Uwe Rösler was 20 when the Berlin Wall fell, paving the way for German reunification on and off the football pitch. He recalls a tricky transition, as talent was headhunted and players learned new rules to an old game.
Rösler moved into management after retiring from the game, and is currently with Malmö FF in SwedenImage: Getty Images/AFP/O. Kose
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Best known in the English-speaking world for his five happy years and 50 league goals with Manchester City, Uwe Rösler caught up with DW to reminisce about the beginning of his career in East Germany, right as the former communist state ceased to be.
Rösler left Leipzig in January 1989, grabbing his first big break in East German football with FC Magdeburg. The young talent had no idea at the time that within a matter of months, the Berlin Wall would fall, and that before long, East Germany's top division, the Oberliga, would no longer exist.
"Politically a lot of things happened, especially in my home town Leipzig. We spoke every day, we started to dream what might happen. We were concerned about our friends and relatives. We didn't know if those demonstrations would end in peace or if the army would step in," Rösler recalls. "There were a lot of things in our heads, and obviously the focus for football went out of the window."
Rösler was in Austria when the wall fell, preparing for an East German international game, after enjoying a breakout season with Magdeburg. He recalls that it wasn't just politics that derailed preparation for the match; East German stars were bombarded by Bundesliga agents hanging around outside their hotel and hoping to tap a new source of potentially undervalued talent.
"Selfishly, it was a very good time, I was starting to shine in the Oberliga — one of the top scorers, still very young, just came into the [East German] national team. So, exciting times ahead," Rösler says. "I played with a lot of very talented players in the East who weren't as fortunate as I was, who were heading towards the ends of their careers by then. The change came at the right time for me."
Many of the Oberliga's stars moved west, often at bargain prices. The jewel in the league's crown at the time, Matthias Sammer, left Dynamo Dresden for Stuttgart in the summer of 1990 — he would move on to Borussia Dortmund two years later for more than four times the fee Dresden recouped.
"The Bundesliga clubs came over and headhunted all the talent out of the east. And the eastern clubs didn't get paid the money they deserved to rebuild their clubs and their structure. When you see transfer fees for Matthias Sammer, Thomas Doll, Andreas Thom or Ulf Kirsten — they were nowhere near what the player was worth in international football," Rösler says.
Rösler, however, elected to stay in the East for the final 1990-91 season. He moved on to Dresden, hoping that one of the Oberliga's powerhouses would secure a spot in the unified Bundesliga. It wouldn't be an easy task. Only two extra spots were earmarked in an expanded 1991-92 Bundesliga season for the top two finishers in the East; Dresden secured second. Joining the all-German league was electrifying, he says.
"We qualified, that was a big highlight in my career. And in the first season we survived against all the odds," Rösler says, with the last Oberliga champions Hansa Rostock facing immediate relegation that year. "You have to understand, we watched our idols on TV for years, decades, and then we played against them. We never dreamed that would ever happen for us."
With Dynamo Dresden, Rösler (c.) reached the Bundesliga and survived there; the club's 1991-92 Cup run faltered in this round of 16 game against Werder BremenImage: picture alliance/dpa/T. Wattenberg
But Bundesliga football presented a challenge on "another level," as Rösler puts it. It's worth remembering that in 1990, the year of German reunification, West Germany won the World Cup.
Learning to cope with a different game, 'elbows out'
As in so many walks of life, East German players sometimes struggled to get to grips with the new freedoms and different expectations outside communism. Rösler says he personally was "a little bit overwhelmed" because "there were so many new things at once, contracts, agents, you had the choice of where you wanted to work. Before, everything was restricted."
The media, too, played by different rules. Rösler describes a relatively staid East German sports media landscape, one that tended to avoid sensational coverage and rarely focused on individual players. At Dresden, Rösler got his first taste of positive press hype — and then on his short-lived move to Nuremberg he encountered personal tabloid criticism, as a pricey new signing up front who struggled to score goals on arrival.
Now working in Sweden as coach of Malmö FF, and speaking to DW right after missing out on the league title by a single point, the 50-year-old Leipzig lad recalls that the capitalist lesson it took him longest to learn was to look after number 1, even in a team sport like football.
"There was also a little bit of society with elbows," Rösler says, in a clear nod to the German term Ellenbogengesellschaft (literally: elbow society), which you might loosely translate as a dog-eat-dog world. "You had to look after yourself. In the East we came from more of a collective. We were a team. In the West you need to expand your elbows to survive," he says, spreading both elbows wide as if going for a header in a manner sure to end in a red card.
