Volker Kluge (born 14 October 1944) is a German sports journalist and former sports official in

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

Career

Kluge was born in

Altenburg Altenburg () is a city in Thuringia, Germany, located south of Leipzig, west of Dresden and east of Erfurt. It is the capital of the Altenburger Land district and part of a polycentric old-industrial textile and metal production region betw ...

. From 1967 to 1971 he studied journalism in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

. He became member of the

Socialist Unity Party of Germany The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (german: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, ; SED, ), often known in English as the East German Communist Party, was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East German ...

in 1970. From 1971 to 1990 he was sports journalist and eventually editor for the newspaper ''

Junge Welt ''Junge Welt'' (English: ''Young World'', stylized in its logo as ''junge Welt'') is a German daily newspaper, published in Berlin. The jW describes itself as a left-wing and Marxist newspaper. German authorities categorize it as a far-left medi ...

''. He was member of the National Olympic Committee of East Germany from 1982 to 1990. He was awarded the

Distinguished Service Medal of the National People's Army The Distinguished Service Medal of the National People's Army, or "Medal of Merit of the National People's Army", (german: Verdienstmedaille der Nationalen Volksarmee) was a medal issued in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Established on Jun ...

in 1989. From 1980 to 1989 Kluge was also an

informal collaborator An unofficial collaborator or IM (; both from German ''inoffizieller Mitarbeiter''), or euphemistically informal collaborator (''informeller Mitarbeiter''), was an informant in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) who delivered private i ...

(informant) in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), delivering information to the Ministry for State Security (MfS / Stasi), with the cover name "Frank". His books include ''Olympische Spiele 1896 – 1980'' (1981), ''Meilenweit bis Marathon'' (1987), ''Katarina – eine Traumkarriere auf dem Eis'' (1988), ''Olympiastadion Berlin. Steine beginnen zu reden'' (1999), ''Otto der Seltsame. Die Einsamkeit eines Mittelstreckenläufers'' (2000), and ''Max Schmeling. Eine Biographie in 15 Runden'' (2004).

Criticism

Kluge has been accused of falsifying information in his many biographies in the encyclopedia ' and in his 2004 book ''Das große Lexikon der DDR-Sportler'', by omitting or toning down negative information, such as doping issues or

Stasi The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the Intelligence agency, state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990. The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maint ...

collaboration.

References

1944 births Living people People from Altenburg Sports historians German sports executives and administrators German sports journalists 20th-century German journalists 21st-century German journalists {{Germany-sport-bio-stub Stasi informants