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Jürgen Sparwasser (left) scored the 1-0 for the sensational victory of the GDR selection against the BRD team at the 1974 World Cup
Photo:
Eissner / imago images / kicker
A great sport-historical achievement was planned.
Scientific competence is the top priority, the German Football Association (DFB) announced when it announced that it would examine the history of GDR football.
The authors should "work free of personal and political interests," it said in a press release.
Hans-Dieter Drewitz, the DFB Vice President responsible for science, said: "This topic is so sensitive and important that it shouldn't be about showmanship or profiling."
That was over a decade ago, in March 2011. The study has not yet been published.
Research by SPIEGEL revealed that the authors from three locations submitted the manuscript entitled “Working on the history of GDR football” to the DFB in January 2017.
Since then, the study has been gathering dust in the association's drawers.
The text of the sports historians has already become historical itself.
In doing so, the association had the 643-page work cost itself a very respectable sum.
According to the sports historians from Münster and Berlin, the DFB shelled out a total of 272,346.88 euros for these locations alone, plus the costs for the smaller third sub-project, which was located at the Willy Brandt Center in Wroclaw.
The authors cannot answer the question of why the study has so far been withheld from the public. "We do not know that. A conversation about the project results has not yet taken place, «said Jutta Braun from the Center for German Sports History in Berlin. They have "made attempts to do this again and again," adds Kai Reinhart from the University of Münster. "The DFB has not yet made a clear statement about a publication."
Scientific companions are also puzzling over the strange delay policy of the DFB.
"That is a question that also torments me," says Martin-Peter Büch, who coordinated the study on behalf of the DFB.
The framework conditions for the study were "really optimal," explains Wolfram Pyta from the University of Stuttgart, who was on the project advisory board.
The workshops were well organized, the DFB did not set any hurdles.
Pyta demands a publication of the work so that the professional world can discuss it.
"The study should be made available to research," he says.
Have members of the DFB Presidium voted against publication?
It has been available since 2017, confirms the DFB on request. The scientists should then have presented the results to the DFB. But that didn't happen either. "Due to various circumstances - including an organizational restructuring and, most recently, the effects of the pandemic, which presented football with unprecedented challenges - this could not be implemented in the form envisaged," the association said in a statement. In principle, publication of the study is “still planned”.
The different circumstances in the three years until the start of the pandemic could possibly have been different.
Project coordinator Büch reports that he had the feeling that a publication was »not wanted« by the DFB, and that there were indications that forces from the DFB Presidium had prevented this.
Have members of the DFB Presidium voted against publication?
The DFB leaves this question unanswered.
The aim was to investigate how the Stasi penetrated football
It remains a mystery why the DFB built a chain of defense around the study.
Authors deal, for example, with the organizational history of socialist football, game operations and with the GDR stars.
Historian Pyta also announced on the DFB website in 2015 that he would tackle sensitive issues.
It should be highlighted "how football was penetrated by the Stasi".
Research should also be carried out into how "traitors" were punished by the ruling system.
Those involved let it be known that major scandals are not to be expected.
On the other hand, ten years ago, the DFB evidently feared that a historical study might damage current officials in the East German state associations.
The question now arises whether there should be another decade before the results are published.
