EA documentary by ARD raises massive new questions about how the German Swimming Association (DSV) deals with victims and perpetrators of sexualised violence. In the film “Abusbt”, which has been online since Thursday and is scheduled to be broadcast linearly on Saturday evening (10:40 p.m.), former water jumper Jan Hempel describes how he was sexually abused by his trainer Werner Langer over a period of 14 years.
Among other things, Langer forced him to perform sexual acts in the changing rooms of the Olympic diving tower on Montjuic before an Olympic competition in Barcelona in 1992. Langer had trained Hempel since childhood in the GDR and after reunification as a top athlete. He committed suicide in 2001. Hempel tells ARD that he described the abuse by Langer of Ursula Klinger, who died in 2006, in 1997.
“It’s going over corpses”
She initiated Langer’s suspension, but, says Hempel, he later learned that Langer’s activity as an unofficial employee of the State Security was used as the reason. The ARD reports that the Austrian swimming association hired Langer without knowing about the allegations against him, according to the ARD.
“I had to feel for many years that only sporting success was important to DSV. It’s over dead bodies, no matter what,” says Hempel in the film. According to him, today’s head national trainer of the water jumpers, Lutz Buschkow, knew about Hempel’s fate. The ARD relies on another eyewitness who confirmed that Ursula Klinger had informed Buschkow, other coaches and the association management about the allegations.
According to FAZ information, Buschkow denies having known about Hempel’s allegations against his coach. He intends to comment accordingly on the sidelines of the European Championships in Rome and to continue to comment after the end.
Convicted coach retained
The film also shows how the former national coach of open water swimmers, Stefan Lurz, who was convicted in two cases of sexual abuse of a ward in February of this year, walked in and out of the grounds of the Würzburg 05 swimming club even after the conviction. In addition to a six-month suspended prison sentence, the district court ordered him to “refrain from any professional or voluntary activity related to swimming”.
As the ARD reports, Stefan Lurz has been employed as a commercial employee in the club, whose president is his brother Thomas Lurz, since February. A swimmer had already accused Stefan Lurz of sexual assault in 2010. An investigation by the Würzburg public prosecutor’s office had been discontinued at the time, and the swimmer and Lurz agreed on a perpetrator-victim compensation.
Lutz Buschkow, director of competitive sports at DSV from 2008 to 2016, suggested Lurz for the German Olympic Sports Confederation’s trainer award in 2013. He is “a great role model in his coaching work,” the film quotes. From 2017 to 2021, Stefan Lurz was the head national coach for open water swimmers. In addition, according to the film, members of the German Olympic team in Tokyo described verbal assaults in the Olympic Village and in the Olympic swimming pool to the DSV.
Although the association’s prevention officer had called for consequences, the DSV board of directors informed ARD that there was “possibly” a violation of good governance rules. The man will not be used in swimming events. In the film it is said that he was again scheduled for a swimming event – with the knowledge of the DSV management.
It was only at the beginning of July that a trainer, who had once been in a relationship with an underage swimmer, worked for DSV at the Junior European Championships in Romania. The association had classified the nomination of the man, who was only to be assigned administrative tasks, as “uncritical”. A court case that the swimmer had brought against the coach ended nine years ago with an acquittal because the love affair was not abusive.
