East German Clubs: Culture?

Oh boy, oh, boy, this is gonna be good.

 

In Zwickau 60% of the screws were removed from the guest stand yesterday. It was detected about an hour before the match and the Regionalliga match FSV Zwickau - Carl Zeiss Jena got cancelled. The police started investigations (damage of property). If they find evidence the police will investigate in terms of willful assault.

article (Welt.de)

 

It helps in the East to have somebody named "Ronny" on the team.

 

Dont forget Maik and Enrico.

 

I am not, was just running the first leg of the relay. You took the baton expertly

 

At women football there is at least one Mandy in a team.

 

OK Jokes aside I dont know where to start but the reason why Hansa is hated by the other fans are that they have an element of extreme rightism (read neo nazis) and especially St. Pauli fans has issues with them.

Dresden is doing better after coming up to 2nd. Buli and new stadium.

And I am surprised no one still not mentioned this. Hertha is not a DDR club rather a old west club since they came from West Berlin.

 

Almost every major Eastern club has one - Dresden, Halle, Dynamo Berlin, Leipzig (not the RB one, I guess), Zwickau, Cottbus... - you name 'em, they got 'em. (yeah, some Western too).

Well, I must admit after 10 years on BS pointing out something for the 100th or so time gets old, so thanks for stepping in.

 

No problems glad to help out ;0)

 

There is never sense in generalizing people - in this case - I will do it anyway.

The East German crowds are like what the West Germans looked like from the late 70s to the mid-90s. Soccer was and is the sport of the asocial lower class. The crowds consist mainly of hooligans, of whom -in the special case of the East- is a certain share active in Nazi stuff. Left-radicals are not so much into soccer over there. Like in a time travel story their fan workers have to deal with fan-scenes, as a mirror of their local society, that is as passionate as the West Germans. But they are a still ill-clothed, ill-tempered, xenophobic, troublesome, "they took our jobs!" reactionary, "can-have-alcohol-without-fun", tattooed, fußball-abusing in order to promote their extremist political views, Thor Steinar and Lonsdale wearing, DFB "soccer mafia" shouting, from stadium to train interior and the police trashing, scarf from kids(!!!!) stealing bunch of pathetic shitkickers. Mostly due to East Germany's history. That's why it is said their so called "fans" were given a free ticket to do whatever they want" in the last 20 years up until recently the DFB court started to award serious penalties. The problem is also hooliganism on the 4th league and below level.

In general people like a type of "fighting", defensive and counterattacking soccer. If you want to see beautiful and "high technique" soccer, you need to go somewhere else. That is mostly due to their small budgets as a result of their economical backwardness they even lost ground on their West counterparts in youth work. The last decent players that the East German system has brought up were Sammer, Kirsten, and Ballack. You could also name Tony Kroos from Rostock. But the case perfectly shows West German clubs often tend to buy them out.

Aue is a kind of a East German mixture of Ruhr valley and upper Bavaria. Former mining area with not much else industry. Which makes it in general hard for them to find sponsors. But beautiful mountain landscape, especially as it is not so much overrun as other tourist hot spots. Still you see the wounds of Communism in buildings and the scenery. Their people are down-to-earth and very faithful to their club. Cottbus is about the same without mountains.

Dresden is a case of its own. They have now rebuilt the city to a certain degree and it's great to go there. I remember me as a young kid when we shortly after reunification were meeting relatives there and I simply could not imagine someone would voluntarily choose to live in such a dirty and forlorn city. It still looked like '45. But today I would call Dresden to be East Germany's "boom city" in terms of industry base, the rebuilding of the city and all cultural aspects. Dresden citizens though are described as unfriendly, unreceptive and rude people. And hey that's what even Germans(!!!) say about them.

Rostock is a bit like Dresden. The difference is their hardcore fans are called to be very Nazi since they obligatory fight St. Paulis left crowd and get reports for that. Im not able to confirm Rostocks fans are hated in general, if there is some club's fans, it is Dynamos crowd for their behaviors. Apart from their rivalries with St. Pauli and Hertha, there is no other fans who really care about them -at least in the West.

