All the best for your 70th – for Dynamo Dresden all wishes come together in a dream of promotion. After the umpteenth crash, the Dynamos are on the move to league 2. For a club with 30 years of glory and glory in GDR times, that’s a damn small bun.
In April 1953, football fans in Dresden could easily look from the main train station to the Altmarkt. The former houses in between had been cleared away as war debris. Exactly at this time, 70 years ago, on April 12, in the “Schauburg” cinema, football players provided a glimmer of hope. They founded the SG Dynamo, which emerged from the Volkspolizei Dresden association. 40 players from 19 police sports clubs were combined at Police Dresden. In the same year, the Dynamos celebrated their first East German championship title. In front of 40,000 spectators in Berlin, Wismut Aue lost 3-2 to the Dresdeners in a necessary decider in extra time.
Dresden crashes after the first championship title in the district league
Only a year later, however, the Dresden Dynamos stood there naked. SC Dynamo Berlin (later BFC Dynamo) was founded in Berlin. The best players like Günter “Moppel” Schröter, Johannes Matzen, Herbert Schoen, Heinz Klemm and Gunter Usemann had to move from the Elbe to the Spree. Dresden took the place of the dissolved team from SC DHfK Leipzig in the 1st league, but was relegated to the district league. Only at the beginning of the 1960s did Dresden return to the premier league and enjoyed glorious times.
A total of 15 East German teams played in the European cup competitions. The Dresdeners shot off the bird with 20 participations and played a total of 69 European cup games. The Saxons caused a stir in the fall of 1973. Dynamo edged Juventus Turin out of the competition in the first round of the National Champion Cup. In the round of 16, the Dynamos had to play against Bayern Munich. In the first leg, the Dynamos lost 3:4. In the second leg, they led 3-2 through goals from Siegmar Wätzlich and Reinhard Häfner, who had unfortunately passed away, and Hartmut Schade, before the late Gerd Müller equalized. Later in the season, Bayern lifted the European Champion Clubs’ Cup for the first time. Mainly under coach Walter Fritzsch, the Dresdeners were able to celebrate eight East German championship titles and seven cup wins.
Dynamo Dresden: Weber, Müller, Kotte and the flight from the Republic
The Dynamo bosses didn’t just show a friendly face. Gerd Weber (66), 1976 Olympic champion, Matthias Müller (68), silver medalist in 1980, and goalscorer Peter Kotte (68) had their careers pulled from under their feet. Apparently Gerd Weber wanted to stay in the west for an international match. Müller and Kotte are said to have known about it. All three kickers were arrested and had to end their careers. Weber now lives as a pensioner in the Black Forest. Müller is still working as a coach in Saxony, while Kotte is now living in Dresden as a pensioner after suffering a serious foot injury while playing.
After the reunification, the Dynamos initially made it into the Bundesliga, but with the decline in youth development, the Dynamo are now bobbing in the 3rd division. With the opening of the Berlin Wall, half the team, with players like Ulf Kirsten, Matthias Sammer (1996 European Champion and European Footballer of the Year), Hans-Uwe Pilz, Andreas Trautmann and Matthias Döschner, swooped west. Jens Jeremies and Alexander Zickler, who became German champions and cup winners with FC Bayern and won the Champions League with Munich, followed later. Jeremies was even happy with the national team in 2002 about the vice world championship.
Dynamo Dresden sees light at the end of the tunnel again
The Hesse Rolf-Jürgen Otto as president was particularly responsible for the interim downfall of the Dresdeners. He refused interviews with journalists from the East and only wanted to speak to journalists from the West. With him, Dynamo became a sporty variant of those company lootings that second- and third-rate Wessis managed to do under the eyes of the trustee in the East.
Many Bundesliga managers predicted that Dresden would be ruined for a long time at the end of the Otto years. How right these people were. But maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel again with fourth place in the third division.
