Are there any political leanings for Bundesliga teams?

[domingo]

Actually, in the first part of Aussibayer's comments, I thought he was merely a fan giving his thoughts on what he saw. He even said "I may have driven past the wrong people at the wrong time", before giving "his impression" of Rostock fans.

He can only go from what he saw. I think you're taking this part of his take rather personally.

I also think it's terribly petty of you to call him a liar.

I had problems with racists on my trips (One for USA v. Germany and one for Rostock v. BVB) to Rostock too, but I'm smart enough to know that all Rostock fans are not racists.

However, if you ask me my impression of Rostock during my visit there, yeah, I'd say I would never suggest that someone of non-German descent or anyone who is dark-skinned go there to live unless you play for the club. Other than that, you're going to have problems.

How do I know that? An African guy living there with his German wife tells me when we email just about weekly.

If it makes you feel any better, I can tell you that Cottbus is even worse.

I'm with you on Aussibayer's other comments about "Eastern/Northern" Germany. I don't think he gets that what comprises "Northern Germany" changed when the Wall came down and while Rostock citizens are decendent from "East Germany" they are still truly "Northern Germans" too.

Just as much as anyone from Kiel or Hamburg is.......

I am the last person who would denie problems with racism especially (but not solely) on the territory of the former GDR.
My problem is that I have been to lot of Hansa (mostly away) games and a few Gladbach, Dortmund and Braunschweig (in their stand, mainly at home) and I could never see a big difference in the fan culture. Meaning that I don´t see a much bigger influence of Nazism at Hansa than at other clubs.

Also I have heard too many stories about our fans that were not true.
I think the media is biased and so is the DFB in some cases:
Why was Hansa II punished with a match behind closed doors after the racist chants against Asamoah while Gladbach and Aachen get away with the same even though the referee even threatened to end the game?

I think punishment of the club is the only way to deal with it but it should be the same punishment for all clubs.

Hansa forever!

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Gladbach and Aachen also had to pay fines...

[herewego]

I think, there is no comparision between political allied italian football clubs and german clubs. There simply aren´t football clubs with clear political connections in Germany, maybe with the exception of St. Pauli. But even their connectionm is less political than local as the locals of their part of Hamburg have a special attitude and life-style.

There might be a slight tendency in the fanbases, that people with more lefty opinions have their problems with the big business and money in pro football. Therefore their might be a slight underrepresentation of lefties in the football fanbases, but in general, even leftwing intellectuals love their football. But they might tend to support traditional working class clubs - knowing that even Schalke and Borussia Dortmund are big commercial companies today and their working class attitude is only a mix of nostalgia and marketing nowadays. And they might tend to support the underdogs, not the powerhouses.

But generaly fanbases are political mixed as there is a common sense. that politics should have nothing to do with football. The fanbases generally base on supporting one of the local clubs of the area where you live.
Most parts of Germany and the german society in general are not political consistent, in one election the outcome will be more center left, in the next more center right.
In general, like in all other western countries, urban areas tend to the left, countrysides to the right.
The political most influential difference between the german areas is, since the reformation and the 30 years war, between the north, whith the more protestantic population and the south, which is more catholic.
Since the reunification a new influence is remarkable, because in east germany under the communists regime the influence of either church declined under pressure. In West-Germany we had about 45% catholics, 45% protestants and some muslims, jews and atheists. Nowadays, in the reunificated federal republic we have about 30% catholics, 30% protestants, 30% atheists, 7% muslims and the rest of different religions.

The biggest two political parties, the center left socialdemocrats SPD, and the center right christian conservatives CDU are not so far away from a common sense. A local SPD group in the south could be more conservative than a CDU group in the Ruhr-Valley, the bavarian departmend of the christdemocrats, the CSU is sometimes more social and welfare orientated than a SPD group in the north.

Germany, as you know, is a conglomerat of uncount historical free cities, kingdoms, pricipalities, duchessnies, most of their borders and religious orientations were changed several times by wars during the centuries. So you find protestant cities in catholic areas and the opposite. And many areas and towns have simply a good mixture of all confessions.

A significantly difference to most other european countries is the spread of larger and middle size towns all over the country. That is a big benefit in comparision to capitol centric countries like England or France.

In Germany economic or cultural worth is not centered around the capitol city, but spread country wide around the many old free cities and the capitols of the hundreds of political units from the feudalistic area.

And that has it´s influence on football fanbases aswell. Our clubs are spread all over the country. That means, that there is seldom more than one club from a single city that made it to the top league, seldom more than one club in a town that has grown to a long and nationwide success.

If you have about 10 clubs in London that make it to the first leagues during the decades, than diversication between them grows in one city. You have London clubs that represent the working class areas of the town and clubs of the establishment. In Rome you have leftwing and rightwing clubs, in Madrid you have royalists and republicanians, in Barcelona you have catalan and spain clubs, in Glasgow you have catholics and protestants.