In terms of capitalist clubs, you could argue Rösler found his true home not in Germany, but with Manchester City; for City fans of a certain age, this goal as rank outsiders in a 1995 derby Manchester United remains the stuff of legend, even in a 3-2 defeatImage: Imago/Colorsport
No Oberliga teams in Bundesliga, but two from the East
None of the teams from the last Oberliga season are currently in the German top flight. However, the GDR's rebellious subversives at Union Berlin are taking part in their first ever Bundesliga season, while a new team from Rösler's home town, RB Leipzig, is seeking to secure a spot among Germany's very best. The Red Bull-funded multinational football empire might not have met with approval from East Germany's government, to put it mildly, but Rösler is far more supportive of the commercial club.
"That somebody comes in and gives Leipzig the chance to participate in the Bundesliga and Champions League and have the option to fight for titles, is fantastic," Rösler says. "That is not everybody's cup of tea. But for the Leipzig people, for eastern football, it is important that Leipzig has a team that will be part of the Bundesliga family for decades and will write history. And the town benefits too — tourism, exposure worldwide. So it can only be good for the east."
Also noting Union Berlin's reasonable early-season chances of dodging relegation against the odds, Rösler believes that more eastern clubs can take the step into the top flight in the coming years, starting with his old club Dynamo Dresden, currently in the second tier.
Berlin Wall anniversary: East Germans who thrived after fall
These athletes were already standouts in the domestic scene in the GDR. But after the Berlin Wall came down and German reunification took place in October 1990, they went on to make their names on the world stage.
Image: picture-alliance/Sven Simon
The Ice Princess
Figure skater Katarina Witt actually enjoyed her biggest successes before the Berlin Wall came down. In 1988 she won Olympic gold in Calgary for the GDR, following up on gold in 1984 in Sarajevo. Since the end of her active career she's appeared on TV shows as an expert, dabbled in acting and she even started her own charity for kids in 2005.
Image: DANIEL JANIN/AFP/Getty Images
More than one giant leap
Heike Drechsler won a number of Olympic and World Championship medals before German reunification. She first won Olympic gold in 1992 in Barcelona though, in the long jump. In 2000, in Sydney, she managed to repeat her success. Although at the beginning of the 1990s her doping and Stasi past was uncovered, she still remained a popular athlete across Germany.
Image: picture-alliance/Werek
Super Franzi
In 1992, the then 14-year-old swimmer Franziska van Almsick turned plenty of heads when she broke a world record in the 50 meter freestyle. At the Barcelona Olympics, she went on to win two silver medals and a bronze, and was one of the first sports stars of the newly-unified Germany. She won the German sportswoman of the year award three times and remains a popular public figure today.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/E. Elsner
The gentleman boxer
Henry Maske (left) used to be in the GDR army, and won gold for East Germany at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. He turned professional in 1990 and won the world championship three years later in the light heavyweight category. His fights were national TV events. In 2010 he even acted in the role of German boxing icon Max Schmeling, in a box office film.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Scheidemann
East Germany's best footballer?
Matthias Sammer (right) was one of the GDR's most talented footballers at the end of the 1980s. In 1990 he moved from Dresden to Stuttgart and won the Bundesliga shortly thereafter. After a brief stint at Inter Milan, he returned to Germany to play for Borussia Dortmund where he won two Bundesliga titles and the Champions League. He was also captain of the Euro '96- winning German team.
Image: Getty Images/A. Hassenstein
A century of caps
Just like Matthias Sammer, Ulf Kirsten (right) turned his back on Dynamo Dresden in 1990, to pursue a football career in the west of unified Germany. At Leverkusen he became one of the most successful goal scorers in the history of the Bundesliga, with 182 goals in 350 games. His attacking partner at the start of his career was Andreas Thom (left), also from the GDR.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
The two strongmen
The discus throwers Lars Riedel (left) and Jürgen Schult (right) dominated their sport in the years after German reunification. Schult won Olympic gold in 1988 for the GDR and also competed side-by-side with Riedel as he then won five world titles and Olympic gold in 1996. Schult still holds the world record for the longest discus throw ever, but has always refuted any accusations of doping.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
King of the road
After an Olympic gold in 1988 for East Germany, Olaf Ludwig went professional in the west in 1990. In the same year he won three stages of the Tour de France and claimed the sprinters' green jersey. In 1992 he won the last stage of the Tour on the Champs Elysees in Paris, as well as the UCI Road World Cup.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Erik and Jan
A number of road cyclists followed Ludwig's example, after training together in the GDR. The two most successful were Erik Zabel (left), who won the green jersey six times in a row at the Tour de France, and Jan Ullrich (right). Ullrich was the first German to ever win the Tour de France, back in 1997. Afterwards though, both of them were exposed as having doped during their careers.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/G. Breloer
High flyer
Ski jumper Jens Weissflog was one of the world's best for 15 years. The slightly-built athlete from Saxony celebrated numerous successes both before and after reunification, winning gold once at the Winter Olympics in 1984 and twice in 1994 too. With his 33 World Cup victories he's easily the most successful German ski jumper ever.
