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Siegfried Brietzke

Brietzke in 1974
Personal information
Born	(1952-06-12)12 June 1952 (age 73) Rostock,East Germany[1]
Height	192 cm (6 ft 4 in)
Weight	90 kg (198 lb)
Sport
Sport	Rowing
Club	SC DHfK Leipzig
Medal record Representing East Germany Olympic Games 1972 Munich Coxless pair 1976 Montreal Coxless four 1980 Moscow Coxless four World Rowing Championships 1974 Lucerne Coxless four 1975 Nottingham Coxless four 1977 Amsterdam Coxless four 1978 Cambridge Coxless four 1979 Bled Coxless four World Rowing Junior Championships 1970 Ioannina Coxed pair

Siegfried Brietzke (born 12 June 1952) is a Germanrower. He competed forEast Germany, first incoxless pairs, together withWolfgang Mager, and then incoxless fours. In these events he won Olympic gold medals in 1972, 1976 and 1980, as well as four world championships in 1974–1979.

Brietzke responded to a television programme screened at Christmas 1967 where tall boys were sought as rowers, and he joinedSC DHfK Leipzig in response.^[2][3] After training for just three years, he won a gold medal withWolfgang Mager and cox Werner Lehmann at the 1970World Rowing Junior Championships inIoannina in the coxed pair.^[4] At the 1971 East German national championships, he came second in the coxless four.^[5]

At the1972 Summer Olympics, Brietzke and his partner Mager won the gold medal in thecoxless pair event.^[1] Mager and Brietzke won the East German national championship in the coxless pair in 1973,^[6] but a few weeks later at the1973 European Rowing Championships inMoscow they came fourth only in this boat class.^[7]

At the 1974 East German national championships, Brietzke, Mager,Stefan Semmler, andAndreas Decker became champions in two boat classes: in the coxless four,^[5] and in the coxed four assisted by coxswain Matthias Sommer.^[8] They went to the1974 World Rowing Championships inLucerne as a coxless four and won gold.^[9] Brietzke, Mager, Semmler, and Decker won the national coxless four event every year until 1979.^[5] The four won the1975 World Rowing Championships inNottingham,^[10] the1976 Summer Olympics inMontreal,^[11] the1977 World Rowing Championships inAmsterdam,^[12] but were beaten to second place by the team from the Soviet Union at the1978 World Rowing Championships inCambridge, New Zealand.^[13] They won gold again at the1979 World Rowing Championships inBled,^[14] and won a further Olympicgold in 1980 inMoscow, but withJürgen Thiele having replaced Wolfgang Mager.^[15] After the Moscow Olympics, Brietzke was the only sports person that year to be awarded thePatriotic Order of Merit in gold with honour clasp, the highest sports award of the GDR.^[16]

Brietzke is married and has a son, born in 1974.^[3]

In 2013, it was revealed that Brietzke was a member of theStasi, the state security service of the German Democratic Republic. Under the codename "Charlie", his role was to control other athletes and report those with "deviant thinking".^[17]

• Media related toSiegfried Brietzke at Wikimedia Commons

• 1952 births
• Living people
• Rowers from Rostock
• East German male rowers
• Olympic rowers for East Germany
• Rowers at the 1972 Summer Olympics
• Rowers at the 1976 Summer Olympics
• Rowers at the 1980 Summer Olympics
• Olympic gold medalists for East Germany
• Olympic medalists in rowing
• World Rowing Championships medalists for East Germany
• Medalists at the 1980 Summer Olympics
• Medalists at the 1976 Summer Olympics
• Medalists at the 1972 Summer Olympics
• Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit (honor clasp)
• Stasi informants

• CS1 German-language sources (de)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from September 2020
• Biography articles needing translation from German Wikipedia
• Commons category link is on Wikidata