Unified Team of Germany

Infobox Country Olympics
NOC=EUA
flagcaption=Flag of Germany superimposed
with white Olympic rings
summerappearances = 1956 • 1960 • 1964
winterappearances = 1956 • 1960 • 1964
seealso=• Germany (all appearances)
• East Germany (1968-1988)
• Saar (1952)

The Unified Team of Germany ( _fr. Équipe unifiée d'Allemagne, _de. Gesamtdeutsche Mannschaft) competed in the 1956, 1960, and 1964 Winter and Summer Olympic Games as a united team of athletes from the "Federal Republic of Germany" (FRG, West Germany) and the "German Democratic Republic" (GDR, East Germany). In 1956 the team also included athletes from a third Olympic body, the Saarland Olympic Committee. They had sent a separate team in 1952, but in 1956 were in the process of joining the German National Olympic Committee, a process which was completed in February 1957 after the admission of Saarland into the FRG.

Beethoven's melody to Schiller's "Ode an die Freude" (Ode to Joy) was played for winning German athletes as a compromise in lieu of a national anthem. As the GDR introduced an altered black-red-gold tricolour flag of Germany in 1959 as flag of East Germany, a compromise flag was agreed upon for 1960, superimposed with additional white Olympic rings.

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. [cite journal |title=IOC and OCOG Abbreviations for NOCs |last=Mallon |first=Bill |coauthors=Ove Karlsson |journal=Journal of Olympic History |volume=12 |issue=2 |year=2004 |month=May |pages=pp. 25–28 |url=http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/JOH/JOHv12n2/johv12n2l.pdf |format=PDF |accessdate=2008-06-09] Yet, the IOC code EUA (from the official French-language IOC designation, "Équipe Unifiée d'Allemagne") is currently applied in hindsight in IOC medal database, [cite web |title=Olympic Medal Winners |publisher=International Olympic Committee |url=http://www.olympic.org/uk/athletes/results/search_r_uk.asp |accessdate=2008-06-09] 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 now listed under the symmetric IOC codes of FRG and GDR, respectively, in 1968 they were asymmetrically called "Allemagne" / Germany and "Allemagne de l'Est" / East Germany, with ALL (in Grenoble) and ALE (in Mexico City, for "Alemania") being used for Germany, and ADE for East Germany.

The separation was completed at the 1972 Summer Olympics with the use of separate flags and anthems. It continued until the German Democratic Republic ceased to exist after 1989, with their states joining the Federal Republic of Germany in the process of German reunification in 1990.

ee also

*Germany at the Summer Olympics
*Germany at the Winter Olympics
*Unified Team

References