In my opinion a question of mathematics, population and diversication leads to non political or social class or religious clubs in Germany, or, at least, that such clubs have lesser chances to make them big.

If you consider that you have only around 20 places for first league clubs in a country, if you consider, that regular top flight clubs generate a bigger fanbase through the decades than other clubs, than you can see the connection between the diversication of the population over the towns and areas of a country and the possibillity of diverse football fanbasses in a single town.

If most of the population of a country is centred on a handfull of cites and their suburban areas, then you have more than one national top football club in a single area and fanbases can build clusters around political oppinions, confessions, belonging to social groups of almost any kind.

In Germany, with over 82 Million people we not even have a handfull of cities with a population of more than a million people, but much more cities between 100.000 and 1.000.000 people than any other country in Europe.

In example, if you take Englands 20 Premierleague clubs in relation to about 40 million englanders, you see that there is a potential fanbase of about 2 mill englanders for each club. No wonder that the about 10 mill people London area can have 5 or 6 premiership clubs. In Germany there is a relation of 4 mill for each Bundesliga Club, but not even one town that is as big as 4 mill.

Berlin, Munich, Cologne and Hamburg are the only million cities in Germany, no wonder, that this are almost the only cities, which had more than 1 club in Bundesliga at the same time. But even this cities couldn´t establish more than one club for a longer period of time.

So, if it is the common way, that fanbases at first are founded on local population, if size of fanbases is decisive for the economic power of pro football teams, if there is only one top flight club in a city or area, if there are many competitioning areas and cities, than there is no place to seperate the fanbases, but much reason to unite all potential football fans of one area behind one club. And that means: no place for politics or any other dividing scenarios.

[AGF Aarhus]

I got tired and stopped reading midway through herewego's post, but the part I read was at least a sensible response to the topic.

[domingo]

Gladbach and Aachen also had to pay fines...

Paying fines and playing behind closed doors is not the same.

[footyfan1]

Paying fines and playing behind closed doors is not the same.


The answer is simple. It happened more than once in Rostock. It did not in Aachen.

You're taking this too personally man.

[domingo]

The answer is simple. It happened more than once in Rostock. It did not in Aachen.

You're taking this too personally man.

Okay, when and where did it happen in Rostock?

That´s exactly what I am talking about. It did not happen mor than once in HRO but people assume it did. Why?

[footyfan1]

Okay, when and where did it happen in Rostock?

That´s exactly what I am talking about. It did not happen mor than once in HRO but people assume it did. Why?


It happened again at an amateur game right after the crap with Asamoah.

[domingo]

It happened again at an amateur game right after the crap with Asamoah.

Any link?

Anyway this would have been after the verdict and would be irrelevant for this case.

My problem is that people are assuming and generalising things.
There is no doubt that there is a potential for that crap in Rostock but nothing like the Asamoah incident happened before (and as far as I know afterwards). Still people (including you) believe so.

[footyfan1]

Any link?

Anyway this would have been after the verdict and would be irrelevant for this case.

My problem is that people are assuming and generalising things.
There is no doubt that there is a potential for that crap in Rostock but nothing like the Asamoah incident happened before (and as far as I know afterwards). Still people (including you) believe so.


Dude, you say we have the problem. I think it is you that has the problem. It's understandable that no one wants to hear anything bad about a place they are from or a place they love, but we and the DFB are not making this stuff up.

Sorry you can't accept it, but I'm also not here to convince you.

There's no grand conspiracy against Rostock.

Believe what you will. Tell yourself what you have to.

I'll tell you this. No one else here cares that much about Rostock to "lie" about it.

Don't flatter yourself.

[domingo]

Dude, you say we have the problem.

Where?

I think it is you that has the problem. It's understandable that no one wants to hear anything bad about a place they are from or a place they love, but we and the DFB are not making this stuff up.

I am not denying racism. I am just challenging your allegation that it happened before.

Sorry you can't accept it, but I'm also not here to convince you.
I am not accusing the DFB of making stuff up. I am saying the verdict is not fair in comparison to 2 other clubs.

There's no grand conspiracy against Rostock.

I hate conspiracy theorists.

Believe what you will. Tell yourself what you have to.

What are you talking about?

I'll tell you this. No one else here cares that much about Rostock to "lie" about it.

granted!

Don't flatter yourself.

Whatever you say.

My point of view:
Don´t make allegations without being able to prove them.

[Aussibayer]

I think Aussibayer's problem is deeper than that: a complete misunderstanding of German history and geopolitics.

