Prof. Dr. Manfred Lämmer
Born February 13, 1943. He was a passionate athlete, studied sport science at the German Sport University Cologne and took his doctorate at Cologne University in classical philology and history in 1967.
In 1975 he was appointed as Director of the Institute of Sport History of the German Sport University. He continued his research even after his retirement in 2008. Manfred Lämmer’s research emphasis lay and lies on athletics in Ancient Greece and on the modern Olympic Movement. His new view on the essential features and values of the ancient Olympic Games, still disputed in the early 1970s in conservative circles, is today generally accepted. The most widely recognised of his many publications are especially his studies on the so-called "Olympic Truce" and on the ancient principle of competitiveness. In 1999 he edited the official centenary volume "Germany in the Olympic Movement" on behalf of the German NOC. He was particularly committed to establishing sport history as an recognised academic discipline at international level. In 1973 he was one of the founders of the International Society for Sport History (HISPA, later ISHPES), in which he held the offices until 1993 of General Secretary, Vice-President and President. In 1975 he founded «Stadion», the first and until now only international, multilingual journal for the history of sport. As early as the Olympic Games of Munich in 1972 he worked closely with the German NOC President and IOC member Willi Daume, who made him his personal advisor on the Organising Committee of the 1981 Olympic Congress in Baden-Baden. Manfred Lämmer developed the idea of the German Olympic Institute in Berlin (1993), which in 2007 was incorporated into the German Olympic Academy in Frankfurt. He also played a leading role in the establishment of the German Sports and Olympic Museum in Cologne and directs its research department. He provided the conception for numerous exhibitions, including that for the IOC pavilion at the EXPO in Hannover in 2000. In addition he was a member of the IOC working group to prepare the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. He contributed well-received papers at many international congresses and sessions of the International Olympic Academy. From 1982 to 2000 Manfred Lämmer was Vice-President of the German Olympic Society (DOG), a partner of the German NOC in its mission to spread the Olympic Idea, and from 1987 to 2000 he led the Fair Play Initiative of German sport. From 1993 to 2012 he was Vice-President of the European Fair Play Movement. Since many years he has been teaching as guest professor at Haifa University, Israel. In 2016 he was elected Chairman of the Initiative Committee in charge of the foundation of an Association of European National Olympic Academies scheduled for September 2018. Through his academic publications, organizational initiatives and commitment to the Olympic Movement Manfred Lämmer has earned enormous gratitude at national and international level.
