International football match between the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany 1974

Entry ticket to the game

The international soccer match between the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany took place as part of the preliminary round of the 1974 World Cup on June 22, 1974 in Hamburg 's Volkspark Stadium. The GDR team surprisingly won the game 1-0 with a goal from Jürgen Sparwasser . It was the only meeting between the two German senior national teams, but before that there had been several meetings between the East German Olympic team and the West German amateur national team .

prehistory

Pl.	country	Sp.	S.	U	N	Gates	Diff.	Points
1.	BR Germany	2	2	0	0	004-000	+4	04-00
2.	GDR	2	1	1	0	003: 100	+2	03: 10
3.	Chile	3	0	2	1	001: 200	−1	02: 40
4th	Australia	3	0	1	2	000: 500	−5	01: 50

The GDR selection qualified for the first and only time in 1974 for a football World Cup final. When the World Cup finals were drawn on January 5, 1974, the GDR was drawn to host the Federal Republic of Germany in Group I, which resulted in the first international match between the two German senior national teams in the preliminary round. After winning the bronze medal at the 1972 Olympic Games by the Olympic selection identical to the A-national team of the GDR, Georg Buschner was the first GDR national coach to publicly announce the qualification for the World Cup as the new highest goal. With this, Buschner once again contradicted the ideas of many officials, for whom successes against amateur national teams from the West were more important than experiences against the best national teams in the world. In Buschner's opinion, such experiences were the only thing that could really help the team.

GDR selection, training, Hamburg

The GDR selection, supervised by Buschner, started the tournament with a 2-0 win against Australia and a 1-1 draw against Chile . The German national team had a weak start to the World Cup. The opening game against Chile, which presented itself as an unexpectedly strong opponent with a compact defense, was won 1-0, but did not meet the high expectations of the hosts. Against outsiders Australia, the West German selection only came to a difficult 3-0. As a result, the team of national coach Helmut Schön managed to qualify for the second final round early.

Due to the goalless draw between Australia and Chile in Berlin  - on the last match day, about an hour and a half before the start of the game - the GDR team was also qualified for the next round ahead of schedule. The German-German duel in Hamburg's Volksparkstadion was all about group victory, whereby the GDR team had to win to be group winner, while a draw would have been enough for the West German team (see the table above with the standings the game).

The game

pairing	Federal Republic of Germany - GDR
Result	0: 1 (0: 0)
date	June 22, 1974
Stadion	Volksparkstadion , Hamburg 60,200 spectators
referee	Ramón Bareto Ruiz (Uruguay)
Gates	0: 1 economy water (77.)
BR Germany	Sepp Maier - Berti Vogts , Paul Breitner , Franz Beckenbauer , Georg Schwarzenbeck (68th Horst-Dieter Höttges ), Bernhard Cullmann , Uli Hoeneß , Wolfgang Overath (69th Günter Netzer ), Jürgen Grabowski , Gerd Müller , Heinz Flohe Trainer: Helmut Schön
GDR	Jürgen Croy - Gerd Kische , Bernd Bransch , Konrad Weise , Siegmar Wätzlich , Reinhard Lauck , Harald Irmscher (68th Erich Hamann ), Lothar Kurbjuweit , Hans-Jürgen Kreische , Jürgen Sparwasser , Martin Hoffmann Trainer: Georg Buschner

Berti Vogts in a running duel with Martin Hoffmann

In the game on the evening of June 22, 1974, both teams neutralized the attacking efforts of the opponent early on. In the 39th minute of the game, the Federal Republic's team had their greatest chance when Gerd Müller shot the ball from the spin against the post. When everyone was expecting a goalless draw, Jürgen Sparwasser used one of the many counterattacks. He left Horst-Dieter Höttges and Berti Vogts and scored 1-0 for the East Germans.

