Violence, hooligans and right-wing radicalism: ‘Rowdy’ youths in GDR football

The GDR’s Communist dictatorship had an educational goal: disciplined ‘all-round educated socialist personalities’. So it was all the more irritating for the SED leadership that young football spectators started getting increasingly violent at football matches in the 1970s. Incidents included attacks on passers-by, fights between fan groups and vandalism on trains, at railway stations and in pubs. The derbies in East Berlin and Leipzig were particularly notorious. Fan groups from other GDR football clubs were also known for their brutality. Despite enormous efforts, the GDR security forces were unable to stop the escalation of violence. The rioters and other stadium subcultures were perceived as ‘rowdy and negatively decadent’ youths and ‘processed’ using secret police methods.

Incidents of right-wing extremist violence in the fan milieu increased towards the end of the 1970s. Right-wing skinhead subcultures and hooligans adopted football as their own and sought to shatter the self-image of the ‘anti-fascist’ GDR with violence and right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic slogans. The GDR played down the activities as apolitical ‘hooliganism’. Violence and right-wing radicalism were also on the rise in the West, so the GDR attributed the blame to the influence of the ‘class enemy’ from West Germany. This way, they were able to deny that East Germany had their own problem with right-wing thugs. However, there were indeed contacts between right-wing extremist fans in East and West. Criminal sanctions were occasionally imposed on hooligans and right-wing extremist football supporters. Deportation to the Federal Republic of Germany was also a means of getting rid of undesirable right-wing extremists from the football fan scene.