.mw-parser-output .hidden-begin{box-sizing:border-box;width:100%;padding:5px;border:none;font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .hidden-title{font-weight:bold;line-height:1.6;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output .hidden-content{text-align:left}@media all and (max-width:500px){.mw-parser-output .hidden-begin{width:auto!important;clear:none!important;float:none!important))You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (May 2022) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,087 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Siegfried Brietzke]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template ((Translated|de|Siegfried Brietzke)) to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Siegfried Brietzke

Brietzke in 1974

Personal information

Born

12 June 1952 (age 71)
Rostock, East Germany^[1]

Height

192 cm (6 ft 4 in)

Weight

90 kg (198 lb)

Sport

Rowing

Club

SC DHfK Leipzig

Medal record

Representing East Germany

Olympic Games
	1972 Munich	Coxless pair
	1976 Montreal	Coxless four
	1980 Moscow	Coxless four
World Rowing Championships
	1974 Lucerne	Coxless four
	1975 Nottingham	Coxless four
	1977 Amsterdam	Coxless four
	1978 Cambridge	Coxless four
	1979 Bled	Coxless four
World Rowing Junior Championships
	1970 Ioannina	Coxed pair

Siegfried Brietzke (born 12 June 1952) is a German rower. He competed for East Germany, first in coxless pairs, together with Wolfgang Mager, and then in coxless fours. In these events he won Olympic gold medals in 1972, 1976 and 1980, as well as four world championships in 1974–1979.

Rowing career

Brietzke responded to a television programme screened at Christmas 1967 where tall boys were sought as rowers, and he joined SC DHfK Leipzig in response.^[2]^[3] After training for just three years, he won a gold medal with Wolfgang Mager and cox Werner Lehmann at the 1970 World Rowing Junior Championships in Ioannina in the coxed pair.^[4] At the 1971 East German national championships, he came second in the coxless four.^[5]

At the 1972 Summer Olympics, Brietzke and his partner Mager won the gold medal in the coxless pair event.^[1] Mager and Brietzke won the East German national championship in the coxless pair in 1973,^[6] but a few weeks later at the 1973 European Rowing Championships in Moscow they came fourth only in this boat class.^[7]

At the 1974 East German national championships, Brietzke, Mager, Stefan Semmler, and Andreas Decker became champions in two boat classes: in the coxless four,^[5] and in the coxed four assisted by coxswain Matthias Sommer.^[8] They went to the 1974 World Rowing Championships in Lucerne as a coxless four and won gold.^[9] Brietzke, Mager, Semmler, and Decker won the national coxless four event every year until 1979.^[5] The four won the 1975 World Rowing Championships in Nottingham,^[10] the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal,^[11] the 1977 World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam,^[12] but were beaten to second place by the team from the Soviet Union at the 1978 World Rowing Championships in Cambridge, New Zealand.^[13] They won gold again at the 1979 World Rowing Championships in Bled,^[14] and won a further Olympic gold in 1980 in Moscow, but with Jürgen Thiele having replaced Wolfgang Mager.^[15] After the Moscow Olympics, Brietzke was the only sports person that year to be awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold with honour clasp, the highest sports award of the GDR.^[16]

Post-rowing life

Brietzke is married and has a son, born in 1974.^[3]

In 2013, it was revealed that Brietzke was a member of the Stasi, the state security service of the German Democratic Republic. Under the codename "Charlie", his role was to control other athletes and report those with "deviant thinking".^[17]