East Germany
— Andreas Kreiger, once Heidi Krieger, is one of
the many East German athletes who are taking
action
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: 885mg of male hormones in 1982, rising to 2,590mg
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.”
