East German city of Dresden. "My coach came up to me and gave me a tablet," Reinisch said. "He told me: 'Take it. It's good for you. It will make your body regenerate more quickly.' He made it sound as if it were completely normal."
Just before the 1980 Moscow Olympics the tablets stopped. "It was madness," she said. "But at the time I put my improved performance down to all the hard training. I was after all spending seven or eight hours a day in the pool." The 15-year-old swimmer was one of the games' sensations - winning three gold medals and setting three new backstroke world records, including an astonishing 1min 00.86sec for the 100 metres. The next year she set three European records. In 1982, however, Reinisch collapsed at a training camp in the Ukraine, suffering from inflamed ovaries. She was flown back by helicopter to her training base in Dresden. "I went to see the doctor. He seemed distressed. He told me simply that I should give up top-level sport. My parents were speechless." She decided to retire at 16. It was only after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that Reinisch discovered what she believed to be the whole truth - that her coach Uwe Neumann had allegedly been supplying her with an anabolic steroid, Oral-Turinabol, manufactured by the East German drug company Jenapharm. Records compiled by the Stasi, East Germany's secret police, later revealed how much the drugs had boosted her performance - by 6.5%. The East German sports authorities halted the supply of steroids just before the Moscow Olympics, the documents showed, so that Reinisch and others members of the team all passed doping tests. "I was an immense swimming talent," Reinisch told the Guardian. "They robbed me of a chance to win the gold medal without drugs." Neumann said: "As far as I know Rica Reinisch has two children . . . the case has been dealt with years earlier in the courts." Asked whether he gave her Oral-Turinabol he replied: "I don't want to comment on this." Unlike other women victims, Reinisch's premature retirement meant she has been able to lead a relatively normal life but she has also suffered from several health problems: two still births and an irregular heart condition that prevents her from doing any serious sport. Now aged 40, she works as a TV sports presenter and lives in West Germany. She says that she is not interested in getting money from Jenapharm. She, and the other 190 victims of the doping scandal, merely want an apology, she says. "It's absurd for Jenapharm to try and wriggle out of this." 0 7 - 1 1 - 2 0 0 5 EXCLUSIVE: SPORTS DOPING TURNED HEIDI INTO A MAN
SHAME OF STEROID NATION
By Allan Hall And Clare Raymond THE CROWD roared with admiration as Heidi Krieger climbed on to the winner's podium. At just 21, the champion shot-putter had become a national hero in East Germany after winning European Championship gold with an astonishing put of over 21 metres in 1986. But success came at a terrible price for the athlete whose butch frame earned her the nickname Hormone Heidi among her West German rivals. Today Krieger is a gruff-voiced 40-year-old man called Andreas. He claims the drugs he was forced to take by his coaches when he was a young girl changed his gender. "Literally, all those pills killed Heidi," he says.
He had a full sex-swap operation in 1997, completing the physical change. Krieger is one of 137 people claiming that as children they were given massive doses of steroids in the former East Germany. Last week they started their fight for justice when the first court case was brought against the German National Olympic Committee. In total, they are claiming £1million in compensation. Andreas says: "No amount of money could ever restore my health. "The pills and injections of anabolic steroids created virile features and heightened confusion about an already uncertain sexual identity that I had." AND he adds: "They were instrumental in making me undergo a full sex-change operation in 1997." But the sex swap is not the only consequence of the powerful drug regime - the former athlete is a physical wreck. "I can no longer sleep on my side as I experience such intense discomfort in my hips and thighs from lifting huge weights while on performance-enhancing drugs. Only the mildest physical exertion is tolerable." Long unemployed, he now works two days a week as a clerk for an estate agent in the eastern city of Magdeburg. The faded newspaper clippings and medals won by his former self are kept in a small bag in his house - but he rarely looks at them. "I thought I won it because of all the hard work I put in," he says. "Now it doesn't mean much of anything. "They destroyed the lives of a whole generation. We were guinea pigs force fed substances that were supposed to make the country seem great even though it wasn't. They were as bad as the Nazis." The National Olympic Committee argues that competitors took the drugs willingly and that their parents were fully aware of what was going on. But the athletes insist the coaches who gave them the pills told them they were harmless vitamins. Karen Koenig, a 1980s swimming champion, is bringing the first case against the NOC. She says doping destroyed her health and ruined her life. And she