East Isn’t East When You’re Talking About Katarina Witt’s Homeland

CINCINNATI —  What’s in a name?

At the World Figure Skating Championships here, it was almost an international incident.

When the official programs became available last Wednesday, they included a full-page picture of 1984 Olympic champion Katarina Witt, identifying her as being from East Germany.

The programs were recalled without explanation. When the programs went back on sale this week, no explanation was necessary.

Volunteers had spent days placing stickers over the name line on Witt’s picture.

She now is identified as being from the G.D.R.

East Germans don’t like to be identified as East Germans because that implies there is more than one Germany. They don’t officially recognize West Germany. So East isn’t East and West isn’t West.

East Germans prefer D.D.R. for Deutches Democratic Republic but will accept G.D.R. for German Democratic Republic.

The problem will be for the Americans here who aren’t familiar with the international alphabet. They won’t be able to tell the East Germans even with a program.