Whatever happened to East German clubs

[argh1]

I see Dynamo Dresden is bottom of the table in Bundesliga 2 .

I am ignorant of German politics and geography . Could any-one who's followed German soccer for a while like to share any information as to the fate of these clubs since unification and maybe impact on West German clubs ? Just wondering .

EDIT :

I see Hansa Rostock , the last club to win the GDR championship is bottom of the table in Bundesliga 1 ( doing some research my self )

Alot of clubs have stayed in Oberliga Nord . Level 4

But some I can't find at all :

From the last GDR table in 1991 :

Chemie Halle

FC Lokomtiv Leipzig

Stahl Brandenburgh

Stahl Eisenhuttenstadt

FC Victoria Frankfurt

I'm sure some have changed names ......anybody know ?

[Tim St.Pauli]

Most of the teams transformed to more moderate names, less socialistic like Chemie Halle is now Hallescher FC and plays in one of the nine "Oberligas". Stahl Brandenburg is FC Brandenburg now and is 15th of 16 teams in the Verbandsliga, which in one level under the Oberliga. Stahl Eisenhüttenstadt started this season in one of the Oberligas, but lost their franchise due to financial problems I guess and can start in Verbandsliga next summer. Victoria Frankfurt/Oder relegated last year form Oberliga to Verbandsliga.

The saddest story is the one of Lokomotive Leipzig. They changed their name to VfB Leipzig and reached the Bundesliga in 1994, but relegated after just one year. For a couple of years they played Oberliga now, but also due to a catartopic management they lost their franchise. The whole club was shut down and they established a new one under the old name of Lokomotive Leipzig. They play in the 11th division now!! Pretty bad for a former whole-German champion and one of the three most successful teams of the GDR! They were in the European Cupwinners final in 1987 and lost 0-1 to Ajax with van Basten, Rijkaard etc...

But: They played in front of 10 000 people in that league! there is a big hype about that team. Even some of the great players from the past came back: 62-year old (!!!) Henning Franzel played for one game - and scored! And ex-inernational Heiko Scholz (Ex-Bayer Leverkusen) is going to play as well for one game.

Most of the old GDR-teams are in very bad shape, but some other clubs, who were not that powerful in GDR-times are doing pretty well, like Energie Cottbus (played in Bundesliga for three years and are now in 2.Bundesliga), Erzegbirge Aue and Rot-Weiß Erfurt (both 2.Bundesliga)

I don't have a good explanation for that. Simply said: all the good players from the east went to the West, all the bad managers from the west went to the east!

If you have more questions, ask!

[Grizzly]

In the GDR soccer was arranged in a similar fashion to other communist countries. In the non-capitalist society clubs were sponsored or associated with a government agency or prominent industry or factory in each city. Certain clubs were favoured by the communist party and players were assigned clubs and not free to transfer where they wanted. This allowed the countries to have a few very strong clubs that performed well in international competitions, benefitted the national team in that the players were only spread between a few clubs and played with each other a lot and brought prestige to those organizations that sponsored them. For example, most of the clubs with the name Dynamo were supported by the respective secret police of each country, Dynamo Moscow was sponsored by the KGB while Dynamo Berlin was sponsored by the East German STASI. Such clubs were also often supported by people who were members or supporters of the communist party. The clubs with a less strong party affiliation often were robbed of their better players and often the victims of some referreeing that one might compare to current CONCACAF referreeing. Some of these clubs, however, became cult clubs as constant underdogs and supporting them was sometimes one of the only safe ways of showing some protest towards the party.

After reunification the East German clubs faced a much more radical change than those of the other former communist countries in that they were immediately incorporated into an existing capitalist sports system. It is not terribly surprising that most of the stronger clubs struggled the most as they were used to working in a totally unfair system just like Man U or Real would probably struggle if a revenue sharing system was ever introduced in their leagues. There were some excellent players suddenly available to the larger West German clubs at low cost and with German passports and clubs such as Bayern wasted no time in buying them. The East German clubs basically went into the system with almost no capital and it was and still is difficult to raise capital in the economically depressed eastern regions. This loss of players was coupled with poor management by officials with no experience in a capitalist system. A large number of opportunists from western Germany also took advantage of the poor situation to get positions in large Eastern clubs (because no western club would give them such opportunities) and often provided management that was even worse than the communist functionaries they replaced. In addition, the German soccer federation is controlled by the larger western clubs who had and still have very little interest in helping smaller or poorer clubs get a piece of their pie. Thus the DFB's biggest concern was ensuring that the top eastern players such as Marshall, Jeremies, Schneider and Jancker found their way onto top western teams and there was little concern that large clubs and cities had teams in the fourth division. The teams that did manage some success were generally those teams whose management was used to adapting to the unfair conditions in the GDR Oberliga and could thus adapt to unfair conditions in the Bundesliga. Thus smaller teams such as Hansa Rostock (which won the its first title in the last post-Communist GDR Oberliga season), Energie Cottbus, Union Berlin, Rot-Weiss Erfurt and Erzgeberge Aue achieved some success while the strong teams such as Dynamo Berlin, Dynamo Dresden, Lokomotive Leipzig and FC Magdeburg were all relegated and in some cases went bankrupt and lost their club status.