claims that it wasn't until a fateful meeting with her former trainer in 1990 that she realised she had been drugged. At just 15, she had realised her ambition as one of East Germany's record-breaking freestyle relay team. She won two European titles the following year and was awarded the ultimate accolade by her country - the Order Of Merit. Now 36, she has a manly voice that makes her sound like an elderly chain smoker. She suffers from depression and muscle spasms and doctors have warned her to expect liver and abdominal problems. "Doping began from the age of 11," she told the court this week. "As part of my nutrition regime I had to take daily drinks from a series of specially-marked beakers. "I also took five white pills. It is still unclear what those were. At 14, I was given anabolic steroids, light-blue pills, which the trainer explained helped the body recover after training. The effects of the steroid was to quadruple testosterone levels in the body, which helped spur dramatic muscle growth. I had no idea I was being drugged." She noticed strange effects on her body, including severe acne, but she put any doubts from her mind... until she saw her trainer years later. The coach suggested she should start training again, saying he still "had a few of the old blue pills" in the cupboard. She says: "I was furious I had been deceived for so long. Now I want to unveil the whole system as every single person involved should be made responsible for what they did. Not just the doctors and the coaches, but also all those who were in charge of sport." Communist East Germany was a country that excelled only in shortages. Poor food, decrepit housing and 11-year waiting lists for Trabant cars. But the politburo wanted to show a different face to the world through its athletes. And it worked - from 1972 to 1988 they won 384 Olympic medals. But hundreds of lives were harmed, and the victims are only now speaking out. Birgit Boese was 10 when her grooming to be an champion shot-putter started. She trained 10 hours a day, six days a week. From age 11, every few days she was forced to take some blue pills. She says: "My voice got deeper. When I answered the phone at home, relatives thought I was my brother. "I grew unusual amounts of body hair and put on muscle mass and height." Now 43, the 6ft 3ins woman has to use a cane to get around her Berlin apartment. She takes morphine to cope with chronic back pain, as well as insulin injections for her diabetes. Her liver and kidneys do not function properly and she has asthma. Like many athletes, she had been given Oral-Turinabol, a steroid produced by pharmaceutical company Jenapharm. It was approved for some illnesses, but not meant as a performance enhancer. Jenapharm won't discuss out-of-court settlements with the athletes. It has said it is not culpable, since the drug was legal in the German Democratic Republic but misused by trainers. But lawyers say files from the East German secret police, the Stasi, show company officials discussed the doping programme with the government and trainers on several occasions. Rica Reinisch knows all about the effects of Oral-Turinabol. She took three golds at the 1980 Moscow Olympics in the 100m and 200m backstroke and relay, holds five world records, and won gold in 1981 in the European Championships. SHE was just 14 when her coach gave her a blue pill after training one day. She says: "Two years later the problems began. I collapsed at training, suffering from inflamed ovaries. I went to see the doctor. He seemed distressed. He told me simply that I should give up top-level sport." It was only after the collapse of the Berlin Wall that Reinisch discovered what she had been supplied with. Now 40, she has had two stillborn children and has a heart condition that prevents strenuous exercise. She works as a TV presenter and lives in Hamburg. Catherine Menschner tells an equally sad story. She won her first swimming competition when she was six and was sent to a sport academy where her mentors handed her boxes of "sweets" filled with brightly-coloured pills. By 11, she could do 100 push-ups and weightlift 65lb after "earning" a place in a guinea-pig group in which the effects of early doping were monitored. Her career was ended by spinal injury when she was 14 and now she suffers from back pain, breathlessness and infections of her over-sized lungs. Her doctors have told her she cannot lift anything heavier than 250 grams - "That's a block of butter," she says with despair. She also blames the drugs for seven miscarriages. She works in Berlin, aged 41, as a journalist. Doping also took a terrible toll on weightlifter Roland Schmidt. He took so many pills that in 1980 his body ceased producing male hormones. He grew breasts to a size 36DD that had to be amputated. And in a terrible twist of irony, those breasts developed cancer before they were removed. Now a lifeguard in a town in Saxony, he says: "You can imagine how I felt, a strapping fellow suddenly carrying around these female breasts. "I suffer liver problems and nightmares. Justice should be done for me and the many people like me." |
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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