The traditional geographical cleavage in German society is North/South (and actually, Catholic/Protestant, which broadly runs North/South but not entirely - see the Rheinland for an exception). Rostock is traditionally a Northern German/Hansiatic/Protestant city no different from Kiel, Hamburg, Lubuck, etc.

The East/West division was solely a concoction of the Cold War. 50 years is not a very long time in the history of the German nation, and I think you'll find that Rostock has a lot more in common culturally with Kiel than it does with Erfurt.


This may well be so. But I just found it strange that from the Rostocker I was chatting to they appeared to be rather unimpressed with being called "Ossies" or identifying with East Germany at all. And would rather identify themselves as Hanseaten (as they are of course one of the Hansa port cities themselves).

Hopefully given a generation or two the East vs West thing will die out. You still tend to see some people in the East who do appear somewhat sensitive about the issue at times.

JF

[AGF Aarhus]

This may well be so. But I just found it strange that from the Rostocker I was chatting to they appeared to be rather unimpressed with being called "Ossies" or identifying with East Germany at all. And would rather identify themselves as Hanseaten (as they are of course one of the Hansa port cities themselves).

Hopefully given a generation or two the East vs West thing will die out. You still tend to see some people in the East who do appear somewhat sensitive about the issue at times.

JF
They appear somewhat sensitive about the issue because people keep calling them 'Ossies' when historically that distinction did not exist. Rather than being culturally defined as what they historically are, they are defined by outsiders based on a political system they did not choose, largely opposed, and only lasted 40 years (a short time in the history of the German nation).

Rather than grouping the 'Ossies' together, recognise that Meck/Vorpommern is more closely related to the northern Hansa cities and perhaps Schlessen than it is to the Erzbegirberge and Thuringen, which have much more in common with the Franken region.

The East/West political border was an artificial one in cultural terms. You're right, it may take a generation or two for things to revert to how they were prior to the Cold War, but it should come as no surprise that Rostockers would choose a historical northern heritage over an artificial eastern one.

[footyfan1]

My point of view:
Don´t make allegations without being able to prove them.


Oh, I can "prove" it. I just choose not to waste my time doing so. This is not my job and I don't care about it enough to worry about going that far just to make a point to someone who's in denial anyhow.

[realbarfly]

Hello,

They appear somewhat sensitive about the issue because people keep calling them 'Ossies' when historically that distinction did not exist. Rather than being culturally defined as what they historically are, they are defined by outsiders based on a political system they did not choose, largely opposed, and only lasted 40 years (a short time in the history of the German nation).

Rather than grouping the 'Ossies' together, recognise that Meck/Vorpommern is more closely related to the northern Hansa cities and perhaps Schlessen than it is to the Erzbegirberge and Thuringen, which have much more in common with the Franken region.

The East/West political border was an artificial one in cultural terms. You're right, it may take a generation or two for things to revert to how they were prior to the Cold War, but it should come as no surprise that Rostockers would choose a historical northern heritage over an artificial eastern one.

sorry I have to correct you. 40 years is a long time for the history of the German Nation.
One of our historical problems is the lack of a nation, like Britain, France or Spain had. Their nations grew over centuries, ours was founded in 1871! And splitted up again 1945! If you search for the reason of the german nationalism, that turned into facism, this fact is one of the sources(nowadays, nationalism in Germany is pretty much history, despite what you hear and see in our stadiums. I'll go this later) .

Back to the football teams.
Very few people know the fact that Bayern Munich is one of the few Klubs who really got hurt by the Nazis. It always was a club with a great involvement into the jewish community of Munich. They got their first german title in 1932 and one year later lots of their players emigrated into other countries, mostly swiss. So did their Club principals. Basically, Munich 1860 was the workers (socialist) club. But the same way the nazis supported Schalke, in almost every big german town, they supported the local clubs, the worker were routing for. Never forget NSDAP stands for 'National Socialstic German Workers Party' so doing this was not a problem for them.
Clubs like Bayern, 'Tennis Borussia' Berlin and a couple of others, so called 'Judenklubs' (Jewish Clubs), got scattered or have been close to.

We had, similar to the Dutch, France, Italians, British etc. problems with hooligans in our 1.Division. And talking about nationalistic hooligans, fascists etc, nobody should point on us without thinking 'what is going wrong in my country'! In Germany we are used to talk about our right wing problems very frankly and are not trying to play down their importance, like they do it in Italy (L(N)azio Roma! for example) or Spain (Real Madrid!).
Because of the really good work in the clubs, the fans of Stuttgart, Hamburg, Munich, Berlin, Schalke .... etc. are pretty much aware of the right wing tendencies. In this case I'm pretty much positive surprised. It's not perfect, but on a good way.
Because of this, we got a whole new situation and today our problems are different.
This right wing assholes are going to the smaller clubs, because many of them are blocked out of the stadiums in the first/second Division, there are much more cops and the cops are tougher.
They have the goal to build up Zones without foreigners! And i fear, they are, especially in the german east, quite successful with this intention. They wanna build up the same atmosphere in the stadiums, they builded up in this, just before mentioned, zones. No foreigner or left wing minded should go into the stadiums watching or even going to play football there. Imho, their plan is about this way.
What to do? I would go and cancel some of the games. It is a shame if you have to do so, because it is not the fault of the clubs, but I see not much else to do!
A pretty much related problem is the violence on the pitches in the lower classes. I would suggest also to cancel the games.
if it is good idea? I dont know

