| United Team of Germany at the Olympics | |
|---|---|
.svg) "Olympic"Flag of Germany, defaced with whiteOlympic rings, used 1960, 1964 (and 1968 by separated teams) | |
| IOC code | EUA |
| Medals Ranked 36th |
|
| Summer appearances | |
| Winter appearances | |
| Other related appearances | |
 Germany (1896–1936, 1952, 1992–) Saar (1952) East Germany (1968–1988) West Germany (1968–1988) | |
TheUnited Team of Germany (German:Gesamtdeutsche Mannschaft) was a combined team of athletes fromWest Germany andEast Germany that competed in the 1956, 1960 and 1964Winter andSummer Olympic Games. In 1956, the team also included athletes from a third Olympic body, theSaarland Olympic Committee, which had sent a separate team in 1952, but in 1956 was in the process of joining theGerman National Olympic Committee. This process was completed in February 1957 after the admission ofSaarland into West Germany.
As East Germany had introduced its own national anthem in 1949,Beethoven'sSymphony No. 9 melody to Schiller'sOde an die Freude ("Ode to Joy") was played for winning German athletes as a compromise. In 1959, East Germany also introduced an altered black-red-goldtricolourflag of Germany as theflag of East Germany. Thus, a compromise had to be made also for the flag of the unified sports team. It was agreed upon to superimpose the plain flag with additional whiteOlympic rings. This flag was used from 1960 to 1968.[1]
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 atInnsbruck in 1964, when the Austrian hosts used theGerman language "D" forDeutschland.[2]Yet, theIOC code EUA (from the officialFrench languageInternational Olympic Committee (IOC) designationÉquipe Unifiée d'Allemagne) is currently applied retrospectively in the IOC medal database, 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 the1968 Winter Olympics, East and West German athletes competed as separate teams while still using the compromise Olympic flag and Beethoven anthem. While today listed under the IOC codes of FRG (West) and GDR (East), respectively, in 1968 they were asymmetrically called in FrenchAllemagne (Germany) andAllemagne de l'Est (East Germany), and in SpanishAlemania andAlemania del Este. The codes for Germany (West) were ALL (in Grenoble) and ALE (in Mexico City), and ADE for East Germany. Despite using the same flag as each other, the two delegations did not march as one team in the Parade of Nations (unlike, for example, North and South Korea at the2000 Summer Olympics Parade of Nations) and each bore a separate instance of the compromise flag. Due to the naming, the two teams marched adjacently.[3][better source needed]
The separation was completed at the1972 Winter Olympics with the use of separate flags and anthems. While East Germany would march under their official name "German Democratic Republic" from then onward, West Germany would continue to march under the name "Germany" in 1972 and 1976, switching to their official name "Federal Republic of Germany" from 1980 onward.[2] As a result, the two countries would march adjacent to each other during the 1972 Winter Olympics (in English alphabetical order)[4] and the1976 Winter Olympics (in German).[5] However, the two countries did not march adjacently during the1972 Summer Olympics (because West Germany marched last as host) or the1976 Summer Olympics (due to French orderAllemagne andRépublique Démocratique Allemande). By coincidence, the two countries would march adjacently one last time during the1988 Summer Olympics, due to Korean alphabetical order. East Germany ceased to exist in 1990, whenits five states, together withBerlin, joined West Germany inGerman reunification.
| Olympic year/s | team | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1896–1912 |  | Germany (GER) | |||
| 1920–1924 | denied participation after WWI | ||||
| 1928–1932 |  | Germany (GER) | |||
| 1936 |  | ||||
| 1948 | occupied country after WWII: former German Olympic Committee was dissolved | ||||
| 1952 | | Germany (GER) | |||
| Saar (SAA) | East Germany did not participate | ||||
| 1956–1964 |  United Team of Germany (EUA) | ||||
| 1968–1988 | Germany | (FRG) | East Germany (GDR) | ||
| since 1992 | (GER) | ||||
Medals by Summer Games[edit]
| Medals by Winter Games[edit]
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Medals by summer sport[edit] | Medals by winter sport[edit]
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