 

When you come up with such a good description of Dresden, what about Leipzig? It doesnt have an big club atm. but Leipzig was the only city in the east hosting at World Cup and they have some big technology and book fairs?

 

It was a political decision to give at least one former GDR city hosting some games at the WC. Dresden still had their ramshackle dwelling, Rostocks, Magedeburgs, Erfurts, Jenas, Cottbus stadiums were somehow modern but nowhere big enough. Leipzig may didnt have a pro club for a long time then, but the DFB was founded in Leipzig and VfB Leipzig was the first German champion and had played Buli in the 90s. From 1966 to 1991 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig was their GDR counterpart. And Leipzig had with Zentralstadion an appropriate location. But since reunification no club so far has achieved to stay constantly in one of the pro leagues. Needless to say the new stadium has not turned economical. From the outside it appeared to be some kind of an development aid. The hopes were if they had a decent stadium then a club in Leipzig could have created attendance and sponsor interest.

There is/was a project to start from the scratch and bring up a club from the lowest league C-Klasse(nr. 11 !) with 1. Fc Lokomotive. Currently they are in Regionalliga (4). Their home ground is Bruno-Plache-Stadion. Mostly known for their nazi fan-worker Steffen Kubald. Guess what their fan-base looks like..... But to their credit even on the lower levels they used to draw around 1.000-5.000 at home games. Lokomotive used to have a city rival in FC Sachsen Leipzig but the club was dissolved in 2011. Then Red Bull took over a 4. league starting license of a minor club of Leipzig and renamed it RB Leipzig. That's the team to this day to play in the big stadium. Ralf Rangnick is sports director. I remember one survey of Leipzig citizens and 70% said they would disapprove of Red Bulls involvement. In rest Germany they are as popular as Hoffenheim, Wolfsburg or Leverkusen. Many wish them to stay on amateur level - forever.

Leipzig itself is in the process of resurgence not as far as Dresden but what helps them is the reputation as a city of fairs and the university. In the last twenty years Leipzig was - like Berlin - a giant building site. The city core now looks really good. A nice place to live. What makes them growing slower in comparison to Dresden is less manufacturing industry and therefore jobs, and less tourist interest. Leipzig's people are said to be very attached to their soil/home town. Young people often go west for university but then come back.

In general East Germans feel as "second-class citizens" - in and outside of stadiums. There is also a much bigger amount of atheists in comparison the West. Their accent/dialect/intonation (e.g the Saxon dialect) sounds funny and strange for West Germans.

 

I've been in the guest stand at Zwickau - scary place, both from the structural standpoint and based on the "fans" in the other parts of the stadium who are trying to figure out ways to ambush you before you make it safely to your bus.

It's been a couple years since I lived there and regularly interacted with the RB fans, but you are correct there. One of the basic principles of the core RB fans was a rejection of any of the typical right-wing & hooligan garbage in the region. That was really one of the major reasons many people (Leipzig locals or transplants) initially associated themselves with the club - they wanted to actually be able to go to football games without having to deal with the neonazi hooligans. Even if it was "owned" by a commercial entity.

Roter Stern Leipzig was another obvious exception as their name would indicate - but they were often viewed as overly political in the other direction - and they probably won't ever get beyond the 6th or 7th division.

Leipzig is an incredible city, IMO. Lived there for 8 years, probably moving back soon, and really looking forward to it. However, the football culture has been in a steady state of implosion since the reunification and most people simply stopped giving a crap. Up until 2009, the main options for well-supported teams with any kind of actual atmosphere at their games were (a) a disjointed, calamitous mess of a club in Sachsen Leipzig or (b) right-wing hooligan infested Lok Leipzig.

I lived in a very Lok-heavy neighborhood for 6+ years, and I can personally attest to what truly wonderful human beings the majority their fans were...all sarcasm intended.