As a supporter of the other Leipzig club, Sachsen Leipzig, I may not be completely unbiased but I don't consider the lot of Lokomotive Leipzig particularly sad although the state of Leipzig soccer in general is sad. Leipzig was the city in which the DFB (German Soccer Federation) was founded and was also the first German champion (the Lokomotive fans consider this club to have been their direct predecessor and thus claim to be the first German champions). The name of Lokomotive was adopted in the GDR and this club was one of the favoured clubs of the communist government. The city of Leipzig unlike Dresden had two prominent clubs and fans were basically split along political lines, those who supported communism were Lokomotive fans while those less enamoured of the system supported Chemie (now Sachsen). Chemie regularly lost their better players to Lokomotive. Surprisingly though Lokomotive although always being near the top of the league never won the Championship while Chemie won it twice although they regularly bounced between the 1st and 2nd Division. In fact, they once won the Championship in a year in which before the season they were stripped of most of their best players and had to play with a very hard working team of no names. This result was consider a great affront to the government and widely enjoyed by East German soccer fans. The problem that I have, however, with Lokomotive is not so much the past history but that the current support is rather dominated by neo-Nazis and hooligans something which for a reason unknown to me has occured with almost all of the former communist affiliated clubs. I have attended a number of Lokomotive games and they are scary which is why it didn't take me long as a neutral coming to Leipzig to choose the much more friendly club to support. Nor did the management of Lokomotive ever distance or rid itself of these fans. Unfortunately for Leipzig both teams have been poorly managed for years and both have gone through bankruptcies. Under the name VFB Leipzig, Lokomotive underwent its second bankruptcy in 5 years which led to it being stripped of its right to be a club. However, certain fans have started it anew in the 11th division under its old name. The 11th division could be compared to a rather average senior men's league in a city such as Calgary. They did have a 12 000 attendance at one match but this was not a typical match. They managed to convince the management of Leipzig's new 45 000 seat World Cup stadium to allow them to play a match there. They then organized a big show which included the game for which they invited several former Lokomitive and national team players to play for them and charged a low entry fee. The player regulations for the 11th League must be quite lax as they are often playing retired former elite players often only for one game. This attendance was apparently a world record for a low division game. Their regular attendance is around 1 000 to 2 000 which is still good for the 11th division but is basically the hardcore support. While one has to respect the groundroots origin of the new founded club, I think if they manage to rise to the higher divisions there will be a return to the hooligan atmosphere at their games which certainly doesn't benefit the image of the city of Leipzig. Naturally I hope that Sachsen Leipzig can get their act together and rise from the fourth division as Leipzig definitely deserves better. As an example of the mismanagement in Sachsen's ranks they managed to fire Ede Geyer before he went to the smaller Energie Cottbus and brought them to the 1st Bundesliga as well as Gerd Schaedlich before he went to Erzgeberge Aue and brought them to the 2nd Bundesliga. Aue is proof that with good coaching and management a team can progress in the east even if there are greater challanges to overcome than in the west. Aue is an economically depressed city of 25 000 people near the Czech border but they have a long soccer tradition and receive support from many of the surrounding small towns and manage to average about 10 000 fans per game. After the surprising promotion to the 2nd division they just as surprisingly managed to finish in 8th last year and are currently in 12th despite being continual relegation favourites. However, the population of east Germany would warrant 4 to 6 1st Bundesliga teams instead of the current 1 team, constant relegation candidates Hansa Rostock. Eventually it will take some regional economic improvement and clubs with large support such as Dynamo Dresden, one of the Leipzig clubs or Union Berlin to rise to the 1st Bundesliga before the eastern teams will become strong members of the Bundesliga.

[argh1]

Thanks guys , I went off on one of my I wonder searches I appreciate the info .

I have added BFC Dynamo to my list of lost in the pyramid clubs I check up on and I'm sure will bore posters here with one day .

I see a club Eintracht Frankfurt in Bundesliga 2 is this a new club or an oldie from the GDR ?

