'East still contributes a lot'

DW: You experienced the sports system in both East and reunified Germany. Do you think that, 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, that German sport is truly reunified?

Henry Maske: Of course, I got to know East German sports quite well, but I turned professional after the fall of the Wall so my experiences aren't the same as those of amateur East German athletes or athletes from West Germany. I speak with a lot of athletes but it's difficult for me to say.

Now did you experience this transformation personally? Were you welcomed with open arms in the West?

I was under special scrutiny as one of the first professional athletes from East Germany. We need to remember that 25 years ago hardly anyone paid attention to boxing in Germany. What interest there was concerned the VIPs sitting in the first three rows of the crowd. It took a while to put boxing in the spotlight. No one today, for instance, would question whether boxing is a true sport or not.

How did reunified Germany treat athletes from East Germany? Were you treated with respect or did people laugh at you? How did your West German colleagues behave?

I think there was great respect. After all, what is sports about? Performance above all. As a rule we were better than the other system because we could do sports more professionally. Someone who can train two or three times a day has a natural advantage. The difference was not between East and West, but rather between performance and non-performance.

How much of East Germany still exists within German sports?

Quite a lot, I think. The clever sports federation was very receptive to the undeniably positive aspects of East German sports. East German knowledge about sports was incorporated and integrated into the reunified German sports system, especially for sports in which East Germany excelled. The existing quality was simply adopted. In other sports, for instance, fencing or football, you people in the West were better. In these disciplines we had to work in order to catch up.

You just used the words "you" and "we." Is East German versus West German heritage still important to young athletes? Is where you come from a factor in your chances for success?

I think it may still be relevant. But it's not just East or West. North or South also plays a role. And more important questions are: where are the Olympic training centers? How's the infrastructure in the region? And with that in mind, I don't think people distinguish between East and West any more.

Is sports in reunified Germany going in the right direction?

If you look at the number [of Olympic medals, for instance], anyone can see that German sports are going backwards. After the fall of the Wall, German sports lived in part from the results of East German sports system. But the basic quality is getting less and less.

What can reunified German sports learn from the past?

I think we've neglected to do precisely that: use the past and the present as the basis for analysis. Everyone knows that there was doping in East German sports. But we now know that the problem of doping didn't stop at the East German border, and perhaps people realize that East German sporting success wasn't just the result of doping.

In order to compete and develop top athletes, you need a broad base. That means that kids have to be encouraged from a young age to do sports if you want top-performing athletes.

This sort of thinking is a given in business. If you igmore it in sports, and think that you only have to encourage athletes who are already top performers, you're doomed to fail.

Henry Maske was Germany's most famous boxer after Max Schmeling. He started fighting as an amateur in Communist East Germany and won the Olympic gold medal as a middleweight at the 1988 Summer Olympics. After the fall of the Wall, he turned pro and became a star in the reunified country, becoming the IBF light-heavyweigtht champion in 1993. Maske's 30 victories in 31 professional bouts helped spark a resurgence of interest in boxing in Germany, and the streets were nearly empty whenever he fought. Since retiring from the ring in 1996 (he returned briefly in 2007), the "Gentleman," as he was nicknamed, has run his own charitable foundation and works as a boxing commentator.

Interview by Joscha Weber.