With regional talent, FC Magdeburg achieved the greatest success in GDR football in 1974. Today, clubs from the East are still struggling with the effects of the change, even 35 years later.
Heroes in bathrobes: Jürgen Sparwasser (left) and his teammates celebrate the greatest success in the Magdeburg club’s history.
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In white bathrobes, the footballers of 1. FC Magdeburg walk across the pitch of the De Kuip Arena in Rotterdam on May 8, 1974. They have just won against AC Milan under coach Giovanni Trapattoni. The Milanese were one of the best teams in Europe at the time.
Magdeburg’s victory in the European Cup Winners’ Cup is the most important success in GDR club football. An East German club has never won a European competition. However, the team was not allowed to keep the prize money. The football association collected the money and used it to prepare for the 1974 World Cup.
Today Magdeburg plays in the 2nd Bundesliga. After difficult years on the threshold of professional football and on the verge of bankruptcy, the club is fighting to stay in the league. The same fate befell most clubs from the former GDR.
Only six clubs that existed during the GDR era play in the top three leagues: Union Berlin, Hansa Rostock, Magdeburg, Dynamo Dresden, Erzgebirge Aue and Hallesche FC. Neither club has won a major title since reunification.
The state and party influence sport
Most East German football clubs were founded in the 1950s and 1960s. But football had a difficult time. For the GDR, Olympic successes were the top priority. Talents were spotted early and children were weighed and measured in the classroom. The GDR focused on swimming, gymnastics, rowing and athletics – there were the most medals to be won at the Olympics.
The historian Jutta Braun has examined the history of GDR football and remembers a certain sentence in an interview with the NZZ: “Lothar Kurbjuweit, a young coach at Carl Zeiss Jena, was asked by a Western reporter in 1985 why in the GDR There aren’t that many tall players in the selection. He replied: ‘The tall footballers are rowers for us.’” Kurbjuweit got in a lot of trouble for that, says Braun. “Basically, he said openly how much the state and party influenced sport.”
The GDR Olympic team at the tournament in Munich in 1972.
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The government soon realized that football was popular among the population. She wanted to capitalize on this and founded clubs. For example the BFC Dynamo Berlin, the club of the Ministry for State Security. Under the supervision of Stasi boss Erich Mielke, Dynamo won ten titles in a row. The army maintained the ASK Vorwärts Berlin. The club from Strausberg dominated the early days of the GDR league after the Wall was built. The National People’s Police had its sporting flagship in Dynamo Dresden. The players were paid according to their rank and had uniforms and steel helmets at home.
As in the core Olympic sports, the GDR also placed great emphasis on promoting talent in football. The state’s main goal was for the clubs to represent the GDR internationally. Sporting successes were seen as proof of the superiority of the socialist system.
What worked in other sports – albeit also because of state doping – also worked in football: in 1972 in Munich, the GDR footballers won Olympic bronze, and four years later in Montreal they won gold. Apart from that, the national team remained inconspicuous and only qualified for the 1974 World Cup. This took place in the Federal Republic of all places; In the preliminary round, the GDR triumphed 1-0 over the Federal Republic of Germany.
Gray suit, green shirt, yellow tie: That’s how the GDR was on the way to the 1974 World Cup tournament in the Federal Republic of Germany.
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The GDR national team celebrates their 1-0 victory over the Federal Republic of Germany at the 1974 World Cup.
The successes were greater in club football. Teams from the GDR regularly reached the quarter- or semi-finals of the European Cup between 1970 and 1980. And this despite the fact that the country and its football were severely restricted on the transfer market. The success of FC Magdeburg 50 years ago is all the greater, says historian Braun: “The club achieved this international success with talent from the region.”
The end of the GDR Oberliga
In the 1980s, the successes of GDR teams became less and less. The country suffered from economic problems that also affected football. Finances were tight, clubs struggled to maintain stadiums and develop talent. The decline was gradual and ended with a bang: on November 9, 1989, the GDR collapsed and with it the state sports system.
Hans-Georg Moldenhauer was the last president of the GDR football association. He told the German Press Agency a few years ago: “When the unification date (October 3, 1990) was set, everything was ruined. There was no longer any funding from the GDR Gymnastics and Sports Association.”
Moldenhauer negotiated the unification of the football leagues with the then DFB President Hermann Neuberger. The last GDR champions Hansa Rostock and second-placed Dynamo Dresden moved up to the Bundesliga. Rot-Weiss Erfurt, Hallesche FC, Chemnitzer FC, Carl Zeiss Jena, Lok Leipzig and Stahl Brandenburg were moved to the 2nd league.
Hans-Georg Moldenhauer and Hermann Neuberger seal the merger of the two associations with a handshake.
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1. FC Magdeburg disappeared in tenth place in the 1991 season in the amateur league.
From one day to the next, the GDR clubs had to switch to self-organization. And that in a phase in which football was becoming commercialized. Private television emerged and player salaries skyrocketed. The historian Braun says: “Eastern football had to go through a double transformation straight away. Shedding communism while embracing this extreme commercialization.” Many wouldn’t have been able to do that.
An East club in the Champions League
In addition, financially strong clubs from the West bought talent away from the East. Around 150 players moved to the West in the first five years after reunification, including Michael Ballack, who later became captain of the national team. Braun is less critical of these transfers; some players have waited a long time to be allowed to move to the West. But that was too much for the GDR clubs. Most of them disappeared into the sporting no man’s land.
Today, these clubs still suffer from locational disadvantages due to lower incomes and a weaker economy. It is also more difficult for young players to make the jump to the professional level than in the West. The few professional clubs in the East rarely rely on young players – the fear of sinking back into amateur sports is too great.
There are clubs in the East that show that things can be different. Union Berlin worked its way up from the 2nd Bundesliga to the Champions League and relied on continuity and smart personnel decisions. The loyal fan base has also repeatedly helped the club. RB Leipzig has the Red Bull Group behind it. The club in no way hides where its financial resources come from. Red Bull pays and orders. And that brings success.