Flight From East Germany
After a disappointing fourth place finish at the 1980 Olympics and missing the 1981 World Championships in Rome due to a second place finish in the East German Championships, Wolfgang Schmidt decided to pursue athletic success in the West. He was constantly under surveillance by the Volkspolizei and they uncovered a plan for his escape (aided by discus colleague Ricky Bruch). In the fall of 1982, Schmidt was condemned to one and a half years prison. However, one year later it was adjusted and he was ordered to become a coach with SC Dynamo Adlershof, a sports team of the Felix Dzerzhinsky Watch Regiment. Wolfgang Schmidt filed a departure request so that he could continue his athletic career in the West. At the end of 1987, he was allowed to move to West Germany, though it was already too late to be considered for the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul. After the first track competition between East and West Germany, Jürgen Schult, having won the discus throw, refused to shake hands with Schmidt.
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Famous quotes containing the words flight, east and/or germany:
“One man’s observation is another man’s closed book or flight of fancy.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“The majority of the men of the North, and of the South and East and West, are not men of principle. If they vote, they do not send men to Congress on errands of humanity; but while their brothers and sisters are being scourged and hung for loving liberty,... it is the mismanagement of wood and iron and stone and gold which concerns them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is the emotions to which one objects in Germany most of all.”
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