Graduation table of the group

Pl.	country	Sp.	S.	U	N	Gates	Diff.	Points
1.	GDR	3	2	1	0	004: 100	+3	05: 10
2.	BR Germany	3	2	0	1	004: 100	+3	04: 20
3.	Chile	3	0	2	1	001: 200	−1	02: 40
4th	Australia	3	0	1	2	000: 500	−5	01: 50

Aftermath

Pennant, games of the GDR selection at the World Cup 74, DDR Museum Berlin

The GDR team viewed the victory over the Federal Republic relatively soberly. Coach Georg Buschner commented with moderate cheers: "We won an important game, nothing more". The game was also little commented on from the official side. The shirt swap had to take place in the dressing room after the game, as GDR officials “didn't like it” according to Harald Irmscher . The press comments on the game were partly politically colored, especially in the British newspapers. The Sunday Telegraph commented "The East is keeping its wall intact", The Observer spoke of a "political double victory for the GDR". In the Federal Republic of Germany, the picture appeared on Sunday with the headline “So not like that, Herr Schön!” And saw a “spectacle of the division of Germany”.

The surprising first place in the preliminary group turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory for the GDR team . In the intermediate round, which was newly introduced for the 1974 World Cup, she had the much more difficult opponents with Brazil (0: 1), Argentina (1: 1) and the eventual runner-up in the Netherlands (0: 2). For the West German team, the defeat against the GDR turned out to be beneficial. After a clarifying discussion on the night of Malente , she prevailed 2-0 against Yugoslavia , 4-2 against Sweden and 1-0 in the water battle of Frankfurt against Poland and advanced to the final against the Netherlands , which she won with 2: 1 and thus became world champion for the second time since 1954 .

For Horst-Dieter Höttges, who came on for Georg Schwarzenbeck in the 68th minute , it was his only appearance at this World Cup and his last international match. For Günter Netzer , who came on as a substitute in the 69th minute and repeatedly demanded by the spectators , it was the only World Cup game ever. He then only made two appearances in qualifying for the EM 1976 . Bernhard Cullmann , who was also part of the team in the other two games in the first final round, was no longer used afterwards, but came to other international matches after the World Cup and was European champion in Rome in 1980 . Nine players were also used in the World Cup final against the Netherlands.

Trivia

Around 1,500 spectators from the GDR also saw the game in Hamburg. Without exception , they had been proposed by the SED and examined by the State Security for months. According to the MDR, several hundred unofficial employees of the MfS were among them . “Normal” football fans from the GDR who applied for a World Cup ticket on their own were not given any permission to travel to the Federal Republic.

The soccer game and the result play an important role in many documentaries and feature films that address the relationship between the two German states. B. in the movie Kiss Me, Comrade! , in which the game is embedded in a fictional plot on the meta level. It is also satirically themed in the cult series A Heart and a Soul - episode “Visit from the East Zone” (color version from 1974) - before the game even took place.

In 2003, a Krefeld entrepreneur bought Sparwassers jersey with the number 14, which he had worn in a game against the DFB team in 1974, and left it to the Bonn House of History , where it has been on display ever since.

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ The GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany were drawn into a qualifying group for the qualification for the 1992 European Championship . In the course of the reunification of the two German states on October 3, 1990, the GDR selection no longer took part. The German-German derby, scheduled for November 21, 1990, was initially planned as a friendly “reunification game”, but then did not take place for security reasons, as there were crowd riots at some games in East German cities.
2. ↑ Hardy Greens: Buschner comes from The history of the national soccer team p. 401
3. ↑ Harry Valérien: Fußball 74 - Weltmeisterschaft , p. 101.Southwest Verlag Munich, 1974.
4. ↑ Now, unfortunately, I have to hold you tight, Beckenbauer said to Irmscher . From Franz Beckenbauer: WM 74
5. ↑ Steffen Haffner: Exerted jubilation after an obvious title. World Cup series: 1974. In: FAZ.NET . April 21, 2006, accessed March 18, 2018 . 
6. ^ ^{A b} Rainer Erices : World Cup ticket only from and with the Stasi - GDR visitors at the 1974 World Cup. In: MDR Online . June 10, 2014, archived from the original on July 16, 2014 ; Retrieved July 22, 2014 . 

literature

• Thomas Blees: "90 minutes of class struggle". The international soccer match BRD-GDR on June 22nd 1974, Frankfurt / M. 1999. ISBN 3-596-14286-5 .

Web links

• Match statistics on fifa.com
• Match statistics on dfb.de
• dfb.de: "1974: Historic defeat against the GDR"