1:2011 In Memoriam Horst G. Schreiber

I
n 1971, on a trip to Munich as a competitive
shooter, I met my great friend
and later coach Bill Krilling and he
introduced me to Horst Schreiber and Horst’s
wife Heidi. Bill and his wife had met Horst
and Heidi many years earlier at a German
hunting club so they were already close
friends. We all had lunch together and Horst
and Heidi invited the Krillings and my wife
and me to dinner the next evening. Since that
time, our families have been very close.
Horst was educated as a lawyer at the
University of Munich and Harvard University
in the USA. He was a prominent attorney in
Munich, but he was also an enthusiastic
hunter and sports club leader. By the late
1970s when I began to think about being a
candidate for ISSF President, I realized that
we also needed someone with legal and administrative
skills and a passion for the shooting
sports to be the ISSF Secretary General
and my partner. The German Shooting Federation
agreed with my proposal to nominate
Horst for the office of Secretary General. On
February 14, 1980, I was elected President
4 ISSF NEWS
Farewell
Horst G. scHreiber
I S S F S e c r e ta ry G e n e r a l : J a n u a ry 1 9 8 0 – D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0
A Tribute to a Special Friend
b y O l e G a r I O V á z q u e z r a ñ a
of the ISSF and Horst Schreiber was elected
Secretary General. Since that day, we have
always worked together as partners. Horst
was involved in everything I did on behalf
of the ISSF and our families have shared
many special moments of friendship. I have
vivid memories of the many challenges we
faced and how Horst’s vision, insight and
hard work contributed so much to addressing
those challenges and to making the ISSF
and the shooting sport better.
1980
Immediately after our elections
in 1980, one of his
first tasks as the new Secretary General was
to establish a functioning administrative infrastructure.
The federation’s finances were
in disarray and some ISSF funds were not
even included in the ISSF accounts. Horst
acted quickly to establish a new ISSF Headquarters
in Munich, Germany, to stabilize the
federation’s financial situation and to design
and publish a new ISSF News magazine. Our
Constitution was out-dated so Horst became
a leader in drafting a Constitution that delegated
authority to approve technical shooting
rules to the Administrative Council, gave
more authority to ISSF Section Committees
and strengthened our financial accounting.
It was approved at the 1980 Moscow General
Assembly.
Our first ISSF competition was the 1980
Moscow Olympic Games. The organizers
had located the President’s and General
Secretary’s offices on the second floor of the
venue headquarters. Three days went by
and we had not received a single visitor. The
following day we went to watch the athletes
train. Several shooters and officials informed
us that they had been forbidden from entering
our offices. We spoke with members of
the organizing committee, but were told
that it was not possible to authorize access
to this area to anyone who did not belong
to the committee. We wanted shooters and
national federation officials to be able to talk
freely to us so we decided to bring our desks
down to the garden. After that, the organizers
allowed people to enter our offices.