The GDR internationals Harald Irmscher (left) and Eberhard Vogel (right) were once delegated to Jena from Zwickau and Karl-Marx-Stadt in the Oberliga.
Photo: imago images / Sven Simon
»Time travel. Players and coaches remember the GDR Oberliga«, says Maik Großhäuser, who has chosen Salzburg in Saxony, for his book on GDR football. In painstaking detail work, he interviewed almost 60 idols of his youth for almost two years. His book also has more than 250 photos and is designed quite ingeniously – the graphic designer deserves the highest praise! After all, the amateur writer managed to convince former stars such as Matthias Döschner, Jan Rziha, Thomas Töpfer, Jürgen Raab, Bodo Rudwaleit, André Sirocks, Uwe Bredow, Ulli Thomale or Harald Mothes and many others of his idea. In the end he had 240 hours of interview material and used it to build a beautiful interview volume.
It is a fanboy book from the 1980s, made with a lot of love for its protagonists and largely free of system criticism or sport-political contexts. Nevertheless, it is a fine diligent work, which, thanks to many details, definitely stimulates the discourse. The former players and coaches talk about how their beaks have grown and bring their experiences in GDR football to the best of reality. Großhäuser says he was “not concerned with evaluation and accountability, but rather with personal conversation and letting people speak”.
Difficulties in the “Golden West”
After the reunification, many players found it very difficult to gain a foothold in the new system. The author tries to question this again and again when he asks about the “suffering” of finding one’s way in the “golden west”. His book was self-published because he wanted to put it on paper “from A to Z without outside interference”. The 1st edition includes 1000 pieces, if you want one, you should hurry up.
On the other hand, the sports-political aspects missing from »Time Travel« determine »The Delegates: Covert Transfer Deals in GDR Football« very clearly. In almost 40 chapters, the two sports journalists Jürgen Schwarz and Frank Müller illuminate the sometimes extremely strange exchange arias in the GDR in detail and expertly.
Because, as is well known, there was no profit sport here (it’s humbug, of course, because money and goods always flowed back and forth), player transfers were officially processed using a principle of delegation. This usually meant: Player A played in a weak team B. The strong team C would like to sign player A in order to play even better for the benefit of socialism and the working class (yes, also the peasantry) and, for example, capitalist teams even higher – or at all – to be able to hit.
Good players were in demand everywhere
Normally, the GDR Football Association (DFV) was contacted to handle the matter. In practice it wasn’t that easy, because good players aroused desires everywhere and this caused combine directors or other bigwigs from party and state leadership to turn a blind eye to certain situations. Just like today, money and influence played a major role in some changes, and the book manages wonderfully to illuminate the completely normal madness in the GDR in a semi-parodic way.
“The Delegates” and “Time Travel” are equally interesting for GDR nostalgics and football supernerds (to which I would like to count myself) because they eradicate imperfections in the niche field of GDR football and also entertain in a conversational tone. And if you particularly feel like chatting, you can listen to a conversation between author Frank Müller and former striker Frieder Andrich this Wednesday from 6 p.m. in the DDR Museum on Berlin’s Karl-Liebknecht-Straße at the book premiere of the »Delegates«.
Frank Müller, Jürgen Schwarz: The delegates. Covert transfer deals in GDR football. Verlag Neues Leben, 208 p., br. €18
Maik Großhäuser: Time travel. Players and coaches remember the GDR Oberliga. SUMA self-publisher, 460 pages, 250 photos, hardcover, €29.90. Available only from: [email protected]
