Translated material
Secret knowledge
Ingo Steuer's past could cost him his job
At the end of October, the next season of figure skaters starts in America with the Grand Prix stage. The German duo Alena Savchenko and Robin Shelkov, who are coached by the former famous figure skater from the GDR Ingo Steuer, are not among the participants. Today's uncertainty in the fate of the talented couple directly depends on the future of Ingo Steuer, who has only temporarily, by court decision, retained the right to be a coach.Until January of this year, the legendary European (1995) and world (1997) champion from East German Karl-Marx-Stadt in Saxony was known as one of the indisputable authorities in German figure skating. However, when there were literally only a few days left before departure for the Winter Olympics, unpleasant news arrived for the German Figure Skating Association (GSFC): Steuer was listed in the period from 1985 to 1989, as it was then called in the language of the Ministry of State Security (or simply - Stasi) , an “unofficial employee” of this department. As an 18-year-old athlete from the Saxon province, with real hope for the highest world titles in figure skating, Steuer did not hesitate to sign a pledge to cooperate with the competent authorities. He was given the nickname Thorsten, with which, on instructions from his new masters from the Stasi, he signed his reports on fellow athletes.
Now Ingo Steuer, when asked about his until recently secret past, answers that Thorsten did not harm anyone. It is not only the former targets of the amateur informer among the famous East German figure skaters who hold the opposite opinion. The archives of the former MGB of the GDR are stored in a government department specially created after the reunification of both parts of Germany, which is now headed by Marianne Birtler. It tests former citizens of this republic who are applying for jobs in government organizations, higher political bodies, etc., for previous involvement - professional or unofficial - in the state security of the GDR. According to the law in force in Germany, former Stasi employees are prohibited from such activities: the MGB of the GDR was officially recognized as a criminal organization. There are no such restrictions on the work of former Stasi employees in private structures.
The famous Berlin historian and expert on the GDR, who currently heads the memorial complex in the political prison in the city district of Hoeschenhausen, Hubertus Knabe had to personally understand the written reports of Ingo Steuer - Thorsten. Mr. Knabe frankly admitted to the Vremya Novostey correspondent that in the sea of similar archival documents stored in the archives of Marianne Birtler’s department, it is rare to read such openly snitching reports. However, Birtler’s own assessments of coach Alena Savchenko and her partner Robin Shelkova are extremely critical. According to her classification, Steuer belonged to the informal Stasi employees “eager to fight.” Thus, one of his reports contained information that his colleagues, pair skaters, were selling videotapes with hardcore porn. Steuer suggested to his communications officer that he buy a tape or two from them for evidence, but he did not receive consent.
Steuer, as follows from his reports to the Stasi, also reported on the famous figure skater from the GDR Katharina Witt - she also comes from Karl-Marx-Stadt, now called Chemnitz. Having learned about this, Witt reacted to everything quite calmly: they say, it’s a thing of the past. But Ahel Rauschenbach, when he was given the opportunity to familiarize himself with the denunciations of Ingo Steuer, with whom he lived alone in a room at a sports boarding school, wanted to meet him again so that the Stasi informer would tell him everything as it really happened.
Karl-Marx-Stadt in the GDR was known as the center of top-class figure skating. A solid training base for figure skaters exists there today, and is headed by Monika Scheibe, who trained the once “golden” pair of Mandy Werzel and Ingo Steuer. As was customary in the GDR - and not only in figure skating - star sport and state security existed hand in hand. Monika Scheibe herself, by the way, was listed in the authorities as an unofficial employee with the pseudonym “Anna Rose”. In the 90s, the German NOC for some reason, as the Germans say, “closed one eye” to this circumstance, although the story of its cooperation with the Stasi appeared in the media back in 1992.
With Ingo Steuer everything turned out differently. Payment for his work is made mainly from state budget allocations, which consist of tax revenues. Who, tell me, in Germany would agree to give their hard-earned money, paid to the tax department, to finance a former employee of a criminal organization! We are talking about an annual amount of 400 thousand euros, with which the Federal Ministry of the Interior subsidizes the figure skating duo Savchenko - Shelkov. Half of this amount has already been transferred to the German Figure Skating Association; the remaining 200 thousand was frozen by the Ministry of the Interior, apparently until better times.
At the beginning of the year, the sports union officially suspended Ingo Steuer from coaching. Only after going to court and an urgent decision in his favor was he able to accompany his charges to Turin. Before the end of the main trial, the coach was reinstated in his position by this court decision. His wards also remain loyal to him. Alena Savchenko and Robin Shelkov flatly refuse the SSPC proposals to replace their coach. As it became known, sports officials are ready to invite eminent coaches from abroad to replace Steuer. We are talking about Oleg Vasiliev or Tamara Moskvina. “We have raised the best coaches in the world to their feet, Savchenko and the Shelkovs must finally make a decision,” SFFC treasurer Johannes Wehr said yesterday in an interview.
It seems that the skaters made this decision a long time ago. Steuer's lawyer, Carla Vogt-Reller, who is preparing to defend the ex-Stasi informer at the upcoming trial in Munich, finds the couple's devotion to their coach noteworthy. “I have a feeling of deep respect for them,” says the lawyer, “our country needs such straightforwardness.”