It meant there was no fairytale for Brazil's Emanuel Rego - the 39-year-old who won gold at Athens 2004 and bronze at Beijing 2008 and was competing in his fifth Olympic Games - and Alison Cerutti.
Latvia's Martins Plavins and Janis Smedins took bronze - their country's first medal of London 2012 - in a surprise 2-1 victory over Reinder Nummerdor and Richard Schuil of the Netherlands.
Reckermann said afterwards: 'It's unbelievable - they have been the best team for the last few years and Emanuel is a living legend, but we knew we had a chance.'
Rego said: 'What a final...it was intense and fantastic in front of 15,000 people. It was a good battle and the Germans did really well, and I think if we had won the first set it would have gone our way.'
Plavins, meanwhile, was delighted to win bronze, and said: 'It was our dream to win a medal in the Olympics and now we have done it and can't really believe we did it.
'No-one believed before we came here that we were going to win a medal.'
Related content
- Athletes
- Sports
- Countries
