Jan Hempel was apparently relieved to receive the news in his home town of Meißen. The 52-year-old former world-class diver lives in seclusion there and was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in the summer of 2022. When asked by SZ on Monday, his lawyer Thomas Summerer said that his client was doing “reasonably” well given the circumstances and that a weight had now been “off his mind”: “Imagine if it had been a legal dispute that would have lasted for years. That I didn’t want to put him through that.”
This legal dispute with the German Swimming Association (DSV) has now been averted. In the wake of the abuse scandal, Hempel and the association agreed on a high compensation amount.
As the DSV announced on Monday, Hempel will receive an immediate payment of 300,000 euros. The association will also pay him an additional 300,000 euros over the next ten years, which will go to Hempel’s surviving dependents in the event of his death. “It is of central importance for the DSV to ensure the integrity and safety of our members and activists. This decision reflects our moral obligation and deep respect for Jan Hempel and all those affected,” DSV Vice President Wolfgang Rupieper is quoted in the communiqué . The swimming association is also planning to set up a fund to strengthen and provide full-time support for the area of “prevention of sexual violence”.
Hempel was a gifted diver who became European champion four times in the 1990s, won Olympic silver and World Cup bronze. However, Hempel was only able to report on the deep shadows that accompanied him during this time and in the 1980s in the summer of 2022. In the ARD documentary “Abused” he accused his former trainer Werner Langer of abusing him for over 14 years. Langer can no longer comment on the allegations; he committed suicide in 2001.
The ordeal began when Hempel was eleven years old, and in the documentary he also reported on sexual abuse, including during the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, immediately before the competition. The then 20-year-old was on course for a medal from the ten-meter tower when he completely failed his three and a half Auerbach somersault – he came fourth.
There are other cases: “The number of people who have reported so far is in the single digits,” says DSV Vice President Rupieper
According to their own account, the DSV leadership informed Hempel of the events in 1997, but his case was covered up. Only after the allegations became known did the association suspend and terminate national coach Lutz Buschkow, who is said to have known about the attacks but did nothing. Buschkow claims that he only found out about Hempel’s allegations through the ARD documentary. The former official and the association have been arguing in front of the labor court since the termination; according to SZ information, the next date is scheduled for February 2024.
Hempel’s side, which had threatened the association with a million-dollar lawsuit this spring, has now been spared from going to court. According to the DSV, the compensation was decided “after an arbitration procedure, intensive consultations with the regional associations in the DSV and taking into account the interim report of the independent processing commission”.
How “intensive” the consultations may have been is shown by the fact that the cash-strapped association not only has to settle Hempel’s claims, but also has another expensive case on its hands in addition to the trial against Buschkow: that against the former sports director Thomas Kurschilgen was dismissed without notice in March 2021. These sums are now also plunging the DSV, which is going into the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris without a president and without a head national coach because both key positions are vacant, into financial problems.
The abuse scandal with the Hempel case at its center is far from being dealt with. Confidants have still not been publicly named, and a review commission has been meeting since March 1st to take on other cases. In the association’s statement, the commission viewed the out-of-court settlement between Hempel and the DSV as a “valuable impetus for our task of shedding light on cases of abuse in German swimming and using them to develop recommendations for future protection against violence.”
It will shed light on the events surrounding Hempel and other cases for a year. And there are apparently a few more of them. As DSV Vice President Rupieper told the SZ two weeks ago on the sidelines of the Swimming World Cup in Berlin, “the number of those who have come forward so far is in the single digits. We support the appeal of the processing commission to potentially other affected people to come forward report.”