Dieter Wemhöner

West German middleweight boxer Dieter Wemhöner from Berlin twice reached the Olympic Games quarter-finals. At Helsinki in 1952 he lost to Boris Nikolov from Bulgaria, and four years later in Melbourne he was denied by Víctor Zalazar from Argentina. Wemhöner qualified for the 1952 Olympics as the winner of the German Championships, a title he defended in 1953 and 1954. In 1953 he won the final at the European Championships against Czechoslovakia’s Bedřich Koutný. The same year he was awarded the Silver Bay Leaf. In 1955 he added a bronze medal at the Europeans to his medal collection.

Wemhöner was a trained toolmaker and started boxing using a pseudonym to hide his career from his mother. Directly after the Melbourne Games he turned professional, winning 36 fights, losing four and drawing three before retiring in 1961. After his boxing career he first earned his living as a representative of perfumes and hairdresser’s accessories. He then studied at the Coaching Academy of Cologne and became a graduated sports teacher. From 1967-92 he was head coach of the West German Boxing Federation.