[argh1]

To follow up on my just wondering and my fascination with pyramid structures.

I was wondering if there are 9 Oberligas what does a club have to accomplish to be promoted to Regionalligas since there is only 2. The same with Verbandsligas to Oberligas. Also how is relagation handled ?

I guess what I am asking is , how does the German pyramid work ?

Hey Tim you must have picked your user name for St. Pauli currently in 10 place in Regionalliga Nord ?

[Grizzly]

There are two Frankfurts in Germany which are distinguished by the river that they are on. The larger and better known Frankfurt on the Main is in West Germany and is known as the banking capital of Germany and is where the large international airport is located. Frankfurt on the Oder is in the East on the border with Poland. Eintracht Frankfurt is an old Western club from Frankfurt on the Main that typically bounces between the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga. There are actually 8 Oberligas but the eastern one is divided into a north and south division. Each Oberliga gets one spot per year in the Regionalliga to which it is affiliated. The winner of each Oberliga is promoted, the winners of the NOFV divisions play a playoff to determine who gets the spot. The system is actually very discriminatory against the eastern teams as from population the east should have two to three of the 8 spots. The system has changed over the years but one of the constants since reunification is that it has always been harder for the eastern clubs to promote than for the western clubs because the promotion system has never awarded a fair number of spots to the east.

A good thing with the German system is that it is all linked and even playing in a poor level mens team in the 10th or 11th division you are linked with the whole system and can theoretically promote into the 1st Bundesliga. Each regional soccer association is arranged a bit different but most descend to a 10th or 11th division. Typical pyramid structure is 1st and 2nd Bundesliga (national) Regionalligas (North and South-3rd Division) 8 Oberligas (one from each soccer association) Provincial Leagues (some provinces such as Bavaria have their own Oberliga so these regions would have regional provincial divisions at this level) Bezirligas 1,2,3 (county levels with three tiers) Stadtligas 1,2,3 (city leagues also with 3 tiers). With the exception of the Oberliga level usually 2 to 3 teams relegate and promote between each tier.

BFC Dynamo went bankrupt a few years ago and was demoted to the 5th division. This club has had major hooligan problems in the past and this has also hurt their support among regular fans. In fact they were even known for hooliganism in GDR times although it certainly worsened after reunification. The only Eastern German hockey club currently in the top German hockey league, Berlin Polar Bears (Eisbaren Berlin) used to be the hockey branch of Dynamo Berlin (the GDR hockey league was the smallest top tier league in the world with only two teams, Dynamo Berlin and Weisswasser). The hockey club was far better managed and more successful than the soccer branch and disassociated itself from the soccer club several years ago in order not to get caught up in the catastrophic financial situation that the soccer arm was getting itself into.

[DJT]

quote:Originally posted by Grizzly

A good thing with the German system is that it is all linked and even playing in a poor level mens team in the 10th or 11th division you are linked with the whole system and can theoretically promote into the 1st Bundesliga.

Perhaps not but it sounds as though you're implying that is unique to Germany. I know it works the same way in Italy (10 levels), and surely in England and elsewhere as well?

[argh1]

Thanks bro , I only latched onto BFC DYNAMO because of their history of winning the GDR Championship from 1978/79 to 1987/88 quite a streak . I also found them currently in NOFV OBERLIGA NORD.

Wow that's a refreshment rate if 8 teams are promoted to the 2 Regionalligas plus demotions to Obersligas and relagtion from Bundesliga 2 and promotion to Bundesliga 2 . Regionalligas Nord & Süd must be almost all new teams every season?

[Grizzly]

After watching tonights game without knowing the result beforehand I better post here first and calm down a bit.

Each of the regionalligas has 18 or 19 teams so 6 new teams per year is not too much (4 promoted 2 demoted from the 2nd Bundesliga). The 2nd Bundesliga has 7 new teams each year (4 promoted 3 demoted from 1st Bundesliga). The reason a Regionalliga occasionally has 19 teams is if too many teams from one region are demoted from the 2nd Bundesliga which can also effect the number of demoted teams to the Oberliga. DJT, I didn't mean to imply that this system is unique to Germany but I am not really aware of how other European countries organize their lower level divisions at for example the city league level.

[Tim St.Pauli]

So, grizzly did a good job, now you know it all!

BTW, i am playing on Bezirksliga level, this is the 7th level. So I am 4 levels ahead of former champion Lokomotive

Yes, I choose my name for St.Pauli, my favourite club. Having hard times now! 2001/02 we played 1. Bundesliga, but then we relegated twice in a row!