These four former East German athletes were responsible for a real boom in their sport at the start of the 1990s: Frank Luck, Mark Kirchner, Sven Fischer and Ricco Gross. They formed the core of Germany's combined biathlon relay team which won gold at the 1992, 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympics. They also won various world championships, both individually and as a group.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Record-breaking canoeist
Birgit Fischer-Schmidt took part in six summer Olympics, from 1980 in Moscow to 2004 in Athens. Amazingly, in every games she attended, the kayaker picked up at least one gold medal, making her now Germany's most successful Olympian. The Brandenburg-born athlete finally ended her career in 2012, aged 50.
Image: picture-alliance/Sven Simon
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Eastern lessons for Germany's future, especially at grassroots
Despite his sometimes critical analysis of what went wrong when reunifying German football, Rösler's keen to point out that the process was unprecedented and very challenging for all involved. He also notes how East German traditions were soon adopted to improve the unified German national team. To explain how, we return to another renowned Dynamo Dresden old-boy:
"When Matthias Sammer took over in the [national team setup], he basically copied a lot of things that already happened decades before in the East. Youth development, sports schools with boarding facilities for youngsters, training at school, early scouting of potential talents... We grew up with all those things — government sponsored. I saw a lot of these things being installed in the years between 2000 and 2010. And the golden years came after that."
Germany's first and only World Cup win as a unified country followed soon after.
DW's Constantin Stüve conducted the interview with Uwe Rösler in Malmo, Sweden.
The Berlin derbies of the past
Hertha Berlin and Union Berlin will face off in the Bundesliga for the first time ever. But there is a long history of Berlin derbies, including rivalries that are still prominent to this day.
Image: picture-alliance/A. Hilse
Hertha vs. Tennis Borussia — last derby in the Bundesliga
The only Berlin derbies to occur in the Bundesliga before Union Berlin earned their first promotion in 2019 were between Hertha Berlin and Tennis Borussia Berlin. The two West Berlin-based clubs faced off twice in the 1974-75 season and the 1976-77. In their last meeting on April 16, 1977, Hertha topped "TeBe" 2-0 in Berlin's Olympic Stadium.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/K. Giehr
Hertha vs. Union — reunification
Two months following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Hertha, a West Berlin club, and Union, an East Berlin club, played a friendly to celebrate the city's, and Germany's, reunification. The fans here are holding a sign reading "When Hertha and Union play: all of Germany celebrates." Hertha won the friendly 2-1 in a game where the football was a lower priority.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/T. Wattenberg
Union vs. Tennis Borussia — promotion battle
In the 1992-93, Union Berlin and Tennis Borussia Berlin both won their respective third-tier regional leagues and faced off twice as part of a three-team promotional playoff with Saxony-based club Bischofswerda. Union prevailed, but because a bank guarantee that helped the club secure a DFB license was forged, the former East Berlin club was denied promotion to the second division.
Image: Imago Images/Höhne
Union vs. BFC Dynamo — bitter historic rivals
Union Berlin and BFC Dynamo have played each other scores of times as both were part of the former DDR-Oberliga. For decades, Union resented the Stasi-backed BFC as they won the DDR championsship for 10 straight years between 1979 and 1988. The rivalry continued even after German reunification, with their last meeting on May 13, 2006 needing to be halted due to a pitch invasion.
Image: Imago Images/M. Koch
Hertha vs. Union — second division showdown
The city rivalry between Hertha Berlin and Union Berlin has grown in recent years due to the fact that both clubs have played in the higher divisions of German football. Their last meeting in 2013 ended in a 2-2 tie, with Hertha erasing an early 2-0 Union lead thanks to Adrian Ramos (no. 9) and Ronny. On Saturday, they will meet for the first ever time in the Bundesliga.
