Building on the activities carried out as part of the ‘People in the Ruhr Sports Region’ project, which began in 2020, the plan is to to conduct and digitally archive around 120–140 video interviews recounting the life stories of (former) athletes and sports officials, with a view to safeguarding the sporting and cultural heritage of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for the long term. The material will be processed and catalogued so that it can be used in the long term for academic, educational, museum and cultural purposes. Furthermore, this material will be presented annually as part of a public event. The aim is to ensure that memories and knowledge of sport in North Rhine-Westphalia remain alive in the region’s cultural memory.

Project period: 1 January 2021 – 31 December 2025

Project activities

• Research into and contact with contemporary witnesses in North Rhine-Westphalia sport: Contemporary witnesses can help to secure a body of knowledge about sport in the region that has not yet been documented. The selection of interviewees will, as a matter of principle, take into account an appropriate balance of different roles and hierarchical levels, different socio-structural characteristics, as well as different geographical areas within North Rhine-Westphalia.
• Conducting around 120–140 video interviews on life stories: The plan is to conduct interviews with (former) athletes and sports officials from the Ruhr region and North Rhine-Westphalia, designed as semi-structured, narrative conversations. The interviews consist of two parts: in an open-ended section, the interviewee will give a coherent account of their sports-related life story. The second part is based on a pre-prepared questionnaire.
• Processing and digital archiving: Digital storage enables wide access to the eyewitness accounts and ensures their long-term preservation.

Publication

Niklas Hack and Mathias Schmidt: Digital Memory Bank? Eyewitness interviews as a gateway to sport in North Rhine-Westphalia: The oral history project ‘People in Sport in NRW’ in: Brauweiler Kreis für Landes- und Zeitgeschichte e.V. (ed.): History in the West, 2024, Volume 34, pp. 147–167.

On the website www.zeitzeugen-sport.de, contemporary witnesses from different generations, sports and roles – ranging from Olympians to staff at sports authorities and volunteers in sports clubs – share their memories and recount their personal experiences of sport in North Rhine-Westphalia.

View the videos and short biographies of those interviewed:

• Contemporary witnesses from North Rhine-Westphalia and the

• Ruhr region.

All witnesses (up to November 2025):

A
Adolph-Knarren, Margarete
Akici, Atilla
Andrack, Manuel
Anggreny, Lily

B
Balster, Klaus
Berg, Dagmar
Beucher, Friedhelm Julius
Brand, Elisabeth
Braun, Sabine
Breite, Ulrich
Breuckmann, Manfred
Breuer, Karl
Bruck, Beatrix
Butzen, Ruth

C
Chamalidis, Kyriakos
Charles, Toby
Claßen, Ludger
Cleven, Wilfried

D
Deimel, Ingrid
Deutschbein, Hermann Josef
Dietz, Cornelia
Dienstl, Erika
Dittmann, Titus
Drees, Rita
Durst, Hans-Peter
Deubel, Max

E
Ebener, Volker
Eicke, Ulrich
Elling, Ludger
Englich, Detlef
Erlenwein, Annemarie
Eulering, Johannes
Eybe, Erda

F
Falk, Inge
Fischer, Carsten Fischer, Waltraud
Fittko, Esther
Funkel, Friedhelm

G
Geiser, Hans-Josef
Gente, Gerhard
Glander, Silvia
Gramke, Jürgen

H
Heinrich, Kurt
Heitkamp, Elfriede
Herzog, Karl
Herzog, Margarethe
Hogrefe, Friedrich
Holthoff, Ulla
Hoymann, Siegfried
Hülsender, Peter

I–J
Janotta, Monique
Janßen, Heinz-Gerd
Jörder, Ludwig
Jürgen Meyer, Hans

K
Kaschlun, Walther
Kehrenberg, Tina
Klenner, Josef
Kleindienst-Cachay, Christa
Kleinhans, Christa
Klosterkemper, Horst
Koch, Ulla
Kompalla, Josef ‘Jupp’
Kösters, Ferdinand
König, Walfried
Kozel, Jürgen
Kremer, Petra
Krüsmann, Peter
Küppers, Mona

L
Lämmer, Manfred
Lagerstrøm, Dieter
Lasarzewski, Bernd
Lenz, Manfred
Liesen, Heinrich
Lohmann, Klaus
Lübking, Herbert

M
Maedge, Rainer
Markus, Gisela
Marewski, Rolf-Arnd
Masthoff, Helga
Matelski, Karl
May, Torsten
Melzer, Horst
Meyer, Horst
Milser, Rolf
Moeller, Ralf
Mück, Heinz
Müller, Uwe

N
Nagy, Lajos
Neumann, Claudia

O
Oberste, Walter
Osenberg, Gerd
Osterer, Gideon
Özer, Yalcin

P
Palzkill, Birgit
Parade, Christoph
Peppekus, Manfred
Pott, Elisabeth
Potofski, Ulrich
Probst, Walter

R
Rasch, Reinhard
Rheker, Uwe
Roskam, Gunde
Rudolph, Christian
Ruth, Rainer

S
Schaefer, Andreas
Schauerte, Wilfried
Scheffel, Heidi
Schmitz, Hans-Peter
Schneider, Edgar
Schnorbus, Alois
Schöler, Eberhard
Schorn, Klaus
Schwietering, Rudi
Siegers, Britta
Sommer, Lothar
Stauder, Claus
Steinmeier, Andreas
Steinmeier, Thomas
Stürmann, Werner

T
Tabat, Artur
Taş, Coşkun
Thaler, Klaus-Peter
Thielen, Karl-Heinz
Tillmann, Ferdinand

V
Vahlensieck, Christa
Vitt, Bärbel

W
Walkowski, Maria
Watterott, Herbert
Weber, Ellen
Weber, Thomas
Werhahn, Agnes
White, Clyde
Winkler, Gudrun
Wortmann, Sönke

Z
Zalfen, Wolfgang