East Germany–West Germany football rivalry
[9] Football games between teams from the two countries were sometimes referred to as class struggle between the capitalist West and the communist East, but more often just seen as a "fight between brothers" or an inner-German duel.
A 1947 edition of the German football championship, the first since 1944, was planned and scheduled to include one team from the Soviet zone but eventually cancelled.
[10] In the following season the 1948 German football championship was held and the Soviet zone champions SG Planitz, winner of the 1948 Ostzonenmeisterschaft, had been invited but was refused permission to travel by the occupation authorities.
While the possibility existed that teams from the two Germanys could be drawn against each other, this did not happen until the 1973–74 edition when Dynamo Dresden met FC Bayern Munich in the second round and lost 7–6 on aggregate.
[24] In 1990, the year of reunification, two commemorative challenge matches were held between the cup winners and the champions of the previous season in the two territories.
In August 1990 they defeated DFB-Pokal holders Kaiserslautern on penalties after a 1–1 draw,[25] and in November of that year they overcame reigning Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich 1–0.
[19] The true test of the comparative strength of East German clubs would be their introduction into the West German league, although by that time most of the top players (Andreas Thom, Matthias Sammer, Ulf Kirsten, Olaf Marschall, Dirk Schuster, Thomas Doll) had already taken the opportunity to transfer to clubs elsewhere.
Hansa Rostock, winners of both the 1990–91 NOFV-Oberliga and the 1991 NOFV-Pokal Final, gained entry to the temporarily expanded top tier along with Dynamo Dresden, with other clubs filling into lower divisions.
FC Lokomotive Leipzig, spent a single campaign in the Bundesliga while Energie Cottbus, not one of the major teams in the East Germany era, twice claimed a place at the top table in the 2000s and Union Berlin were runners-up in the 2001 DFB-Pokal Final[28] but aside from those modest achievements, no GDR club made any impact in the reunified German football system (although based in the east of the country, RB Leipzig did not exist until 2009).
[32] The two sides met just once on senior national team level, on 22 June 1974, in a group game of the 1974 FIFA World Cup, held in West Germany.
The game in Hamburg, in front of 62,000, was won 1–0 by East Germany courtesy of a goal by Jürgen Sparwasser.
[38] During the era of the divided Germany, at times a strong but distant friendship existed between clubs and supporters in either territory; however this has changed since German reunification.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, this friendship continued for a time but eventually has turned into a strong rivalry and dislike between the two clubs and their supporters.
