Kati Witt: "Jutta Müller never got over humiliation"

In early November 2023, Jutta Müller, the legendary coach of two-time Olympic champion Kati Witt, passes away. One month later, the former figure skater laments the behavior of German sport after reunification. A "mentality of settling accounts" prevailed. Müller fell victim to this.

In an interview in the current issue of "Zeit Magazin", former figure skater Katarina Witt spoke about competitive sport in the former GDR and the hard training under her recently deceased coach Jutta Müller. "Of course, our competitive sports system was brutal because you could be sorted out so quickly," said Witt. "This form of selection was merciless, it was all about competitive sport right from the start."

Witt saw her coach Müller's toughness as discipline: "I never once saw her let herself go. But because I had a clear goal myself, I accepted her strictness as a matter of course." Jutta Müller was the most successful figure skating coach in the world in the seventies and eighties, she made Witt a world star. Müller lost her job after reunification.

"She never got over the humiliation inflicted on her by the former Ice Skating Union," said two-time Olympic champion Witt. "It seemed to me that a mentality of settling accounts prevailed among the West German sports officials. Before reunification, the GDR athletes were usually the ones who won. Now they could use their position to finally act like 'winners' themselves." The 58-year-old continued: "Back then, far too much simply went wrong at the time of reunification, with far too many people whose life achievements were trampled underfoot."

The break came after reunification

Müller, who won three Olympic gold medals, ten world, 18 European and 42 GDR championship titles during her coaching career, passed away at the beginning of November at the age of 94. "With her passing, the figure skating world has lost one of the greatest coaching personalities and is shocked by her death," said Andreas Wagner, President of the German Skating Union (DEU), after her death.

Former DEU sports director Udo Dönsdorf had described her as a loyal worker in the system of the German Democratic Republic. He said: "She embodied these successes of the GDR, she knew how to produce success. And the GDR system was made for her, offered her every opportunity, because figure skating had the touch of the dazzling."

The former teacher of German, music, mathematics and sport had already joined the SED in 1946 and was unable to adapt to the new era after the system collapsed. "The GDR system could not be adopted. I realize that now. But it could still have continued. At the time, I was actually desperate that all this super junior work could no longer exist from one day to the next," Müller later told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The former GDR pairs champion was made an honorary citizen of the city of Chemnitz in December 2008 and had already been inducted into the Figure Skating Hall of Fame four years earlier.

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Despite her success in coaching figure skaters during the '70s and '80s, Jutta Müller struggled to adapt to the changes post-reunification. Her hard-earned reputation took a hit, as she felt humiliated by the West German sports officials who seemed to relish in their newfound position of power. This shift occurred in the 1980s' 'Chemnitz', the city she called home, where she had nurtured many talented winter sports athletes.

Source: www.ntv.de