St.Pauli is a part of Hamburg, so its the second club in the city after big Hamburger SV. HSV is playing 1.Bundesliga since it exists (1963). St.Pauli is a very special club: no hools, rather punks, very alternative, always running out of money, good youth teams...

[Grizzly]

I used to have a girlfriend from Hamburg who was a big Pauli fan. I like Pauli as well although not as much as she did. She now lives in Leipzig but first visited the city when Pauli played against Lokomotive in the 2nd Bundesliga 8 or 9 years ago and she said it was a very bad visit because they had many problems with far-right Lokomotive hooligans (by contrast Pauli fans voted Sachsen Leipzig as the best visiting fan group when they played there last year in the third division). For those not familiar with Pauli, they are a cult club located in Hamburg's red light district with extensive support throughout Germany from left-wingers and punks. Thus, there are often problems if they play clubs with significant right wing and hooligan support. Pauli's promotion to the 1st Bundesliga was probably the worst thing that ever happened to the club as they were out of their element, spent to much money and were still unable to compete. Then the successive relegations to now being a pretty mediocre third division team. Had they not promoted to the first division they probably would still be a decent 2nd division team today. The 2nd division is really where they belong anyway, still prominent enough but away from the big business atmosphere that is part of the 1st Bundesliga and so incongruent with their fan base. Viva St. Pauli!!

[argh1]

'Preciate the help guys . Curiousity is a strange a thing I now know more about German soccer than I ever thought my interest would take me . European pyramid structures fascinate .

To think this all started by looking up how many teams have the moniker Dynamo/Dinamo . 'Cuz some guy in Salt Lake City , Utah , U.S. of A. imported a Euro nickname for his new MLS team.

[Grizzly]

Wonder if he important the secret police affiliation as well. A team supported by the CIA might make some inroads in American sport.

[Tim St.Pauli]

Wow, nice to know that there are Canadians out there who so much about know St.Pauli! All you're saying is right.

I just want to say that St.Pauli would also play Regionalliga now without the 1.Bundesliga promotion. The season before the promotion they had a hard time and really a bad team. They saved themselves surprisingly from relegation in the 94. min. of the last match (that was a party on the Reeperbahn afterwards I'll never forget, wow!). After that, the 3 or 4 good players left the club. And the budget got cut down to a very low Regionalliga level. They were said to relegate with the lowest number of points since ages. But somehow for no money they picked up very good players (maybe you know Nico Patschinski (now with Trier), Thomas Meggle (Rostock), Thomas Rath (LR Ahlen) and some of the youngsters developped very good (Christian Rahn is an international for Germany now, plays Hamburger SV, Zlatan Bajramovic Bosnia and SC Freiburg, Ivan Klasnic Croatia and double-winner Bremen!), so that they - still accidentally - promoted instead of relefating. But it was clear to everyone that specially the young players are going to leave. At least they stayed for that one year of 1. Bundesliga. But then, after these two years out of the normal business, we picked up the road, that was more or less destinated to the club: the relegation to 3.Liga!

Right now it looks, like they are going to stay in 3.Liga for at least three more years):-

[Grizzly]

What would you say the root reasons are for St. Pauli's current lack of success? I would think that they have a fairly large budget for a 3rd division club. They get very high attendance for a team in the 3rd division as supporting Pauli is also a political philosophy and the fans support them regardless of the tier they play in. While they may not attract or want the type of capitalist sponsors (banks, auto firms) needed to play in the 1st BL they are probably the only 3rd division team with a national profile. They must be able to find enough acceptable sponsors willing to pay 3rd division sponsorship fees for national recognition. Are there management problems in the club administration or have the recent coaches and managers not been very good?

Incidentally, Leipzig also has a team similar to Pauli, Roter-Stern (Red Star), except they play in the 8th or 9th division. Despite the low playing level they are the third most popular team in the city. Their usual attendence is about 300 but they sometimes get 500-600 fans. They don't charge admission, often have live music and sell cheap food and beer. The games have a great atmosphere complete with flares and smoke bombs even though the playing level is equivalent to a pick up game with friends who are good players. The supporters are very left-wing, probably even moreso than St. Pauli. They fans have an affiliation with both Pauli and the club I support, Sachsen-Leipzig (which I wouldn't classify as a left-wing club but it is definitely not right-wing either like Lokomotive). There is much anticipation and some fear about what will happen when Lokomotive promotes into Roter Stern's division in a few years. The Sachsen-Lokomotive derbies are pretty bad themselves but Roter Stern-Lokomotive might be even worse particularly as thousands of Sachsen fans would probably come out and support Roter-Stern. Lokomotive is trying to find a club in a higher division willing to fuse with it so they don't have to promote through every level so maybe it won't happen anyway. If you are interested in Roter-Stern their website is: http://www.roter-stern-leipzig.de

