The footballers are part of a larger sports club that currently has over 900 members in departments for bowling, boxing, fitness and aerobics, gymnastics, line dancing, table tennis, and volleyball.

The club spent over four decades as an elevator side that moved frequently up and down between the second and third tiers of East German football with only a single season (1950–51) in the top-flight to its credit.

After German reunification in 1990 and the subsequent merger of the football leagues of the two Germanys, the club adopted the name Sportverein Lichtenberg and took up play in the NOFV-Oberliga Mitte (III).

Named after Hans Zoschke, an athlete and communist resistance fighter who died at the hands of the Nazi regime in 1944, the stadium was adjacent to the headquarters of the Stasi, East Germany's state police.

Local lore has it that Stasi boss Erich Mielke ordered the building torn down after witnessing the close defeat of his favourite club, BFC Dynamo, from an office window.