Ciao Hans

[AGF Aarhus]

sorry I have to correct you. 40 years is a long time for the history of the German Nation.
One of our historical problems is the lack of a nation, like Britain, France or Spain had. Their nations grew over centuries, ours was founded in 1871! And splitted up again 1945! If you search for the reason of the german nationalism, that turned into facism, this fact is one of the sources(nowadays, nationalism in Germany is pretty much history, despite what you hear and see in our stadiums. I'll go this later) .

Sorry Hans, but I have to correct you.

A 'Nation' exists independent of a 'State'. These are not one in the same. By German nation, we refer to the Germanic people, whose history goes back very long, indeed. There is a museum in Nürnburg to detail this for you, I believe.

This is why references with regards to cultural influences to the Hansiatic League, Franken, and Schlessen (and of course I could list many more), and the more traditional North/South and/or Catholic/Protestant divide are made in comparison to the more recent and artificial Cold War divide. The former have historical/cultural background, the latter does not.

All of this predates 1871. History did not begin on that date for the Germanic peoples.

And in the other countries you mention you will also find deep cultural cleavages as well. Just ask anyone in Scotland, the Basque country or Corsica.

[BayernWake]

This is a very interesting thread, but it is funny how it was started 4 years ago. Can you all remember where you were 4 years ago?? Weird, isn't it?

Carry on. :D

[footyfan1]

This is a very interesting thread, but it is funny how it was started 4 years ago. Can you all remember where you were 4 years ago?? Weird, isn't it?

Carry on. :D


Yeah, I was living in Vilseck, Germany and working in Grafenwoehr, Germany. I was helping to train an initial force for a mission doomed to failure by piss-poor planning at the very top....... :mad:

[Gregoriak]

Actually, from what I understand at their beginnings, it was the other way around. 1860 comes from what then was the "swanky" area of Munich and for a long time were the #1 club in Munich.





Bayern has always been the top dog in Munich except during the Nazi era (1860 were the local Nazis' favorite club) and a period from the late-1950s to mid-1960s.

Between 1900 and 1945, Bayern played 102 competitive games vs. TSV 1860. Of these, Bayern won 53, drew 27 and lost only 22. Bayern scored 152 goals and conceded 102.

1860 won the regional "Oberliga Süd" championship in 1963 and were thus picked to represent Munich in the newly found Bundesliga. Bayern only managed promotion two years later which started the false myth that 1860 had "always" been the more successful club before the 1960s with more tradition compared to "new-rich" Bayern who only became successful in the mid-1960s. This was not the case.

Bayern were the dominating club in Munich and also part of the best clubs in southern Germany from the 1900s to the early-1930s. This first period of success peaked in 1932 when Bayern won the German championship. After WWII, both 1860 and Bayern did not play a good role in German club football, however Bayern managed to win the German Cup in 1957. If one looks at the "Eternal Table" of the "Oberliga Süd" (1946-1963), Bayern are four positions higher-ranked than 1860, but TSV was the only Munich club that won the championship (when it was most important, in 1963!).

[Gregoriak]

Bayern didn't become the "Bayern" we know today until the early 70s.

I believe 1860 got to be the "working class" club after the "elite" fans in Munich all jumped to Bayern.

1860 has always been the working class club. Bayern were founded in Schwabing in 1900, the part of Munich that attracted a lot of poets and painters and other artists at that time. Schwabing was renowned all over Germany for that. Thus many northern Germans and Prussians moved to Schwabing and it gave this part of Munich a very intellectual and liberal touch. In fact Bayern's most important founding father was Franz John, a native of Berlin. Bayern soon became attractive to socalled "Zugroaste" - non-Bavarians living in Munich. The club only allowed people that had "abitur" (university entrance diploma) to join the club, which made them one of the most elitist clubs in southern Germany. Bayern's first team during that period included a notary, an opera singer, a movie director, a chemist and a curator! With the liberal climate at Bayern, foreigners, Jews and Prussians were all very welcomed at the club during the first three decades, which was why the Nazis weren't too fond of Bayern.

1860 was founded in Giesing, which was worker's part of the city. Most of the players and members were natives of Munich. It is thus true that 1860 for a long time had been more popular among native Munichers than Bayern.