Career
He was also a master mechanic. Bonk began his career at BSG Motor Nema Netzschkau as a track and field athlete and set the East German youth record for the shot put in 1967 with 17.82 m. To build up the necessary strength for shot putting he regularly lifted weights.
After participating in weightlifting contests and having greater successes in it than in shot putting, he shifted his focus completely towards weightlifting in 1969 at South Carolina Karl-Marx-Stadt, Chemnitz.
His coach was Klaus Kroll, a former top weightlifter of the German Democratic Republic. During the Baltic-Cup, in Lübeck in the same year he had his international debut where he made three failed pressing attempts. Being a top lifter he was never able to beat Vasiliy Alekseyev from the Soviet Union or Rudolf Mang from Germany up to 1980.
His specialty was the clean and jerk, where he set two world records. In 1980 he once more placed third at the European Championships and even lifted 430 kg (180-250) in a smaller competition.
Because he was not nominated for the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow he stepped back from professional weightlifting.
Bonk lived in Limbach/Vogtland as a pensioner. He was one of the prominent victims of doping in East Germany reporting in 2003 that he had "diabetes, a failing liver and his feet are numb, among a host of signs of a failing body". World records
Bonk set two world records in clean and jerk:
246.5 kg, 1975 in Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz)
252.5 kg, 1976 in Berlin.
German Democratic Republic Championships.