United Team of Germany at the Olympics

United Team of Germany at the Olympics
"Olympic" Flag of Germany, defaced with white Olympic rings, used 1960, 1964 (and 1968 by separated teams)
IOC code	EUA
Medals Ranked 35th	Gold 36 Silver 60 Bronze 41 Total 137
Summer appearances
1956 1960 1964
Winter appearances
1956 1960 1964
Other related appearances
Germany (1896–1936, 1952, 1992–)  Saar (1952)  East Germany (1968–1988)  West Germany (1968–1988)

The United Team of Germany (German: Gesamtdeutsche Mannschaft) was a combined team of athletes from West Germany and East Germany that competed in the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Winter and Summer Olympic Games. In 1956, the team also included athletes from a third Olympic body, the Saarland Olympic Committee, which had sent a separate team in 1952, but in 1956 was in the process of joining the German National Olympic Committee. This process was completed in February 1957 after the admission of Saarland into West Germany.

History

As East Germany had introduced its own national anthem in 1949, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 melody to Schiller's Ode an die Freude ("Ode to Joy") was played for winning German athletes as a compromise. In 1959, East Germany also introduced an altered black-red-gold tricolour flag of Germany as the flag of East Germany. Thus, a compromise had to be made also for the flag of the unified sports team. It was agreed upon to superimpose the plain flag with additional white Olympic rings. This flag was used from 1960 to 1968.^[1]

At the Games of 1956, 1960 and 1964 the team was simply known as "Germany" and the usual country code of GER was used, except at Innsbruck in 1964, when the Austrian hosts used the German language "D" for Deutschland.^[2] Yet, the IOC code EUA (from the official French International Olympic Committee (IOC) designation Équipe Unifiée d'Allemagne) is currently applied retrospectively in the IOC medal database, without further explanation given. Only in 1976 did the IOC start to assign standardized codes. Before that time, the local Organizing Committees of each Olympic Games had chosen codes, often in the local language, resulting in a multitude of codes.

In the 1968 Winter Olympics, East and West German athletes competed as separate teams while still using the compromise Olympic flag and Beethoven anthem. While today listed under the IOC codes of FRG (West) and GDR (East), respectively, in 1968 they were asymmetrically called in French Allemagne (Germany) and Allemagne de l'Est (East Germany), and in Spanish Alemania and Alemania del Este. The codes for Germany (West) were ALL (in Grenoble) and ALE (in Mexico City), and ADE for East Germany.

The separation was completed at the 1972 Winter Olympics with the use of separate flags and anthems. Because of the boycotts of the 1980 and 1984 summer games, only in 1972, 1976 and 1988 did two different German teams with different symbols compete against each other at Summer Olympics (not counting the Saar team of 1952). East Germany ceased to exist in 1990, when its five states, together with Berlin, joined West Germany in German reunification.

Participation

Timeline of participation

Date	Team
1896–1912	Germany (GER)
1920–1924	denied participation after WWI
1928–1936	Germany   (GER)
1948	occupied country after WWII: former German Olympic Committee was dissolved
1952	Germany (GER)  Saar (SAA)
1956–1964	United Team of Germany (EUA)
1968–1988		East Germany (GDR)
1992–present		Germany (GER)

Medal tables

Medals by summer sport Sport Gold Silver Bronze Total Equestrian 5 5 4 14 Athletics 4 18 8 30 Canoeing 4 5 2 11 Rowing 4 4 1 9 Diving 3 1 0 4 Swimming 1 5 6 12 Wrestling 1 5 3 9 Cycling 1 4 2 7 Boxing 1 3 2 6 Fencing 1 1 2 4 Gymnastics 1 1 1 3 Sailing 1 1 1 3 Shooting 1 0 1 2 Judo 0 1 1 2 Field hockey 0 0 1 1 Football 0 0 1 1 Totals (16 entries) 28 54 36 118

Medals by winter sport Sport Gold Silver Bronze Total Luge 2 2 1 5 Alpine skiing 2 1 2 5 Figure skating 1 2 0 3 Speed skating 1 1 0 2 Nordic combined 1 0 1 2 Ski jumping 1 0 1 2 Totals (6 entries) 8 6 5 19

See also

• Germany at the Summer Olympics
• Germany at the Winter Olympics
• Unified Korean sporting teams
• Unified Team (disambiguation)

References

External links

• "Olympic Results". International Olympic Committee.
• "United Team of Germany". Olympedia.com.
• "Olympic Analytics/EUA". olympanalyt.com.