Frank Ullrich, the chairman of the Sports Committee of the Bundestag, agreed a year ago to have an expert report drawn up on his possible doping past. But he is apparently playing for time – and is increasingly being criticized.
When Evelyn Zupke talks about Frank Ullrich, the federal government’s SED Victims’ Commissioner finds it difficult to contain her displeasure. It’s been a year since the former GDR civil rights activist got the sports committee chairman Ullrich to agree to have an expert report drawn up on his possible doping past. But the SPD politician, for the GDR 1980 biathlon Olympic champion, stonewalled. An expert opinion is far and wide not in sight.
“Of course I did some research and found out that this report was never commissioned. I find it extremely disrespectful to his fellow MPs and more than embarrassing to the victims that he has not done so to this day,” said Zupke in an interview with the ARD doping editorial team. When asked, Ullrich did not want to comment on the specific status of his work-up process.
“No Olympic Champion Bonus”
Zupke emphasizes that Ullrich is “one of the highest officials in German sport” and that the public has a right to know whether Ullrich is involved in doping. “I don’t think there should be an Olympic champion bonus when we come to terms with our history,” she says.
To this day, Ullrich denies having been involved in the doping system of the GDR, although companions accused him after reunification. Jürgen Wirth, Jens Steinigen, Jürgen Grundler or Andreas Hess – in recent years several biathletes have publicly contradicted Ullrich’s assurances that he had never had anything to do with doping as a coach or athlete.
SED victim commissioner Evelyn Zupke
Unconsciously controlled displacement mechanism
But it was only after he was appointed to the head of the sports committee that the blind spots in Ullrich’s vita were increasingly discussed. Because the chairman of the sports committee also has a post on the supervisory board of the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA). An allegedly incriminated functionary as a controller of the doping hunters – that was too much of a good thing for the parliamentarians.
A report by the German Ski Association from 2009 no longer played any role in Ullrich’s exoneration because hardly anyone had taken it seriously anyway. The anything but independent committee chaired by today’s DSV President and then “Vice” Franz Steinle secured the successful national coach’s continued employment. It attested to him having an “unconsciously controlled repression mechanism” for the time he worked as a trainer in the GDR with regard to a possible handling of doping substances.
A year ago, Ullrich continued to chair the sports committee, but he had to take action because of the increased public pressure: in addition to agreeing to prepare an expert opinion and renouncing the NADA office, he agreed to a meeting with doping victims. According to Zupke, it became an encounter in a rather frosty atmosphere. “Then he went in the direction: ‘Doping is everywhere in the world’. He just continued with his story that he really had nothing to do with it,” says Zupke. Michael Lehner, the chairman of the doping victims’ help association, who attended the meeting, confirmed this account.
“He didn’t understand”
In addition, according to Zupke, Ullrich raised the question of who should pay for the private report on his past at all. “I told him I’m assuming he’ll do it himself, after all it’s about his story. He didn’t understand that,” said Zupke.
Apparently only Ullrich himself knows how far Ullrich has progressed on the long road to an expert report. A year ago, Zupke had suggested a renowned expert to Ullrich and pre-formulated key questions – in vain. And she herself had researched Stasi files on the GDR doping state plan 14.25 and the participation of the biathlon division. Zupke came to the conclusion: She thinks it is “very difficult to imagine” that Ullrich as a trainer had “no knowledge of doping, of the procedures”. Ullrich has always denied such allegations.
“Everything in the works”
Ullrich did not respond to a recent interview request from the ARD doping editorial team. In writing, he only said so much: “Everything is in the works.”
Ullrich’s colleagues in the sports committee are surprisingly putting little pressure on their chairman. It seems as if they are embarrassed that when Ullrich was elected they apparently had neither the past (doping allegations) nor the present (NADA posts) on their screens. The bumps in Ullrich’s CV were not significant for the SPD parliamentary group leadership either. Also because she was extremely grateful to Ullrich for winning the federal election in his constituency in southern Thuringia against CDU right-winger Hans-Georg Maaßen, the successful career changer was allowed to take over the chairmanship of the sports committee in the Bundestag.
Hahn: No expert opinion necessary
In an ARD survey of the sports committee representatives, Ullrich’s deputy Philip Krämer (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) was the most critical. He described it as “absolutely incomprehensible that after a year we still don’t have an expert opinion”. Even if he did not directly demand a resignation, he brought it up at least in the event that the expertise does not clearly exonerate Ullrich: “Then of course we would have to discuss the person, because then we have a direct connection between the burdened GDR -Sports system and the chairmanship of the sports committee of the German Bundestag. And that’s a big problem.”
The AfD representative did not respond to the ARD request. The CDU/CSU and FDP called for the report to be prepared immediately, but not everyone in the Sports Committee saw it that way. Left chairman André Hahn would prefer to spread the cloak of silence about Ullrich’s GDR past: “I didn’t ask Frank Ullrich for an expert opinion and I don’t think it’s necessary, especially not more than 30 years after German unity.”