November 9th 1989 is one of the landmark dates of the 20th century – the “fall” of the Berlin Wall. The Mauerfall marked the end of the Iron Curtain, the Cold War and a divided Germany. German reunification officially happened in October 1990. The fusion of two societies that had developed vastly different throughout more than four decades was a major and difficult task and had major consequences for the newly unified nation. The unification of the two countries’ nationalsport, football, was no different. Deutscher Fussball-Verband der DDR (DFV) had been founded in 1958 as the East-German counterpart to the Deutscher Fussball-Bund (DFB) that had existed since 1900. After the unification the DFV was dissolved and the East-German teams were inducted into the DFB with Dynamo Dresden and Hansa Rostock being the only two teams to be automatically admitted into the Bundesliga.
Since the reunification more than 30 years ago the former East-German clubs have struggled in competing with the West-German clubs. Only 4 teams besides Dynamo Dresden and Hansa Rostock have reached promotion to the Bundesliga and when RB Leipzig was promoted in 2016 they were the first team since 2009 to reach the promised land. In addition to this the East German players have struggled to make it into the German senior national teams. In the World Cup squads from 2010 and 2014 only one player, Toni Kroos, came from what was earlier East Germany.
This paper will seek to examine the causes for these struggles along with an outlook to any recent changes and improvements, including the rise of RB Leipzig, from East German clubs and/or the DFB. The paper will seek to cover both social, cultural, political and economical aspects of the divide.