Manfred Ewald
Manfred Ewald ( born May 17, 1926 in Podejuch, county Randow, Pomerania, † 21 October 2002 Damsdorf ) was the most influential sports functionary of the GDR.
Life
Manfred Ewald was a pupil NAPOLA and was trained from 1940 to 1943 in the Municipality of Szczecin for administrative staff, then he received training as a Panzergrenadier in Kalisz. Ewald was head of the Hitler Youth patrol service for four villages in the area of Stettin. At the same time he was a member of the resistance group led by Walter Empacher and Werner Krause, whose job was Ewald on April 20, 1944 a member of the NSDAP. Ewald's participation in the Resistance is doubted by Gislher Spitzer. On December 2, 1944, he suffered an injury to the consequence of the loss of two fingers of the right hand, and he fell into Soviet captivity.
After the liberation from National Socialism 1945 Ewald was one of the founders of the Communist Party in Podejuch, Szczecin and in Löcknitz. After the relocation to Greifswald he became head of the anti-Fascist Youth Committee. In 1946 he was a member of the KPD by the forced merger of the SPD and KPD member of the SED and as a member of an anti-Fascist Youth Committee also automatically a member of the FDJ. From 1946 to 1948 he was FDJ district secretary in Greifswald in 1947 and also a member of the Central Council of the FDJ.
From 1952 to 1960 he was Chairman of the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports ( Stako ). 1961 Ewald President, founded a few years earlier central sports organization in the GDR, the German Gymnastics and Sports Federation ( DTSB ). In 1973 he also took over the presidency of the National Olympic Committee of the GDR. From 1963, Ewald was a member of the Central Committee of the SED.
Following this central position within the sports system of the GDR Ewald is today considered as a crucial organizer of the " GDR sports miracle". Ewald himself, it was assumed this interpretation after the turn about in his biography with the symptomatic title "I was the Sport" to have supported. Indeed, Ewald refused the title of the book, which was made with a reference that the title does not correspond to the intentions of Ewald's in the book marked. In fact, always was under the Ewald responsible for the Department of Sports Secretary of the Central Committee of the SED Erich Honecker to 1971, Paul Verner 1971-1984 and 1984-1989 Egon Krenz.
1988 Ewald was overthrown by an action of the state security and had his office as President of the DTSB exits. After the turn Ewald was because of " aid for personal injury to the detriment of 20 high-performance athletes, which had been administered without their knowledge, with the result of health and Risk anabolic steroids " ( Supreme Court ruling No. 66 /2001) to a suspended sentence of 22 months convicted. Thus, the crucial complicity Ewald was found legally on doping system of the GDR, which had been organized under the name State plan topic 14.25 and systematically largely concealed even the athletes.