ABSTRACT
The realities of developments in educational, economic and social systems in the two Germanies from 1949 on were embedded in politico-ideological differences: in the administratively highly decentralised western Federal Republic of Germany these mirrored the democratic and market economy ideals of so-called capitalist western democracies; and in the centrally controlled eastern German Democratic Republic, they reflected an idea of democratic centralism based on socialist (some would argue communist), Marxist-Leninist inspired principles. International recognition of the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany was not long in coming, a major influence on which were the Cold War political interests of the West and the early-1950s economic union and political intitatives in western Europe. In the GDR, Soviet exploitation directly associated with compensation for wartime losses in men and materials only gradually gave way to the partnership and economic recovery for which the Democratic Republic came to be regarded in the mid-1960s as a shining example of communist economic planning. Contributory to its international political recognition were the considerable international sporting successes of the GDR, manifest in the progressive acknowledgement of its national sports associations by international organisations, for example the recognition of an independent national Olympic committee in 1965 and the participation of its athletes as the GDR team in the Olympic Games from 1968 on. With the establishment of the Deutscher Sport Ausschuss (German Sports Committee or DS) in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany in 1948 (it was later replaced in the GDR by the German Gymnastics and Sports Federation, the Deutscher Turn– und Sportbund or DTSB, in 1957) and the German Sports Federation (Deutscher Sportbund or DSB) in the FRG in 1950 in Frankfurt-am-Main as the umbrella association for all sports associations and their member clubs, the post-World War II division of Germany was officially extended into the realm of sport. The result was the existence of two completely different sport structures and systems in the two German states, which persisted until re-unification in 1990. Therefore, the development of sport and physical education in Germany should properly be dealt with in two separate sections (Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic). First though, there follows a review of developments from the end of the National Socialist era to the constitutional arrival of two new nation states.
