SC Dynamo Berlin

The Sports Club Dynamo Berlin was an East German sports club that existed from 1954 to 1991. It was a training center for the Sports Club Dynamo (Sports club of the Ministry of Police and the Ministry for Public Security).

Sporting spectrum

The sports club offered the following kinds of sport: team handball, athletics, gymnastics, cycling, speed skating, racewalking, figure skating, ice hockey, fencing, boxing, and volleyball. The football section was separated from the club to form BFC Dynamo in 1966.

Dynamo-Sportforum

The Dynamo-Sportforum was a multi-use sports complex in East Berlin that contained an athletic stadium, a gymnasium, a roller-skating hall, an ice rink, and a velodrome.

Controversies surrounding the Sports Club

The case of doping

Two former Dynamo Berlin club doctors, Dieter Binus, chief of the national women's team from 1976 to 1980, and Bernd Pansold, in charge of the sports medicine center in East-Berlin, were committed for trial for allegedly supplying 19 teenagers with illegal substances.^[1] Binus was sentenced in August,^[2] Pansold in December 1998 after both being found guilty of administering hormones to underage female athletes from 1975 to 1984.^[3]

The Stasi and Erich Mielke

Erich Mielke, chief of Dynamo, was also the leader of the Stasi,^[4] the Secret Police of East Germany. The Stasi was widely regarded as one of the most effective intelligence agencies in the world. In 1989, the Stasi had 91,000 staff members and 174,000 unofficial collaborators.

Honours

The Sports Club Dynamo produced numerous well-known athletes, including Christoph Höhne (racewalking), Ilona Slupianek (shot put), Karin Janz (gymnastics), Axel Peschel (cycle racing), Joachim Ziesche and Dietmar Peters (ice hockey), Helga Haase (speed skating), and Barbara Krause (swimming).

References

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