On November 12, 1964, the first Paralympic Games for Japan came to an end in Tokyo.

The atmosphere in the famous Yoyogi National Gymnasium, built by Kenzo Tange, was festive.

The flags of the participating nations were lined up.

Crown Prince Akihito and his wife Michiko presented medals to the Japanese and foreign paraplegic wheelchair athletes.

Patrick Welter

Correspondent for business and politics in Japan, based in Tokyo.

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Then the Scottish tune "Auld Lang Syne" was played, which the Japanese know as "Hotaru no hikari", the light of the fireflies.

In Japan it is often used as a sentimental, celebratory bouncer.

The next morning at 10 a.m. Akihito and Michiko stood in the wooden VIP stand of the Oda sports field in the Olympic Village and reopened the games for disabled athletes.

A second, national part of the sports festival began.

Visually impaired athletes

Now amputated, visually impaired or deaf athletes competed for medals.

The Japanese did not stay among themselves: Six war-disabled athletes from West Germany took part in the national part, as the only foreigners and out of competition.

In their chunky tracksuits, they exuded a little international flair.

The bizarre historical episode shows a Japanese-German cooperation that anticipated the future of the Paralympic Games and wrote sports history with Japan.

At the same time, it reflects the rivalry between sports officials that shaped the international disabled sport that was still emerging at the time.

The Germans were involved in this, too.

fall into oblivion

57 years later, this chapter in sports history has been forgotten in Germany and Japan.

In the German Disabled Sports Association (DBS) and the Japanese Paralympic Association nothing is known about the history of the six West German athletes upon request.

"Those who can say something about the background have all died," replied the 96-year-old Seiichiro Ite from the retirement home in Yokohama in writing to questions from the FAZ Ite was involved in the preparation of the games in the Japanese Ministry of Health in 1964.

He only remembers that German athletes took part in both parts of the Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

The idea of ​​holding an international handicapped sports festival in Tokyo after the 1964 Olympic Games only came up in Japan after 1960, after the first Paralympic Games in Rome, in which no Japanese took part.

Back then the competitions were still called the Stoke-Mandeville Games.

In Germany they were called the "World Games for Wheelchair Users".

Sports for rehabilitation

The Stoke Mandeville Hospital in the village of the same name northwest of London is considered the birthplace of the Paralympic Movement.

There, the doctor Ludwig Guttmann used sport to rehabilitate war-disabled paraplegics.

In 1948 he organized a sports competition for the first time.

Guttmann fled Germany to England in 1939 because of the Nazis.

The Japanese Dr.

Guttmann's name is Yutaka Nakamura, head of the orthopedic department at a national hospital in Beppu on the southern main island of Kyushu.

In 1960 Nakamura traveled to Europe and studied Guttmann's work in Stoke Mandeville.

That opened the eyes of the Japanese to the benefits of sport for rehabilitation.