I recently came across the 1986 European Under-18 Championship. East Germany won it beating the talented Yugoslavia in the quarterfinal. At the World Youth Championship in 1987, they narrowly lost to Yugoslavia and finished 3rd. Matthias Sammer was the star of the team. I believe East Germany might have their Golden Era from 1994 to 2006. Okay, Germany did not do very well in this period with both West and East German players on their team, but that was comparing the unified Germany to the mighty West Germany from 1970 to 1990. The GDR never had any good team. Their idea of a Golden team would be different. I believed that East Germany might qualify for the WC Finals in 1998 and 2002(if they received a good draw). That would be a big achievement for them. In 1998, Olaf Marschall and Jens Jeremies went to the World Cup Finals. East Germany could select Carsten Jancker, Thomas Linke, Bernd Schneider, Jens Jeremies, Steffen Freund and Ulf Kiirsten. Thomas Doll, Andreas Thom, Matthias Sammer and Dariusz Wosz were old, but they would probably make it to the WC Finals under GDR. Michael Ballack who was 21 years old in 1998 and just made his first Bundesliga in 1998 might be included. In 2002, Ballack, Jancker, Schneider, Bohme, Jeremies, Linke,and Rehmer went to Japan/Korea. In addition, Kirsten was a regular starter for Leverkusen that season as they finished runner-up at the CL that season. Enke was already capped by Germany and would have been the started for the East German NT. Tim Borowski made his NT debut a month after the WC Finals. He probably would have made the East German team as well. Robert Huth was an emerging player with Chelsea in 2002, but had not made his professional debut. Having siad that, some of the East Germans probably meant nothing. i only heard of them because they played for Germany(the extension of West Germany). @Gregoriak You take?
Reading those names, I am not overly impressed by a possible East German lineup in the 1990s and 2000s. It is reasonable to think that they would have qualified for a number of tournaments in those years, but not because they had a golden generation but because the number of teams allowed to qualify did increase compared to the period 1950 to 1990.
But East Germany was weak. Producing Sammer and Ballack were big achievements. Dorner and Croy were the only players of note. Ballack probably benefitted from playing in "West Germany" as a young player. Sammer would be the same player under GDR, but won't be winning Ballon D'or playing for them.
Sammer was only 31 years old by WC98, he would definitely had gone for the unified Germany if not for an injury that sidelined him all season.