Dieter Kloss puts his bag on the table, takes off his bicycle helmet and apologizes for being a little out of breath.

“I'm not in the right shape,” he says.

“The weight room was closed for a year.” Kloss is 91 years old and the unofficial age president of the seniors of the Dresden Canoeing Club.

Every Thursday afternoon they meet in the club house in the east of Dresden, around a dozen women and men, there is coffee, lemonade, beer.

They were all active canoeists, some of them trainers, youth workers, and cash auditors.

Stefan Locke

Correspondent for Saxony and Thuringia based in Dresden.

  • Follow I follow

Kloss was even once a GDR champion.

“1956 in a foursome,” he calls out.

“As a bonus there was a vase that should actually be in the closet somewhere.” You won't find it, but there are a lot of trophies, titles and honors that club members have won.

“By GDR standards, we were one of the best sports clubs,” says Heinz Göldner.

He is 87 years old and used to train beginners.

The interest was very great.

Once, he reports, they had 33 girls but only 30 boats.

Memories are revived. How they competed in the West before the Wall was built, in Hof and Bamberg, how the teams came from there to return visits to the Elbe and how after 1961 no more contacts were wanted. And then the big regattas after the war. "6000 spectators were there," says Kloss. “Unimaginable when it comes to canoeing!” But the annual Elbe regattas have been a thing of the past for a good ten years. In general, a lot has changed. From the club house, the view goes over the river to Wachwitz Castle, the last residence of the Wettins, and to the television tower. It's a huge political issue in Dresden because it was closed to the public after reunification. It offers its own tower café and a magnificent view over the Elbe Valley. The reopening has so far failed due to a lack of money.

“We don't have much to do with politics,” says Elisabet Thümmel, the youngest at the table at 77. "We rarely talk about it." That is a good thing, says Kloss. "Otherwise the tatters would fly here." He was very annoyed by the Corona restrictions, also because club life was practically idle. Hardly any competitions, hardly any boats on the water. At the beginning of his life, the war screwed up his canoeing, and now, at the end, the pandemic. "That's the way it is, I have to deal with it," he says angrily. After all, they are all vaccinated now, says Thümmel.

And of course they would all go to the election in September, they assure us.

Then they quickly change the subject.

The talk is about the use on the club's own canoe campground in Saxon Switzerland.

During the season they are on duty there on a weekly basis, look after tourists and keep things tidy.

Recently canoe tourists from Belgium and France were there.

“We communicated with the translation program on the smartphone,” says Göldner proudly.

"After the reunification it was really bad"

Outside the gates of the boathouses open, young people flock to the shore in their canoes. About half of the 220 club members are children, tell the seniors. And the more the volume increases outside, the more your eyes shine. For several years now, more children and young people have been coming to the association. “A wonderful thing,” says Heinz Göldner. "We are happy that our children can now train again." In the past, only adults could have been accepted into the club. It was not until the 1960s that children and adolescents joined the group.

Talents were specifically spotted and sent to training centers, and there were competitions on the weekends. "After the reunification it was really bad," says Dieter Kloss. People went to the West, the number of members was halved, and the full-time coaches were fired. “They were special trainers for canoe racing!” Shouts Kloss. “Suddenly they were all gone. That was awesome! ”Kloss is a kind of walking encyclopedia of the association, which is only ten years older than himself. He wrote a 250-page chronicle.

Most of them worked as engineers, heavy current, precision mechanics, building construction, civil engineering, construction. There is also a teacher and a personnel manager at the table. After 1989 they all had to reorient themselves, professionally, socially, and some also privately. The canoe club was often the only constant in their post-Wendelife, although almost everything changed there too. But they could now go down the Elbe to Hamburg, along the Moselle and the Altmühl and finally also the Danube, which was previously only accessible to them between Pressburg (Bratislava) and Mohács in Hungary. “Today we're still paddling in the Spreewald,” says Elisabet Thümmel. “Exactly,” says Heinz Göldner. “And then stop by where there's something to eat and drink.” Everyone laughs. Dieter Kloss too. Then he has to go to the weight room first, he says.After all, it is now open again.