The GDR football league was buried three decades ago. The last season was tough: It was a blow and jump to get into the Bundesliga. It was also a lightning break in all areas with many downsides. The legacy is modest.
Berlin (dpa) - It was the impetus for our own abolition. On August 11, 1990, the GDR Oberliga started its 42nd and final season - from now on nothing was the same for all of East German football.
"When the standard date was set, everything was broken. There was no more funding from the German Gymnastics and Sports Association of the GDR, the supporting companies had collapsed," said Hans-Georg Moldenhauer, recalling the special season 30 years ago.
As the last president of the GDR football association DFV, Moldenhauer negotiated the 2 + 6 quota for the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga: "Only two of our clubs were against it at the time." Three decades later, the East would be happy to have two first-class and six second-class clubs. "The frustration runs deep. It's scary what's going on in our top division," said Bernd Stange, former GDR selection coach and coach in Jena at the time.
It was going to be a memorable farewell season. Stars like Andreas Thom, Matthias Sammer, Ulf Kirsten and many more had already made the leap into the Bundesliga in the first few months after the fall of the Iron Curtain. For the clubs from Dynamo Dresden to FC Carl Zeiss Jena to the ex-European Cup winner 1. FC Magdeburg it was a struggle for existence: Either into the lucrative professional division of all-German football or down into the amateur lowlands.
The fans were finally able to see FC Bayern, Werder Bremen or Hamburger SV live - and turned their backs on their clubs. On average, only 4807 spectators came to the stadiums in the elimination season, by far the negative record in the GDR league. Trainer Stange sometimes felt "like at a funeral".
Top-level football in socialism functioned differently from that in the West: the government ruled right down to the clubs; The State Security, Police and Army had their own clubs; the district chiefs of the Socialist Unity Party had a say; large combines supported the company sports associations.
Whole clubs were forcibly relocated, the players were delegated and couldn't choose the club. Ex-GDR national goalkeeper René Müller from Leipzig later spoke of "a modern form of serfdom". All of that became history almost overnight, some clubs suddenly paid out annual salaries of up to 250,000 marks to their players in order to win in Bundesliga roulette. The German Football Association (DFB) provided a solitary fund of over 2.2 million D-Marks for clubs in need. "That was taken advantage of," said Moldenhauer 30 years later.
The former DFB star Günter Netzer got into the marketing of the big league with the Swiss agency Lüthi - and almost became the last general secretary of the GDR football association. "He looked at me with wide eyes when I asked him," said Moldenhauer. Lüthi was supposed to continue to pay the salary, so to speak as East German aid. "The subject was never touched up again later."
The first million transfers were made within the league. Dynamo Dresden used the money from the sale of Matthias Sammer to VfB Stuttgart and other players Heiko Scholz from 1. FC Lok Leipzig. In addition, the Saxons signed Peter Lux and Sergio Allievi, Bundesliga proven players from the West. The current Fortuna Düsseldorf coach Uwe Rösler came during the season for 1.2 million marks from 1. FC Magdeburg - with success.
In addition to runner-up Dynamo, the last, surprising north-east champion (the GDR no longer existed then) Hansa Rostock was one of the Bundesliga players. The third to sixth of the 14er field moved into the 2nd Bundesliga. The seventh to twelfth had to fight with the two relay winners of the 2nd GDR league for the two remaining second division places: Rot-Weiß Erfurt, HFC Chemie, Chemnitzer FC, Carl-Zeiss Jena, Lok Leipzig and Stahl made the leap Brandenburg with the later European champion Steffen Freund.
30 years later, none of these clubs is still in the two national leagues. "The gap was huge," said Matthias Sammer, recalling the football turnaround. In September 1990, the Dresdner scored two goals for the 2-0 victory in the last GDR international match in Belgium and three months later was the first player from the new federal states to pull on the DFB's eagle jersey. In 1996 Sammer and Freund became European champions with Germany.
A native of Essen became the man of the season in 1990/91. Uwe Reinders was lured to Rostock by the then Hansa President Robert Pischke. "When I came to the training ground at that time, the players were all lined up on the sidelines," Reinders reported later in the football magazine "11 Freunde". The ex-international asked confused assistant Jürgen Decker. "He said they were waiting for me, I had to greet them with a 'Sport Frei'." That is common here. "I asked the boys if they might be waiting for a general."
Reinders managed to combine discipline with a thirst for success and looseness in the team without big stars. "On Saturday three thirty you have to accelerate without end, then you could soon buy a Mercedes," the coach announced once before the game. For example, while the ten-time GDR champions BFC Dynamo in 1990/91 fell into the amateur camp as FC Berlin without six top players who had migrated to the Bundesliga, Hansa was suddenly in the Bundesliga.
The political change also brought major security problems and the processing of GDR surveillance practices, in which football was involved. Because of fan riots, the game of FC Matters against Jena as well as the European Cup game Dresden against Red Star Belgrade had to be canceled. On November 3, 1990, a Berlin supporter was killed by a police bullet in a fan fight in Leipzig. The agreed match between DFV and DFB was then canceled. Dresden's Torsten Gütschow, last season's top scorer, was later exposed like other prominent players and coaches as an unofficial employee (IM) of the GDR State Security.
The sporting legacy of the Eastern clubs in the top leagues is modest. Only the former GDR second division club 1. FC Union Berlin (in the Bundesliga) and Wismut Aue (as FC Erzgebirge Aue in the second division) will still play at the top in the coming season. RB Leipzig from the DFB founding city was only created in 2009.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 200811-99-120968 / 2
GDR football on the DFB homepage
Final table of the GDR Oberliga 1990/91