[Tim St.Pauli]

This is one of the unsolved myths about St.Pauli: What are they doing with th money!?! Of course they had very bad management in the past and of course their stadium costs very much for maintainance, because its so old and rotten, but there are teams in Regionalliga who survive with 800 fans each match annd Pauli has an average of around 16 000 !!! They are as far as I know the only team in the both Regionalligas who get money for wearing the equipment of a brand, all others pay for it! And their have a good pool of sponsors, sure no banks or cars, but insurances, beer brands, even cosmetics! So, I must admit: I don't know! Pauli just announced that they made a plus of 100 000 Euro last season, but that included all the money from the so-called Retter-Aktionen (saving-actions) last summer, like the friendly that Bayern Munich playd for free at St.Pauli, the merchandise of tens of thousands of tee-shirts and the drinking-for-st.pauli-campaign (The pub-owners on Reeperbahn and the quarter of St.Pauli donated on special weekends 50 cent of every bought beer to the club). Altogether, they collected around 2 mio Euros!

But Pauli had so many managers and presidents and under all these people it was just the same: Where is the money?! I am still looking for that big black hole. And its very sad, because all the poor people ( and most of the Pauli fans are poor) are spending so much money for St.Pauli and they don't know why its not handled carefully annd for what its wasted!

Nice homepage ! I discovered that there was a friedly between the women-teams of RSL and St.Pauli !!! With pics! That somehow brings your posting togehter!

[Grizzly]

Thanks for your answer. I thought I heard a few years ago that Pauli was thinking of building a new stadium. Do I remember correctly and if so at what stage is the stadium?

[Tim St.Pauli]

Oh man, you're putting you're finger on an open sore! They are talking about this new stadium since the very early 1990's as far as I know. Their former chairman (what is the proper name for soccer club presidents?) was an arcitect and he made up that plan. Every year he promised to build it, long before the big rival HSV even talked about building a new stadium. Their stadium is done since 1999 and we are still playing in that ruin, build in the 1930s or so. As I already said, the maintainance is very expensive.

The stadium is one of the big symbols of the club and part of its very special appearance, so I must admit that I love that stadium and most of the other fans love it too. Its charming, not like all this new temples of soccer they are building everywhere in Germany (not only the WC stadiums, even most of the smaller teams of the Bundesliga got new stadiums in the last two years). They all look pretty much the same. BUT, its too expensive! It'll ruin St.Pauli one day.

So I guess nowadays the dream of a new stadium is out of reach in the near future. As long as they play Regionalliga there won't be even an attempt of building it. Once we get back and satbilise in 2.Liga - maybe - If not, one day the Soccer Association will ban us from the beloved "Millerntor". Probably we have to play in the HSV-stadium then which is way too big for 3. or 2.Liga. And, in my opinion, that would lead to a bitter end, because the fans won't go to the stadium colored in the colors of the HSV in a different quarter of Hamburg to watch the games and the fans are the only promising potential the club has. The team is too much dependent on the quarter of St.Pauli to be removed

[Tim St.Pauli]

Oh man, you're putting you're finger on an open sore! They are talking about this new stadium since the very early 1990's as far as I know. Their former chairman (what is the proper name for soccer club presidents?) was an arcitect and he made up that plan. Every year he promised to build it, long before the big rival HSV even talked about building a new stadium. Their stadium is done since 1999 and we are still playing in that ruin, build in the 1930s or so. As I already said, the maintainance is very expensive.

The stadium is one of the big symbols of the club and part of its very special appearance, so I must admit that I love that stadium and most of the other fans love it too. Its charming, not like all this new temples of soccer they are building everywhere in Germany (not only the WC stadiums, even most of the smaller teams of the Bundesliga got new stadiums in the last two years). They all look pretty much the same. BUT, its too expensive! It'll ruin St.Pauli one day.

So I guess nowadays the dream of a new stadium is out of reach in the near future. As long as they play Regionalliga there won't be even an attempt of building it. Once we get back and satbilise in 2.Liga - maybe - If not, one day the Soccer Association will ban us from the beloved "Millerntor". Probably we have to play in the HSV-stadium then which is way too big for 3. or 2.Liga. And, in my opinion, that would lead to a bitter end, because the fans won't go to the stadium colored in the colors of the HSV in a different quarter of Hamburg to watch the games and the fans are the only promising potential the club has. The team is too much dependent on the quarter of St.Pauli to be removed