It's in a state of transition now. Sachsen Leipzig finally bit the dust, RB Leipzig is trying to climb the ranks and is drawing well (7200 for their opener today - not bad for 4th division) despite their pariah status, and Lok is eternally Lok. Check back in 5 years - either it'll be the same old sh!t as it has been for the last couple decades or RB will be on its way to becoming some kind of Hoffenheim-Ost.

Minor correction - SSV Markranstädt was in the Oberliga (5th) when their license was taken over by Red Bull.

But you are more or less correct with the rest of what you said, particularly about the dialect.

 

As this forum's token East German I must point out, that there's only one state out of 6 where such a "funny" dialect is spoken. In school I had people asking me for years to say something in Saxon, despite even if I would have wanted to, me having ******** all connection with it in the first place (Not to mention that everything south of Göttingen or so sounds funny and strange).

 

Ive always had the impression that it was scwabisch people made fun of. How different are Saxon dialect to high german or to Lower Saxon?

 

Not in particular. Depending on from where you are, yes, you'll always find some guys from somewhere else to mock about this or that dialect. E.g. Kölsch (Cologne) sounds like drunken Dutch. But there is more about Saxon. Spoken by leading communists descending from the Central German industrial area like Walter Ulbricht, "Sächseln" was commonly perceived as the colloquial language of East Germany by West German citizens and up to today is a subject of numerous stereotype jokes. Like that very old joke "A Saxon travels to London. It is Christmas time so he wants to buy a Christmas tree. Trying to ask the seller for a fir tree, he says: Ä tännschn, please." (Standard High German: "Ein Tännchen, bitte.") I also remember some years ago they made a survey among Germans which would be the sexiest German dialect. Bavarian came first. Saxon came last. You cant explain it... it is just how people perceive that certain type of speaking. Like in a "mental map".

Saxon is as far away or as different to High German and lower Saxon as every other dialect. It were also those socialist expressions no one understood in the West. As the commentator in this video is stating the obvious: "(It is) German without any doubt, but can you understand it yet?"

 

There's no particular cultural connection between Lower Saxony and Saxony - the latter's name comes only from the fact, that the territory was ruled by the Dukes of Saxony. The name stuck because the "real" Saxony was split into different territories which, except for the Northern part of Saxony-Anhalt, did not have Saxony in their name. Proper Low Saxon (not High German with a Northern German accent) is more closely related to Dutch than it is to Saxon.

 

Its fun for my untrained ear (3 years of german in the school) the saxon sounded a bit as Swiss-German. We usually say in Denmark that Germans mock the schwabisch but that may be because we dont dare to say that Lower Saxon are mocked (since danish are connected to lower saxon). I know about kölsch one of my friends from Gummersbach told me everything of what other germans say about kölsch.

btw. Cant see Bavarian as being sexy...... not at all XD

 

This seems like an appropriate thread in which to celebrate Union going further in the DFB Pokal than Hertha.

 

Don't believe everything you read here. Most of the posters here have never been to East Germany and just repeat the stereotypes they read in the media.
Dresden, for instance, is a much nicer town than most West German cities with very friendly people, great architecture, set in a lovely landscape. Their football team has a great tradition and they are very passionate about football. There have been problems with hooligans, but not more than at many other clubs. It's just that the media jump on any incident which would not even be reported if no East German club was involved. Most Dresden fans are not violent at all.

 

I suspect most who have posted in this thread have been to the eastern part of Germany.

 

Anyone who watched your game vs Hannover today knows that you've been talking shite, man.

Dresden fans are the most violent and pretty exactly that what a sane soccer fan does not want its own clubs fans to be.

 

I love Dresden as a city, and I even admire some of their fans for their passion. Doesn't change my impression that a big group of them is scum, and behaves accordingly.

 

While Berlin is geographically part of the former East Germany, Hertha BSC are not an East German club. The club's base is in what used to be West Berlin and they played in the West German league system after the country was split. The relevant club in East Berlin was BFC Dynamo, with a little help from Erich Mielke and the rest of the STASI. Fans of Hertha and Union ( based in former East Berlin as well ) old enough to remember are pretty much united in their hatred of Dynamo.

Thuringian is a pretty "funny" dialect as well tbh.