Martin Kilian
Martin Kilian was an East German bobsledder and politician of the Socialist Unity Party. He served as president of both the Deutscher Turn- und Sportbund and the Deutscher Schlitten- und Bobsportverband in the final decade of the GDR and served as mayor of Wernigerode for almost thirty years.Biography
Martin Kilian was born in 1928 in Lower Silesia, then still a part of Germany. After the expulsion of Germans from Silesia during and after World War II, Kilian settled in Nachterstedt and was employed as a miner before moving to Wernigerode. He joined the newly-formed SED in 1948. In 1950, Kilian became active in bobsledding and began working as a schoolteacher the following year. By the end of the decade he was made principal of the Wilhelm Rabbe High School. Upon the death of mayor Gustav Strahl, he became mayor of Wernigerode in 1962.
In 1982 he became the president of the German Sled and Bobsleigh Association, in which capacity he served until shortly before the dissolution of the GDR. In 1990, shortly before German reunification, he served as the final president of the German Gymnastics and Sports Federation. He was also the Vice-President of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation.
Kilian passed away on 2 July 2014 at the age of 86. In 2016, a large pedestrian bridge he helped create in Wernigerode was renamed in his honor.
